Gevelsberg, Germany-based automotive parts molder Denk Kunststoff Technik has launched its first injection molding plant in China and is considering an expansion to “the American continent.”
The new plant in Nanjing has five employees making parts on three molding machines, Wittmann Battenfeld said in a news release.
Founded 30 years ago, owned and managed by the two brothers Falk and Lars Denk, the company posted sales of 15.5 million euros ($17.2 million) with 80 employees and has been growing at 10 to 15 percent each year recently.
The Denk machine park in Gevelsberg includes an Arburg machine equipped with a 6-axis Motoman articulated arm industry robot from Yaskawa that has been producing 110,000 metal insert overmolded parts/day in 3-shift operation for the past two years. The insets are fed and laid out to be picked up by the robot with equipment from Püschel Automation in Lüdenscheid.
Wittmann Battenfeld announced in May 2015 that it had supplied an EcoPower 300/1330 injection molding machine to Denk in Gevelsberg in March 2014, with Denk benefiting from low energy consumption with the KERS Kinetic Energy Recovery System recovering braking energy for re-use within the machine.
Wittmann Battenfeld said it has also supplied a 150-tonne clamping force HM hydraulic drive machine equipped with a Battenfeld automation system to Denk in 2005 that is still in operation today, as is a 100-tonne rotating table VM machine.
With a customer base consisting mainly of automotive suppliers in Germany, North America, China, Spain, the Czech Republic and Romania, Denk's processes, mainly for smaller engine compartment and exterior and door applications, include 2-component, gas counter-pressure and metal insert molding. These run on single and multiple-cavity mould tools designed and produced in-house with use of 3D CAD-CAM software, HSC high speed cutting and milling and EDM electric discharge machining cavity sinking equipment.