Bekum builds its future on knowledge gained from its past

Düsseldorf, Germany — A small blow molding machine built in 1958 by Gottfried Mehnert put Bekum Maschinenfabriken GmbH (Hall 14/C3) on the path to success in its founding year with the world's first neck-rim calibration, which helped produce perfect plastic bottles.

Numerous patents and developments followed, changing the industry and solidifying the Berlin-based company's position as a pioneer in extrusion blow molding technology.

Now almost 60 years later, the distinguished inventor's youngest son, 34-year-old Michael Mehnert, is getting ready to make his mark on the company that has grown to 300 employees and almost 100 million euros of annual sales.

Appointed to managing partner in the spring, Michael Mehnert took over management of the company's facility in Austria and became shareholder of the group. He talked about his new role in the family business at the Bekum booth, where that early machine, the BA90, is on display alongside the Eblow 37 — a new hybrid for packaging, particularly canisters at the rate of 240 pieces per hour for 20-liter containers.

It's a fitting contrast. Preserving tradition while bringing momentum to the company is at the forefront of Michael Mehnert's agenda.

“I grew up with the company so the product is not new to me, but the situation changes when you have the responsibilities,” Mehnert said, describing the difference between K 2016 and the past shows he has attended pretty much since he could walk.

“I want to keep the tradition of Bekum going, and its long customer relations and the knowledge and experience in the company,” he added. “You can't make a lot of fancy changes very fast.”

Taking a hard look at the future strategy of the company in terms of what range of machines it offersand where it does business will be among the main issues on Mehnert's agenda for the next year to 18 months.

“We're still in the process to define our strategy, and it's my goal to have a look at where the best opportunities are,” he said. “That's the first step before we start with any action in the field. Of course, I have some ideas for the future, but you can't do everything at once. We have this restructuring now, and we have to do everything step by step.”

Last year, Bekum moved its production of packaging machines from Berlin to Traismauer, Austria, where the automotive and industrial machine side of the business has been located since 1968. The floor of the 16,000-square-meter facility was reconfigured to make room for the packaging unit, and about 50 people were hired for a total of 120 as part of a 6 million euro investment to modernize and streamline operations.

“It provides us flexibility and allows us to scale our workload better,” Mehnert said, adding that generally the company deals 60 percent in packaging and 40 percent in automotive. “But it depends year to year, and that's what I meant about the scale of the workload. Now it's much easier.”

Having grown up in a family where shop talk was common at home and then studying mechanical engineering, Mehnert said he has seen the blow molding machine market become very mature.

“It takes little details and specialties to get your machines even faster and more energy efficient,” he said. “Also, going forward, progress lies with software. It's not always as obvious as the machine. The design for the machine gets more important now. That may be an area where I take on a bigger eye than my father.”

Gottfried Mehenert, 81 — a member of the Plastics Hall of Fame with more than 40 patents — developed many blow molding standards, such as blowing bottles from the top of the extruded parison, inside-neck deflashing and calibration by a cutting ring inside the mold.

Pointing to the elder Mehnert's first machine and then Bekum's latest one, Andreas Kandt, Bekum managing director, said, “Can you believe the same gentleman who invented this machine had a huge technical impact in developing this 60 years later? It's amazing. The idea here is to build a bridge between what was designed 60 years ago and how does it look today.”

It looks much larger and complicated. Everything about the new Eblow 37 is electric, which uses less energy, except for some mold functions and the final mold closing, which are hydraulic and draw upon the advantages of the company's BA 34.2 canister maker.

With countless molds with hydraulic movement used in the industry, Michael Mehnert said: “We needed a hydraulic for this type of machine, so we said why don't we use it for the pressure buildup because we're convinced of the advantages for the clamping force and quality of product.”

The machine has 35 tons of clamping force for producing containers between 10 and 35 liters.

“We believe we surpass everyone else and that's critical to the process for some plastic materials,” he said.

Spiral distributor blow heads provide uniform wall thickness in the pre-form and the finished product while allowing for faster color changes, which boost productivity, Kandt added.

“If you need to go from green to blue to yellow, normally you need a lot of material to flush clean the heads,” he said. “This technology only takes minutes to change, and that's a big advantage cost-wise for the customer.”

At K 2013, Kandt said the company was on track to make 80 million euros — up from 76 million euros in 2012 — and could possibly reach 100 million euros in two years. However, Bekum fell short of the goal, he said at this show.

“Of course we came close, but it didn't happen because of the restructuring,” he said. “We saw we needed to do something to reduce costs and optimize different processes. We still need to grow to 80 to 100 million euros. That's a good goal for us.”

Mehnert added that the Russian market tanked and the Middle East was wary of investment. Asia was weak, too, because China makes it difficult for European machine makers to compete with them. Still, order intake has been steady or better in other places, he said.

“North America was excellent over the last one to two years and Europe was good this year,” Mehnert said.

The machines sold in the U.S. are built in Williamston, Mich., where Bekum uses some components made in Germany. However, the 120 employees make their own product dedicated to the U.S. market and have their own service team and research and development staff.

“It is very successful,” Mehnert said. “Right now there are a lot of orders, and we're nearly filled to summer of next year. It's mainly U.S. customers and some Mexico, as well for food packaging.”