At Fakuma 2012, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH introduced an all-electric IntElect Multi injection press, molding a two-cavity, flip-top cap in a 16-cavity mold, and showed a new way to injection mold touch-screen displays, complete with the electronics inside.
Sumitomo Demag officials said the touch-screen display — molded on a Systec injection press with 210 metric tons of clamping force — demonstrated both in-mold decorating and in-mold labeling. Instead of glass, the screen uses a transparent, conductive acrylic film, combined with decorative and functional foils.
Sumitomo Demag teamed with PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG and its parent company, Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co. KG.
The display has an IMD foil on the front side, and multitouch-capable foils with the capacitive circuitry on the rear side.
Fakuma marked the premier of the IntElect Multi, a multicomponent machine producing two-color polypropylene caps. The 350-tonne, all-electric press molded and then, in the mold, closed the flip-top caps on a 13.8-second cycle. The closed caps can go directly to a filling line. IntElect Multi machines have an extended ejector travel, so they can work with turntables.
Several features are available, including the activeFlowBalance function, which balances the filling of multicavity molds by stopping the screw's forward movement at the reversing point, balancing melt pressure in all cavities, according to the company. Core pull units are operated with the energy-saving activeDrive.
The first IntElect Multi is the 350-tonne press, with a wide platen, showed at Fakuma. Sumitomo Demag next will add a 220-ton model.
The company also molded transparent medical vials on 50-tonne IntElect press from cyclo-olefin copolymer.
Also at Fakuma, the company showed activeColourChange, a fully automatic liquid-color-change system equipped with three colors. It allows colors to be changed without having to stop the machine, officials said.
Sumitomo Demag was created in 2008, when Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. bought Demag Ergotech GmbH and Van Dorn Demag Corp. Schwaig, Germany-based Sumitomo Demag manufactures presses in Schwaig and Wiehe, Germany; Ningbo, China; and Chiba, Japan.
CEO Tetsuya Okamura said the company now offers a unified product line.
“We emphasize one face to the customer, one brand to the customer,” he said at a Fakuma press conference Oct. 17.
Okamura said Sumitomo Demag, with 3,000 employees and annual sales of $775 million, is the third-largest injection press maker in the world, based on sales. The company sells more than 5,000 machines a year and ships some 40-50 percent — most of them all-electrics — to China, he said.
In April, Okamura took on a high-level position with the Japanese parent. In addition to his role as CEO of Sumitomo Demag, he is senior vice president and a member of the executive board of Sumitomo Heavy Industries in Tokyo. Okamura is now responsible for the entire plastics machinery operations of SHI, including the Plastics Machinery Division in Japan.
In addition, the role of Sumitomo Demag's chief operating officer, Shaun Dean, has been expanded, and he now is responsible for all aspects, including research and development, sales and quality.
