Wittmann Battenfeld debuts VPower press

Friedrichshafen, Germany — Wittmann Battenfeld GmbH is rolling out its vertical VPower injection press at Fakuma 2018, and company officials gave more details on the recent investment in Italian MES startup ICE-Flex.

Wittmann Battenfeld plans to expand production of its vertical injection molding machines at its main plant in Kottingbrunn, Austria, Wittmann Group CEO Michael Wittmann said at the company's Oct. 16 news conference.

So far in 2018, the machinery manufacturer's order income has declined by 5 percent, from 2017, but sales are expected to finish the year up 6.7 percent, at 430 million euros ($496 million). He explained that Wittmann Battenfeld started the year with a very big backlog, so 2018 began "extremely strong."

But business is leveling off this year, he said. European machinery sales are lower, hit by the European automotive industry.

In what Wittmann called the "Trump effect," Asian business has been hurt by tariffs, and he said some manufacturing work is moving out of the country. The United States is steady but not growing much, he said.

Also restraining growth is a shortage of some components, including gear boxes and motors, he said.

"We had an extremely strong fourth quarter and extremely strong first quarter of 2018. But since that time, it has grown weaker," Michael Wittmann said. He said business has softened in August, September and now October.

"We do see a little bit of lower order entry," he said.

Fakuma marks the first time the VPower will be introduced to the general public. Visitors to the company's 10th anniversary celebration in Kottingbrunn, Austria, in June saw the machine.

VPower is the first vertical machine in Wittmann Battenfeld's PowerSeries design of presses. The new VPower offers a high level of energy-efficiency, compactness and user-friendliness. The rotary table is powered by a standard servo-electric drive.

Georg Tinschert, CEO of Wittmann Battenfeld GmbH, said the injection unit can be converted from vertical to horizontal and back, even after the press is delivered. The absence of a middle tie bar enables central media supply from below through the ​ rotary table, or the installation of a compact rotary manifold.

"It's completely open for automation and integration," Tinschert said at the press conference.

The open design makes VPower well-suited for integrating automation systems such as insert feeding or the removal of finished parts, he said.

In other Fakuma news, Wittmann Battenfeld is showing the new, smaller EcoPower Xpress injection molding machine with 160 metric tons of clamping force — following the launch of the high-speed, all-electric model with clamping forces of 400 and 500 tonnes.

Tinschert said Wittmann Battenfeld is beefing up its offering in packaging machinery. The new-size press is molding a polypropylene lid on a four-cavity mold, using in-mold labeling technology and a Wittmann W837 side-entry robot. The cycle time is 3 seconds.

Special innovations include linear guides. Tinschert said a small reservoir collects used grease.

Also, the Combimould technology is being shown on a SmartPower servo-hydraulic press. A WX142 robot transfers a housing for a Wittmann R9 Teachbox molded by one cavity and transfers it to a second cavity for insert molding.

In a second Combimould application, a two-component MicroPower press micromolds a sensor component for a medical measuring component in a four-cavity mold. The razor-thin spherical membrane measures a specific pressure inside the device. The parts will be processed in a cleanroom environment, created by a laminar flow box located inside the machine. A W8VS4 Scara robot will remove the parts, inspected by an integrated camera system.

Wittmann Battenfeld is also demonstrating Wittmann 4.0 on an EcoPower 90/350 press. The machine's Unilog B8 control system integrates all peripheral equipment and, in a novelty, the electronic data sheet will be used in the controller. The data sheet serves to configure a production cell integrated via the Wittmann 4.0 router according to the selected mold dataset, including all necessary items such as robots, temperature controllers, metering devices, dryers and electronic flow controllers.

The production cell is ready for quick startup.

Wittmann Battenfeld's investment in ICE-Flex brings the machinery maker the manufacturing execution system, or MES, called Temi+ from ICE-Flex in Saronno, Italy. Michael Wittmann declined to say what percent of an ownership stake the company acquired in the Sept. 17 agreement, but he said Wittmann Battenfeld officials wanted the enthusiastic young Italian founders of the MES startup to continue to own their company.

TEMI is short for Themis, the Greek goddess of order and justice. One of the ICE-Flex founders, Giorgio Pigozzo, said the easy-to-use TEMI MES is designed to bring order to the reams of data collected in injection molding at an affordable price.

Michael Wittmann said TEMI+ is the first MES system for injection molding that supports auxiliary equipment, in addition to the injection press, which is a reflection on Wittmann Battenfeld's complete line of both types of machinery.

Wittmann said the machinery company is recommending the TEMI+ MES for injection molding companies with up to 50 machines per production plant. For larger numbers of presses, he said, Wittmann Battenfeld recommends using the MPDV MES from the German supplier MPDV Mikrolab GmbH.

ICE-Flex is selling MES systems to other companies, including molders, and is not exclusive to Wittmann Battenfeld.

Michael Wittmann said his company did not want to simply buy all of ICE-Flex. That's what injection press maker Engel Holding GmbH did, when in 2016, it purchased Austrian MES provider Technische Informationssysteme GmbH. Even though TIG operates as an independent subsidiary from Engel — and TIG MES systems are open to all machinery makers and plastic processors — the Engel-TIG news roiled the injection machinery sector.

Wittmann Battenfeld and KraussMaffei Group dumped TIG after Engel bought the company. Both machinery makers moved to MPDV. Now Wittmann Battenfeld has added ICE-Flex.

Michael Wittmann said TEMI+ has many features, including central data collection, measuring how parts match up to process parameters, and information from all equipment, such as auxiliaries on the press controller.

In auxiliary equipment news at Fakuma, Wittmann Battenfeld is presenting the latest models of the Primus robot series: Primus 10 and Primus 26. The Primus 10 extends the series downward, with a smaller model designed for removing sprues, and it comes with sprue pinchers as a standard feature. Primus 26 has a load capacity of 10 kilograms, the highest load among the Primus robots.

Fakuma visitors can also see the new WX robots, allowing access to the gripper and vacuum circuits from the sides of the vertical profile. Gripper plugs for signal feedback also are connected there.

Wittmann Battenfeld is also launching a new rotational A-C servo axis specially for applications with small residual mold openings.

Turning to auxiliary equipment news, the company is also showing Gravimax blenders sporting new functions, and the new features on the Tempro plus line of temperature controllers.