Plastics News senior reporter Bill Bregar picked up these news items at Fakuma 2005, held Oct. 18-22 in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Xaloy sales offices to launch overseas
Screw and barrel maker Xaloy Inc. is opening sales and service offices in Germany, China and India.
At Fakuma, Xaloy introduced Volker Jährling, who heads the office in Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany. He is managing director for Europe.
Before joining Xaloy recently, Jährling spent more than a decade as managing director of Windsor Kunststofftechnologie GmbH in Hanau, Germany. Windsor makes retrofit injection units for two-shot molding, and the company rebuilds Windsor injection presses.
The German office will handle sales, service and parts. Xaloy veteran Hartmut Jahnke will relocate from the United States to his native Germany later this year to provide technical support.
This month, Xaloy is opening its first sales and service offices in China and India. Tang Xu Wen, who has four years of machinery sales experience with Krauss-Maffei Kunststofftechnik GmbH, will lead the Shanghai, China, office. Mrunal Sanghvi will run Xaloy's new office in Ahmedabad, India. Sanghvi previously sold machinery for Milacron Inc.
Xaloy already has offices in Thailand and Japan.
Lean manufacturing helps MHT cut costs
Mold & Hotrunner Technology AG of Hochheim, Germany, has cut the costs of manufacturing its hot-runner systems by using more standard components and lean manufacturing.
For example, on a 10-cavity hot-runner system, the manifold is built from individual carrier bars instead of machined from a solid plate of steel, according to Peter Zinnecker, product manager for hot runners. The hot runner is mounted on a rigid chassis so the manifold can be adapted easily to the requirements of the mold.
Also new are steel cylinders that actuate the valve stems.
German competitors reach market pact
Two end-of-arm tooling providers have called a truce.
Xenia, Ohio-based SAS Automation Ltd. said its German operation, SAS Automation Robotergreifsysteme GmbH, and competitor ASS Maschinenbau GmbH of Untereschbach, Germany, have reached an agreement so that ``each company may coexist in the same markets.''
The firms compete head-to-head around the world, said SAS President Trent Fisher.
ASS Maschinenbau runs a U.S. robot tooling operation, Automation Technology Schwope Inc., in Livonia Hills, Mich.
Originally, Fisher and ASS jointly owned SAS Automation in Ohio. In 1998, Fisher bought out the German company's shares, while SAS continued to buy some parts from ASS. But in 2001, that business relationship ended - and SAS Automation opened an office in Karlsruhe, Germany.
In 2002, the German industrial conglomerate Indus Holding AG bought ASS Maschinenbau and ATS.
