Sales of injection molding machines built by Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH are forecast to surpass pre-pandemic levels and could reach an all-time high in 2021 as demand continues to increase for all-electric models.

The Schwaig, Germany-based company expects sales to hit 808 million euros if this year's trend continues.

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag sells about 7,000 presses annually and is the third largest injection molding machine builder in the world behind Haitian and Engel.

The medical and packaging markets comprise about two-thirds of sales and the electronics market has picked up, according to Sumitomo (SHI) Demag CEO Gerd Liebig.

"We are very close to the fight against the pandemic," Liebig said of the medical market. "We offer many solutions in the US, Europe and China for the whole range of possibilities for test for coronavirus and now the vaccination campaign. For customers in Europe, the main focus is pipette tips and we are very strong in this."

Medical and electronic processors prefer all-electric machines to avoid use of hydraulic oils and for energy efficiency.

"The market direction is to go to all-electric machines," Liebig said. "The ratio all over the world is increasing, particularly for medical and electronic. For the United States and Japan it's very high. In China, it's also now increasing."

In the electronic segment, half of Sumitomo (SHI) Demag' customers serve the automotive market and half produce building-related products, such as lighting, Liebig said.

"When these customers buy, they tend to buy a high number of machines," he added.

Meanwhile, the packaging market is under some pressure right now because of higher resin prices for materials like polypropylene and polyethylene. Liebig said the company is seeing some hesitation to invest.

"In packaging, the material price is very important," he said, noting this market dynamic could keep the company from setting an all-time highest sales rate.

If that's the case, sales would likely be about 800 million euros, which would be about the same as the 2018 record year.

Through the pandemic, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag has maintained a workforce of about 3,000 employees.

"So now it's possible to increase very quickly our production capacity," Liebig said.

He expects the move toward tethered caps to create new demand for the company.

"Customers are investing in molds. I see the trend. That will start the end of this year and it will influence the packaging industry in the next year," Liebig said. "We are No. 1 in packaging in the world. We are extremely strong in thin walls and the caps and closures."

Post-pandemic trends indicate packaging producers are concerned about sustainability and the cost and quality of green packaging, which company officials said tends to be less expensive because of the trend to use less material and integrate processes like foaming.

For Fakuma 2021, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag brought the El-Exis SP 250 and is demonstrating a cup application made from an International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus (ISCC)-certified polypropylene material.

ISCC Plus certification is a globally-recognized system for providing traceability of recycled and renewable-based materials across the supply chain.

The El-Exis SP 250 has the fastest opening and closing sides on the market, according to Arnaud Nomblot, Sumitomo's business development director of packaging.

"Achieving injection speeds of 1,000 millimeters per second (mm/s) with short cycle times is a direct result of the hydraulic accumulator. Further supporting the sustainability agenda, processors can produce ever thinner and lighter packaging items, significantly reducing raw material requirements, packaging waste and carbon footprint," Nomblot said.

The accumulator was developed about 15 years ago but has been modified over the years, according to Hans Schorr von Carolsfeld, an application engineer who talked with Fakuma attendess about the white PP cups being produced with a recyclable blue polyolefin wrap produced with feedstock derived from waste streams.

"We change drives and pumps and make modifications based on the knowledge we gain when they're out in the market," von Carolsfeld said. "The accumulator has a higher speed and acceleration. We're not traveling a long way so acceleration is very important. We can inject below a tenth of a second for the 64 grams of polypropylene."

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag's trade fair slogan is Act! "Sustainably" and officials says the El-Exis SP series underpins its production innovations and mission statement that only machines and equipment that are compatible with ecological and corporate social responsibility credentials will be considered for production projects moving forward.

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag also is demonstrating all-electric injection molding machines for LSR, medical and in-mold decoration (see related story on robots) applications.

The company unveiled an elastomer injection molding system featuring an Elect 130/520-450 with an LSR package and Servomix Z200 metering system from partner Nexus Elastomer Systems GmbH, Eberstalzell in Austria. A demonstration system is producing a complex automotive seal.

The seal is designed to be molded using a "direct gate" without material closure, according to Henrik Langwald, director of automotive and electronics.

"The sealing lip must be completely pronounced to offer full functionality," he said. "We are setting a new benchmark to repeatably mold the tightest tolerances in 16 cavities, burr-free, with no conversion."

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag also has a production cell for technical medical parts featuring the IntElect S 100/460-250 with an automation system from Waldorf Technik GmbH, Engen. The cell is based on the German partner's patented Vario Tip FSS (floor space saving) system.

"The uncompromising design of this trade exhibit showcases the production of medical parts and caps for insulin syringes, on a 16-cavity mold in a total cycle time of around six seconds," according to Anatol Sattel, director of medical business development.

In another display, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag and partner Sepro Robotique are producing an onyx-style shell on an all-electric IntElect 130/520-450 injection molding machine. Using a tool created by Polar- Form Werkzeugbau GmbH, Lahr, the two tone black and white translucent layered mineral replicates ABS.

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag also is launching a series of permanent machine status condition monitoring systems aimed at reducing maintenance costs while maintaining reliability. The systems can determine the actual degree of wear and tear, enabling early detection and maintenance planning towards the end of the service life of the injection molding machine.

With condition monitoring, complex processes can be analyzed directly on the machine, making it possible to monitor critical parameters.

At Fakuma 2021, the company will present three options that can be implemented across all series. The first helps to keep all-electric machines permanently energy-efficient and powerful. Another serves to optimize hydraulic machine oil parameters and maintain component quality. The third reliably monitors control voltage across the entire injection molding machine series.

"Currently, our efforts are focused on detecting abrasion and wear to the screw, the plasticizing cylinder and the ball screws on all-electric injection molding machines," said Thorsten Thümen, senior director of technology at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag.

The plan was to first focus on components where failures incur the highest costs and lengthiest machine downtimes. However, further developments to the portfolio of solutions are underway.

"Our ultimate goal is full monitoring of all critical components prone to wear," Thümen said.

For hydraulic machines, where oil usage enables trouble-free operation, but can also signal problems, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag offers additional measurement sensors for monitoring two parameters during machine operation. One is a monitor that continuously records the number and size of particles contained in the fluid.

The second is a measuring device that detects the physical properties of the oil, such as the water content, permittivity and conductivity.

Based on these measured values, the lubricant age can be determined via internal algorithms, according to Jan Taufer, project manager for condition monitoring. Prospective problems can be addressed before the chemical properties change to the extent that trouble-free operation can no longer be guaranteed, he added.

"This way, accelerated oxidation or wear processes, cooler breaks or water ingress due to condensation can also be detected and remedied at an earlier stage with minimal effort," Taufer said.

For reliable power supply, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag offers a system for monitoring the 24 V control voltage of the injection molding machines across the entire series. This is achieved by a power supply unit and intelligent circuit breakers that communicate with the machine control. The actual and effective cycle current can be monitored in real time.

"Consequently, potentially critical peaks or generally high utilization rates can be identified and countermeasures can be initiated at the earliest stage," Taufer said.

Another trade fair exhibit was designed to produce medical insulin syringe caps on a 16-cavity mold in a six second cycle time with a fully automated work cell that is networked and offers digital quality control.

After taking the syringe caps from the injection molding machine, a removal gripper transfers them in order into a sliding table. From there, the caps are placed into racks, maintaining the sorting of each individual cavity.

After filling, the parts are checked for possible damage using a Kitov camera, Sattel said.

"At the point of ejecting all 16 parts, the system features a quality assurance station," he added. "A Sawyer cobot then waits at the outlet of the system and removes the filled racks from the system."

In the near future, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag plans to develop assistance apps for setting up and optimizing processes along with a material and knowledge library, and simulation tools for advanced settings and deeper insights into the processes.

"Our vision is an intelligent machine that can independently make predictions about part quality, machine wear and failures and perform optimizations online," Sattel said. "This enables process consistency to be increased, improvement in product quality, and maintenance to be adjusted accordingly."

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag officials say the exhibit also demonstrates the company's competence in mass-producing medical applications with extremely tight tolerances.

In addition, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is addressing ways to meet future networking and communication requirements as another step toward Industry 4.0. All of the company's robots and machines are now aligned to the OPC/UA control for monitoring and integration interface.

For example, all new dosing devices now feature the recently released OPC-UA interface and directly link metering measurement data with the IntElect 130/520-450 processing data to ensure a traceable and stable production process.

At its LSR exhibit, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag demonstrates the importance of using robotics to eliminate component contamination and issues, which in this case is the sealing function.

"With SAM-C, we have succeeded in engineering the smallest automated injection molding production cell comprising robot and material handling technology," Jürgen Schulze, director of automation, said describing the handle-and-place solution.

The machine builder also is presenting its advanced web-based software solution myConnect. This central platform gives customers direct access to a wide range of fully networked support services and helps to manage inefficiencies, reduce costs, improve total cost of ownership, troubleshoot errors and minimize downtime.

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