DUSSELDORF, GERMANY - Fried. Krupp AG is increasing its presence in the North American blow molding machine market by expanding its arrangement with Engel Machinery of York, Pa. At the same time, the German firm is expanding machinery production into China and Brazil. Engel has been performing final assembly of machines for Krupp in North America, and the firms are moving to have Engel perform complete assembly.
Engel will assemble Krupp's medium-sized blow molding machines and PET preform injection molding machines of all sizes with Krupp's own process-specific components and tools.
Separately, Krupp announced at K'95 in Dusseldorf that it has launched a joint venture with Chen Hsong Holdings Ltd. of Hong Kong and Shunde Sunny Group Corp. of Shunde, China, to produce small blow molding machines in Shunde.
At a news conference at K'95, Wilhelm Dalhoff, chairman of Krupp Maschinentechnik GmbH of Essen, Germany, said the venture in China already has built blow molding machinery that is in use in China. Krupp Maschinentechnik GmbH is a unit of Fried. Krupp AG.
Dalhoff said his company plans to expand the joint venture in China to build other plastics processing machinery.
The move to expand machinery assembly in North America is partially a result of the poor exchange rate between the dollar and the deutsche mark, Dalhoff said.
Increasing production in the United States will help his company cushion itself from currency fluctuations, he said.
Beyond the North American and Chinese ventures, Dalhoff said Krupp's Corpoplast unit will begin next year to assemble medium-sized stretch blow molding machinery in Brazil. That operation will be located near SÃŒo Paulo, where Krupp Corpoplast now has a service center.
Dalhoff noted that international trends are affecting his company's operations in several ways. For example, he said the California-led development of plastic automotive fuel tanks prompted the group's Krupp Kautex business unit to open a new assembly center in Troisdorf-Oberlar, Germany, to build the large-sized blow molding machinery that the automotive industry is demanding.
Other developments, such as the auto industry's demand for bellows made of thermoplastics and new applications for thermoplastics in packaging, have led to new designs since 1992 for Krupp's line of packaging machinery and blow molding machinery, he said.