EAS Europe BV’s President Harm Nijzink: “We change 50-tonne molds in less than two minutes, where it used to be eight hours.”

EAS opened a factory in Wujiang, Jiangsu province, near Shanghai two months ago, Nijzink said in an interview October 14 at the company’s Fakuma booth in Friedrichshafen. China is the world’s biggest supplier of magnets and the raw materials to make them, he said.

The automotive industry is the biggest consumer of magnetic mold systems, which offer quick mold changes on injection molding machines -- and China is no exception, Nijzink said.

“They want European quality with Chinese price,” he said.

EAS makes its Pressmag mold-clamping units at its headquarters factory in Renswoude, the Netherlands, and the new China plant. The company buys magnets from suppliers in China and France, then builds mold-clamping systems, including adding coils to make the permanent electromagnets. A short burst of electrical power magnetizes the system, which is mounted on the platen and holds the mold tight. They do not require power to keep them magnetized.

Magnets allow for fast mold changes. “We change 50-tonne molds in less than two minutes, where it used to be eight hours,” Nijzink said.

Custom molders are adopting magnetic systems, as the technology moves beyond its base in automotive. Nijzink said that’s because magnets allow greater flexibility than mechanical quick-mold-change systems. Magnetic clamping uses the full clamping-area surface. There is no need to standardize the mold-platen interface by adding standard platens matched with clamps mounted on fixed positions.

“This is a big advantage because they can now quickly clamp any mold onto the machine,” he said.

The company’s U.S. operation, EAS Mold & Die Change Systems Inc., is based in Menomonee Falls., Wisconsin.

To form EAS, Nijzink led a management buyout of Enerpac Automation Systems in 2001.