Machine builders meet pressing needs for plastic in 2020

Injection press sales took off in 2020, helping cure what ails the United States as the COVID-19 pandemic increased demand for everything from respirators, ventilators and face masks to disinfection wipes containers, home office furnishings and sourdough bread machines.

The number of injection molding machines sold this year to produce many of those medical and other products will end up right around the 4,000-unit benchmark, according to plastics industry executives.

That's up from about 3,300 presses sold in 2019, but down compared with sales of roughly 4,250 units annually from 2015 through 2018.

Based on current numbers, Arburg Inc. President Friedrich Kanz expects at least 4,000 machines will have been sold to plastics processors in 2020.

"It may be higher. … I consider that a safe prediction," Kanz said in an email, calling the year's result interesting.

"In such a difficult or strange year, for us to have such high numbers is really amazing," Kanz said. "[It] is really an indication of how important plastics products are to our society and in the medical field when faced with a crisis like COVID-19."

Kanz said he hopes press sale numbers will be similar in 2021, "but hope is not a strategy," he added.

"The real question is how long this investment in medical will continue. It is difficult to say. If medical stays strong and automotive comes back, I think 3,500 molding machines in 2021 would be a good number."

After a good — and for some, even strong — start to 2020, many machine builders felt the economy crash as the virus spread at an alarming rate in the second quarter.

With the declaration of the pandemic on March 11 came state lockdowns, distinctions of essential and nonessential businesses, and new safety protocols to follow. Americans were dying by the thousands and millions were laid off.

The U.S. economy shed 20.5 million jobs in April. The unemployment rate of 14.7 percent for the month was the highest since the end of the Great Depression.

"The second quarter was the most difficult to run a business," Mark Sankovitch, CEO of Engel North America since 2009, said in a phone interview. "Orders were still coming in but there was a big impact on the after-sales support side. We couldn't go in to plants that were shut down so our service organization pretty much came to a screeching halt.

"That second quarter, my competitors and customers all struggled," Sankovitch said. "When you do a hard stop to the economy, it's a shock."

Many machine builders had to shake it off quickly. They found themselves at the forefront of meeting demand for diagnostic equipment, syringes, testing equipment and personal protective equipment for the medical market.

Batesville, Ind.-based Hillenbrand Inc., which includes plastics machinery manufacturer Milacron, reported record sales of $694 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 43 percent over the prior year, driven primarily by the Milacron acquisition and its burial casket business called Batesville.

For its fiscal 2020 year, Hillenbrand posted record sales of $2.52 billion, an increase of 39 percent over the prior year, again thanks to Milacron, which is now part of Hillenbrand's Molding Technology Solutions unit.

"With a Milacron acquisition we added industry-leading and complimentary hot runner and injection molding product lines in the Hillenbrand portfolio, further strengthening our customer offering, increasing our global scale and enhancing our capabilities across the entire plastics value chain, from base resin production all the way through recycling," President and CEO Joe Raver said during a Nov. 11 quarterly call.

He expects Molding Technology Solutions' first-quarter sales will grow modestly year over year in a range of about 2-5 percent, primarily driven by sales growth for hot runners.

"Recent order trends for injection molding equipment have been positive, including sequential order improvement broadly across key end markets in geographic regions, leading to the best order levels and backlog in the product line in over two years," Raver said.

The company says the order backlog of $243 million increased 54 percent year over year for injection presses, extruders and hot runners.

At Arburg, the medical market was the strongest and most of it was COVID-related, Kanz said.

"First of all, it seemed to be driven by the need for personal protective equipment, then testing — pipettes, for example — and now certain components for packaging of vaccines coming out soon," Kanz said.

He expects strong medical demand to continue into 2021.

"Companies that are well established in medical are all crazy busy, and a number of them are our customers," Kanz said. "That was the major drive that made 2020 good for us."

Brian Bishop, vice president of go-to-market new machines at Krauss-Maffei Corp. in Florence, Ky., agrees.

"The medical market is booming, and we do not see an end in sight as the U.S. market moves quickly to support new medical products," he said. "Krauss-Maffei has seen significant growth in the third and fourth quarter over our first and second quarter and are optimistic in continued growth in 2021.

The packaging market boomed, too, and not just for food products as the world dined in but also for 5-gallon paint pails to renovate residences. Office employees everywhere transitioned to working from home — and doing most everything at home and outdoors.

Gear for sports and fitness activities — kayaks, coolers, skis, tennis rackets, bikes and exercise equipment — flew off the shelves of stores and online fulfillment centers.

"Our sales in 2020 have been incredibly strong, with record levels in many months after a brief slowdown at the outset of the pandemic in March and April only," Glenn Frohring, one of the owners of Absolute Haitian, said in an email, pointing to the medical, appliance and housewares markets and then later on in the year construction and automotive.

Japan Steel Works America Inc. reported similar performance with most sales to the medical and packaging markets followed by the recreation and outdoors markets.

"With the onset of COVID, we did experience a downturn in sales during the second quarter, however, sales have been very robust since the third quarter and continue to be so," Dale Bartholomew, national technical manager for JSW America, said in an email.

At Krauss-Maffei, new machine business was down significantly after the pandemic struck, but, Bishop said, "We never really slowed down."

He pointed to the company's digital and service solutions business unit and added, "Our customers still required parts and service. We found we had to adapt quickly to sales through online meetings like Microsoft Teams."

Marko Koorneef of Boy Machines said the market is down 30 percent in their tonnage range, which the website describes as microinjection molding up to a clamping force of 137.5 tons. However, the Exton, Pa.-based company has had strong sales from medical and packaging customers.

"We increased market share, and we are above expectations," Koorneef said in an email.

Sales for robot maker Wittmann Battenfeld USA plummeted 40 percent from March through May and then soared, according to President David Preusse.

"Our sales took off so strong we needed to increase our manufacturing capacity by the end of Q3 onward. And we did," Preusse said in an email.

In June, Wittmann Battenfeld "experienced a 140 percent uptick in robot volume mostly tied to medical PPE needs, but also consumer goods, and surprisingly automotive still had life," Preusse also said.

As the weather warmed, the pandemic added health and economic worries to civil unrest and political uncertainty. The election between President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden was cast as a ballot battle for the soul of the nation.

"Every election year brings unwanted turbulence into the business cycle, with this past election cycle being particularly abrasive," Georg Kiesl, export sales manager for France-based Billion Plastics Machinery Inc., said in an email. "All in all, we hope things will begin to cool down and revert back to a sense of normality."

As for political policies, Chinese-made plastics processing machinery has been subject to U.S. tariffs since July 2018, when Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tax on imports.

Biden isn't expected to undo those measures anytime soon, according to trade experts and international economists. They say the incoming president can use the tariffs as a bargaining tool to win concessions from China on other issues.

Tariffs are one of the reasons cited for reshoring businesses back to the U.S., along with proximity to customers and a public outcry to shorten supply chains for essential products, according to the Reshoring Initiative.

The Sarasota, Fla.-based group says if the second half of 2020 is similar to the first, reshoring and foreign direct investment will create about 110,000 jobs in the U.S. this year.

Founded in 2010 by Harry Moser, former president of machine tool maker GF AgieCharmilles, the Reshoring Initiative helps companies determine if local production can reduce their total cost of ownership and allow them to sell against lower-priced overseas competitors.

In 2020, U.S. reshoring outpaced foreign direct investment for the first time since 2014, according to the group, which says it is working with another 50 companies to reshore about 100 products and related manufacturing jobs.

Yasunori Kato, president of Nissei America, has noticed.

"We do see a trend for general/consumer goods productions coming back to the U.S. due to high logistic costs and trade relations with China," Kato said in an email about tariffs and reshoring.

Still, the overall jobs picture remains murky. The U.S. economy has only regained about 12 million of the 20.5 million jobs lost in March and April due to the pandemic.

And soon some federal safety nets for struggling Americans may end. The programs provide eviction relief, student loan protection and unemployment benefits to millions of people who would not typically qualify. Think self-employed workers, contractors and gig workers.

The relief programs, which are part of the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, are set to expire Dec. 31.

Plastics industry officials are watching.

"As for 2021, it's still difficult to predict the future if so much government stimulus kept Americans paid fairly well and manufacturing busy," Preusse said. "We have to see post-election if the pandemic economic damage still has to show itself. With winter on and COVID still all the rage, unlike plastics, some industries are hurt badly and it may deplete Americans' spending habits."

In the meantime, medical personnel are concerned about another wave of infections after many Americans ignored the advice of public health experts and traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The first wave of COVID-19 infections resulted in many requests for quick delivery of injection molding presses, including an order for eight Absolute Haitian machines from Reed City Group in Reed City, Mich. The automotive molder quickly converted to medical molding as part of the emergency medical device program overseen by Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

Kato said demand from the medical industry also offset low automotive sales at Nissei America.

At CH America, President and Managing Director Ken Heyse "saw a burst in orders" for machines to make packaging for hand sanitizers and other cleaning solutions.

Meanwhile, Preusse said Wittmann Battenfeld USA received a range of "urgent PPE essential orders" from clients making ventilators, COVID diagnostics, face shields, disinfectant wipes and components for blood testing, drug delivery and more.

"After the initial wave of pandemic shutdowns, scalebacks and remote office, our sales took off," Preusse said.

Yizumi-HPM presses also helped address the pressing need for PPE.

"We keep close to 40 machines in inventory for that purpose," said Bill Duff, general manager of sales and marketing. "Some were custom molders with opportunities to mold face shields. We sold three machines to one company so it could mold frames for face shields as part of the industry's rapid response to the pandemic."

The markets for storage bins, housewares and appliances from vacuum cleaners to leaf blowers also were strong thanks to the "stay-at-home workforce," Frohring said.

Engel North America President Paul Caprio agreed.

"This year has become a housing boom and therefore everything associated with a home is booming: appliances, pools, electrical breakers, exercise equipment, bikes," he said.

For those not getting into a new home, Caprio said, there has been "an incredible surge" in renovations and purchases of storage bins, shelving units and sheds for the yard.

"Hand tools, paint cans and buckets have a lot of plastic components," Caprio said, as does the gear for a lot of the outdoor activities that become more popular.

Considering that online shopping and sales are up, too, Caprio said some Engel machine buyers needed to ramp up production of large containers and retractable crates for logistics centers.

"That has been a big boom for us as well," Caprio said in a phone interview. "With the pandemic, logistics has exploded along with internet ordering so demand for collapsible crates and packaging materials has increased. People stuck at home were buying shelves and storage systems and making home repairs, which affected customers of ours. They couldn't keep up with production. And then, throw on top of that, all the people moving from cities and buying homes."

Since the pandemic, some Americans have been moving from cities to more rural areas to reduce their risk of infection and take advantage of work-from-home policies.

Kato said Nissei America has seen a corresponding sales increase in presses that produce general and consumer goods since the end of the second quarter.

"July to September sales went up compared to April and June," Kato said in an email. "Sales are 10 percent up in unit-base and 20 percent up in dollar-base."

Kato said parent company Nissei Plastic Industrial Co. Ltd. made a major investment this year with the purchase of Milan-based plastics machinery maker Negri Bossi SpA from Rush, N.Y.-based Kingsbury Corp. for a yet-to-be-disclosed price. The acquisition adds large-tonnage injection molding machines and a greater geographic reach to its product line.

Nissei closed on the purchase of a 75 percent stake in Negri Bossi in January and plans to buy the remaining 25 percent stake within a few years. The final figure will be made public when the deal closes.

The company has "no plans at the moment for 2021" investments, Kato added.

But JSW America does. The company relocated several offices to be near customers and airports and opened a new technical center in Ledgewood, N.J., where Bartholomew said JSW America plans further expansion "to improve our footprint and commitment on the East Coast."

The 8,000-square-foot tech center has multimedia classroom training, a machine showroom, mold trial capabilities, large-tonnage machine inventory and customer consultation near Newark Liberty International Airport.

The tech center will stock JSW America's large series of machines. Workers will be able to meet customers' requirements with shot sizes, special sequencing, MES system integration and more as part of a strategy to reduce lead times for large machines from Japan by several months.

At CH America, Heyse said the company saw growth of more than 60 percent in 2020 compared with the prior year. As a result, the business hired two additional service managers and two new regional sales managers.

"The third quarter was over 50 percent stronger than Q1 and [Q]2 combined," Heyse said, adding that housewares, primarily storage solutions, drove 2020 sales, followed by food and medical packaging.

Also in 2020, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery North America Inc. relocated from a 50-year-old plant in Strongsville, Ohio, to a 30,750-square-foot facility in Cleveland that will be a dedicated center for the company's $10 million replacement parts inventory and machine rebuilding service.

Sumitomo Demag invested in new equipment, too, to improve the efficiency of picking, packing and shipping parts orders at the Ohio facility, which is strategically located adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Sumitomo Demag had planned a grand opening for a 15,300-square-foot technology center in Buffalo Grove, Ill., in March with four machine demonstrations, but it was canceled because of the pandemic. Three of the machines ended up going to customers to support essential projects.

By the end of this year, Arburg should complete the expansion of its U.S. headquarters in Rocky Hill, Conn. Kanz said the company doubled the facility footprint, adding a manufacturing hall for setting up and testing turnkey automation projects as well as more spare parts capacity and new office space.

France-based manufacturer Billion recently opened a U.S. subsidiary in Rochester Hills, Mich., that Kiesl said is currently tasked with sales and service support.

"For 2021, we are planning to further strengthen local service platforms so that in times of COVID fears and travel restrictions, we remain agile," Kiesl said.

Yizumi-HPM continues to invest in a technology center in Aachen, Germany, where Duff said the company is "seeing the fruits of their labor" with two-shot processes that introduce long glass fibers to produce rigid products like automotive parts and fan blades.

Krauss-Maffei also continues to invest in facilities worldwide, including a new injection molding manufacturing plant in Jiaxing, China; a new screw manufacturing plant for subsidiary Burgsmüller in Einbeck, Germany; and an extrusion manufacturing plant in Laatzen, just outside of Hanover, Germany. Bishop said the company also is starting construction of a new injection molding manufacturing facility near Munich.

In the U.S. automotive market, light vehicle sales were close to 17.5 million units last year. While analysts expected 2020 to fall short of those numbers long before the coronavirus pandemic took hold, the impact of COVID-19 was drastic for the industry overall.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate for the U.S. dropped to 8.5 million vehicles in April but ended up rebounding to about 14 million units in July. By October, the SAAR reached 16.3 million vehicles and looks to be holding steady, if not increasing slightly, as the year comes to a close, according to LMC Automotive Ltd. business consultants and forecasters.

At CH America, Heyse said, "We believe the automotive market will come back late in the second half of 2021 and that demand for large-tonnage machines will increase in advance of that."

John F. Martich III, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Sumitomo Demag, agreed, saying, "We do not expect real recovery in automotive until late 2021 or into 2022."

Bartholomew said time will tell.

"We have seen some of the automotive suppliers push back their time frames, but we are confident those projects will continue to move forward," he said.

The U.S. automotive market has changed and consumers with extra money are buying trucks and SUVs, Sankovitch said.

"If prices stay low, that makes it even more inviting to get rid of the sedans and stay with the trucks and SUVs," he added. "Those assembly plants are doing well and the sedan-type business has fallen off."

Still, lightweighting needs for vehicles must be met, and as electric vehicles come out, new technologies and equipment will be sought and lead to growth in the market segment, Sankovitch said.

"The electric vehicle market is creating a number of new players and new models, and all of these new vehicles will need molding machines," Caprio added.

He also pointed out that crossover vehicle and even RV sales have boomed because people do not want to fly or stay in hotels.

At Krauss-Maffei, Bishop gave a similar assessment.

"Our automotive sector has slowed from 2019, but we are still seeing opportunities in SUVs and electric vehicles," he said.

Arburg also has a good number of automotive customers, and while the business was slow in 2020, Kanz expects 2021 will be better in general.

"I don't expect sales to go through the roof, but I expect greater sales activity and investment by automotive suppliers will increase in 2021 as automotive companies try to catch up on production and launch new models," Kanz said. "So I expect improvement in the automotive market will benefit our industry as well."

Bill Wood, Plastics News' economic editor, has lower expectations.

"I think there is still significant risk in the outlook for automotive," he said in a phone interview. "I don't see the demand for new cars coming back until at least the second half of next year, perhaps even later. I don't see the total number of miles driven returning to pre-COVID levels for a long time. I don't think people will commute as much. They will go back to the office, but not all the time. We got good at staying at home. The timing for a full recovery from both the pandemic and in the market demand for automobiles is still very uncertain, in my honest opinion. Therefore the risk to the outlook is not yet fully behind us."

In 2020, more companies listed "supply chain optimization" and "improved lead times" as reasons to "repatriate" manufacturing, according to the Reshoring Initiative.

Plastics industry executives said they also noticed more evidence of reshoring this year.

"I've seen that production of certain components that are related in some way to COVID have been coming back to the U.S.," Kanz said, pointing to molders establishing or expanding capacity in the U.S. for operations "that might previously have been running in Asian countries."

One of the big reasons "is likely due to supply chain interruptions from overseas suppliers," Bartholomew said.

But all the reshoring certainly isn't related to the pandemic.

For example, Absolute Haitian's Frohring said, "We are working with an appliance manufacturer and a hand tool manufacturer who chose to reshore production to the U.S., but those plans were underway before the pandemic emerged."

Yizumi-HPM's Duff said the company recently did a proposal for a customer needing 12 machines.

"He's a toy maker who has been molding overseas and he's bringing them back," Duff said. "He decided he wanted more control over his parts and manufacturing capabilities."

Heyse said CH America customers are buying machines to make products that were formerly produced in China, but it is hard to quantify right now.

"We see opportunities coming in early 2021, when new or expanded molding facilities are planned to meet the reshoring trend," Heyse added.

Preusse said Trump's tough trade negotiations and tariffs did stimulate reshoring and kept new investments more local, "but there is no doubt China's ability to produce volumes faster than most countries was evident in PPE, such as masks, and many logistics that shifted to China in the PPE supplies ramp-up."

In the automotive market, Kiesl said reshoring plans have been tempered.

"This trend was strongly impeded by the fact that China has exited the pandemic and is 'back in business,'" Kiesl said.

The 25 percent tariffs meant to hamper sales of imported Chinese products includes injection molding machines, extruders, blow molding machines, thermoformers, machine beds, platens and hydraulic assemblies as well as molds for injection and compression molding.

Many U.S. mold makers and some processing and machinery companies in the plastics industry strongly favor the tariffs. They argue the trade regulations make them more competitive while building up U.S. manufacturing.

"The tariffs on some of the offshore equipment put us in a better price position," Bartholomew said.

Martich said tariffs are helping Sumitomo Demag. Kato said the same for Nissei America.

"We see some production coming back to the U.S,, which helped our sales," Kato said.

However, the American Chemistry Council has said it hopes Biden's win will bring a move away from Trump's tariff-driven approach for a broad array of goods. The group contends increased trade barriers create global uncertainty for chemical manufacturers and inject unexpected costs in supply chains. ACC recommends reducing tariffs on plastics and chemicals used to manufacture PPE and medical products to fight COVID-19.

Heyse said CH America and many manufacturers and distributors of injection molding machines faced some cost impact from the tariffs, "and the market has absorbed that impact," Heyse said.

To control business costs that increased because of tariffs, Duff said Yizumi-HPM worked with its machine building partners in the Guangdong province in China, where the parent company has a handful of facilities.

"The machines are coming 80 percent done," Duff said. "We're doing the final assembly here. That gives our shop work and reduces tariffs."

Tariffs interfered with Engel's plan to boost sales of its China-made Wintec injection molding machines, which was introduced to the U.S. market at NPE2018.

"Any relief on tariffs would help us with that brand, which is a standard machine on the Engel platform with limited options," Sankovitch said.

Engel works with customers to ease the impact.

"You want a win-win situation. No one should walk away feeling they took the brunt of it," Sankovitch said. "We got them through that."

But now some customers wonder what's next. Could the tariff be increased to 35 percent?

"With a new brand, it's difficult to build a loyalty to it" amid an additional import tax, Sankovitch said.

Absolute Haitian and its partners at Haitian International successfully navigated the trade tariffs by working together in the previous year when the tariffs were introduced, according to Frohring.

The Worcester, Mass.-based company sells injection molding presses made in China by Haitian Plastics Machinery Ltd., one of the world's largest plastics machinery manufacturers.

"That issue was already behind us by 2020," Frohring said. "Since our sales are as strong as they have ever been, we do not see economic and political factors weighing very heavily on our results or activity."

In February, the Absolute Haitian team made it to Plastec West in Anaheim, Calif. — the biggest U.S. plastics machinery show in non-NPE years — as did CH America and Arburg.

"It was kind of the last hurrah before the shutdowns," Heyse said in an email. "We don't feel that any subsequent cancellations really affected our business one way or the other."

Frohring agreed. "This wasn't an issue for us, although we regret not being able to exhibit in Montreal," he said of a manufacturing technology show Absolute Haitian would have attended.

Kanz said any lack of trade show sales was offset by high demand for COVID-19-related equipment.

"Companies in that market needed injection molding machines and fast delivery was key," he added.

Kato at Nissei America and Preusse at Wittmann Battenfeld also said in emails that sales weren't hampered when major trade events were dropped from their business calendars.

"The plastics economy is not specifically tied to a trade show, and yes, each supplier is continuing to develop their web meeting, marketing and social media presence even faster now since field sales are still not even back to half of the normal number of field visits or customer factory visits pre-COVID," Preusse said.

Kiesl said the effect of canceled trade shows on Billion Plastics Machinery has been hard to measure.

"The biggest sales effect in terms of trade shows in the U.S. is the NPE next year and therefore we are yet to see a strong trade show effect. Overall, virtual solutions have been nice for current customer engagement but new customer acquisition has trailed expectations," Kiesl said.

Bartholomew said JSW America saw "no noticeable impact to sales" due to canceled trade shows.

"We feel the virtual shows are still in their infancy but should continue to evolve," he added.

When Fakuma didn't happen in October, Engel put on virtual presentations of its financial performance and latest technology. There were still costs and hurdles associated with the digital platform, but Sankovitch said the marketing team of parent company Engel Austria GmbH in Schwertberg, Austria, made it work.

"Fakuma was our trial virtual run. We had good success with it. We're learning from it and the market is starting to adapt to it," Sankovitch said.

He expects Engel to have a virtual element to its NPE2021 booth, especially if travel limitations are in place in May.

"There may be restrictions and we may not be able to get some of our talented, highly technical people over from Austria to the show, so the only way to do it is virtually," Sankovitch said.

The Engel North America CEO said it's time for the industry to take advantage of technical advances and evolve away from expensive events to promote machines and equipment.

"The cost of these shows has been getting out of control for the exhibitor," Sankovitch said. "There seemed to be no end in sight of the rising costs since no show organizer was willing to change the model. The pandemic, as bad as it is, is forcing a change to the model that is long overdue."

Arburg did some webinars in November, including a medical summit organized at the headquarters in Germany that Kanz called quite successful.

"So, yes, virtual events can fill the gap to a degree, but I think everyone is looking forward to the time when they will be able go to a show again and enjoy social interaction. I think everyone is missing that," Kanz said.

Looking further ahead, Sankovitch said thinks NPE2024 will be different than 2021.

"As 5G comes out and the bandwidth opens and you get things more [in] real time, I think the model will change in the next three to five years," Sankovitch said.

At JSW America, Bartholomew said he is seeing a solid mix of machine sales for both replacement of older assets and to add capacity.

Sales of presses at CH America and HPM-Yizumi are about 70 percent replacement and 30 percent for new programs, Heyse and Duff said.

"The average age of injection molding machines in the U.S. market is still quite advanced, and new machines really have significant advantages in energy efficiency, speed and control technology," Heyse added.

At Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, 70 percent of machines sold are for new capacity, particularly in the medical and packaging segments, heavily outweighing the 30 percent sold for replacement, according to Martich. The new presses are producing PPE and pre-filled syringes and processing bioplastics for continued growth in packaging, he added.

The vast majority of Engel press purchases are for new and additional capacity, Caprio said.

"Customers always talk about replacements, but it's always the first thing cut from their budgets," he added. "There are some diligent customers that like to have a young fleet of machines, but that's the exception."

Arburg's 2020 sales also were dominated by new capacity demand, Kanz said.

Bishop said Krauss-Maffei has seen replacement of machinery in all sectors, but much of the company's growth has been in new technologies and new products.

"The growth in smaller-tonnage machines up to 400 U.S. tons is trending towards all-electric, while the larger-tonnage market segment is trending towards hybrid electrics driven by machine performance requirements for overlapping cycles," Bishop said.

At Billion, Kiesl said customers buy machines to increase capabilities more than as replacements.

In addition, Billion's U.S. customers all buy electric machines, Kiesl said. He thinks the continued push gives electric machines the majority share of new injection presses for 2020.

At Absolute Haitian, Frohring is seeing what he describes as a steady move toward electric machines from its inventory, noting that sales of its Zeres-brand electric machine have doubled since its introduction in 2016.

"Electric machines seem to have moved from 'special applications' to 'general purpose' in the minds of molders," Frohring said. "This will only continue. For the first time in 2020, we sold nearly as many electric Zeres machines as our best-selling Mars servo-hydraulic machines."

The sales of all-electric machines have generally comprised about 50 percent of the U.S. injection press market.

However, after continued slow growth of 1-5 percent annually, all-electric presses make up 51 percent of 2020 sales to date, Martich said.

The 51 percent sales figure is a few points higher than previous years, Kanz added.

"This growth is certainly related to the high demand of the medical molders in 2020," he said.

At JSW, Bartholomew said, "As customers continue to search for a competitive edge, that inevitably brings them to all-electric machine technology."

However, Engel's Sankovitch said all-electric machines fell short of the momentum expected 15-20 years ago.

"From 2000-05, there was this thought process that all-electric machines would be 80, 85, 90 percent of the market. That's clearly not the case, but we saw it stabilize," Sankovitch explained, adding all-electric machines have limits for large shot sizes.

At CH America, Heyse said all-electric presses may exceed 50 percent of sales by number but not by dollar volume.

"Our customers tell us that the new servo-hydraulic machines are competitive with electrics on speed, energy consumption and noise level at a lower price point," Heyse said.

Absolute Haitian is finding growing interest in specialized applications, such as add-on injection units, fast-cycling solutions and multicomponent molding, Frohring said.

In 2021, the company will launch its Generation III molding machines in North America — the VE III and ZE III electric machines featuring an innovative injection unit design and other improvements — and the MA III servo-hydraulic machine with improved specifications and capabilities for interconnectivity.

"We're also moving into more specialized molding machine solutions for our customers that have asked for affordable alternatives, such as high-speed and multicomponent machinery," Frohring said.

In 2021, Absolute Haitian will be out with the ZE-F (Zeres fast-cycling) and MA-F (Mars fast-cycling) machine models as well as add-on injection units and multicomponent versions of all of its electric machines lines, which include Jenius III in addition to Zeres III and Venus III models.

"In fact, we have already sold a few ZE-F models this year and are busy quoting these newer configurations," Frohring said.

Nissei America released a hybrid vertical injection molding machine (TWX-III Series) that offers ergonomic and user-friendly features like low-floor bed, Kato said.

Engel is focused on the circular economy, which coincides with major consumer goods manufacturers committing to increased recycling rates and innovations that can convert waste into higher-value products.

"The circular economy is a strong component of what will happen in 2022-23 with equipment because recycled content brings a different demand to the molding machine and the tooling," Sankovitch said. "You have to come up with a technology that can incorporate that recycled content."

Engel customers keep asking how they can process plastic that is returned to the business through take-back programs or other recycling efforts.

"The circular economy is a huge emphasis for us," Sankovitch said. "When you put recycled content in with virgin there are a lot of challenges, such as viscosity changes. Also, recycled content can be more expensive than virgin material, but the consumer wants it."

Engel CEO Stefan Engleder set the green priorities for the company.

"That's where a lot of our R&D is going forward," Sankovitch said. "I think it's the future of the industry, and Engel will be at the forefront in the coming years."

When press demand dropped early during the pandemic, Caprio said Engel never considered layoffs.

"Manpower was available so they put more engineers on projects," Caprio said. "They moved up R&D projects like bigger electric machines and more interfaces. This is the way a leader in the market handles itself."

At Arburg, Kanz said digitalization activities are a focal point of its portfolio, including the arburgXworld customer portal for remote service, spare parts, machine details and more.

Billion's Kiesl said he has seen strong usage of the machine builder's EasyConnect-brand telemaintenance function, which can remotely access all machine parameters, if requested by the customer.

"This has driven customer confidence in our machine range," Kiesl added.

Billion also expanded the availability of its EasyTurn machine-integrated indexing shaft, which allows for fast and cost-efficient two-shot applications.

Arburg is getting more inquiries about automatization, too, and its ability to provide a turnkey solution. In response, the company has a team in the U.S. that is building customized production cells for customers, particularly those in the medical market.

"They wanted to see a complete package, including a robot and certain downstream equipment to automate the whole production cell, and we delivered a number of such systems," Kanz said. "This is a clear trend, and we are offering excellent engineering solutions from our U.S. team in collaboration with our headquarters in Germany."

Although the times seem more uncertain than ever, Kanz thinks the pandemic will be brought under control in 2021.

"With the availability of a vaccine, I hope that people can begin to go out again and that we can hope to see a significant improvement by midyear. It all depends on the vaccine, but that seems to be looking good right now," Kanz said.

He has a positive outlook for the plastics economy in 2021, as do officials of Absolute Haitian and Engel.

"Here in the U.S., we are expecting a healthy business scenario because medical is strong and there is high demand for what we are selling," Kanz said. "In general, I'm optimistic about 2021. I think we will get COVID under control and we will see overall business rebound."

Frohring said he has several reasons to look forward to 2021. First, the pandemic didn't negatively affect Absolute Haitian sales in 2020.

"So, we are starting in a strong position," Frohring said. "Second, once the pandemic weakens, there may be pent-up demand in areas such as automotive, where we are very competitive, and we anticipate an uptick in machine sales as a result. Third, 2021 is an NPE year, and traditionally, molding companies have timed machine acquisition programs around NPE. We expect that tradition to continue."

Wood said his overall outlook shows improvement for the economy and the plastics industry.

"Plastics is such a mature and widespread industry that it is basically a proxy for the whole economy," Wood said. "Everything has some kind of plastics input, even the service sector. They use landscape and cleaning products. I think the overall economy will improve next year a little bit faster than the long-term average, which is a real growth rate of about 2 percent. The plastics industry would be in that ballpark, but probably a little lower because of amount of stuff imported from China and also plastics being deselected due to attempts to get plastic out of the environment."

Sankovitch, who is retiring at the end of 2021, said there are always business challenges.

"But from our perspective, the glass is half full, not half empty," he said of Engel officials. "We're not seeing a downturn in North America."

Caprio, who will succeed him as CEO, added, "We are forecasting a modest growth in the market for machinery next year in North America."

At Wittmann Battenfeld, Preusse called the market reaction to robots "phenomenal."

"New projects, new applications and replacements are normally healthy, but this pandemic is driving well over a 10 percent increase market demand to automate," he said. "I suspect it has to do with robots don't get sick, don't care about exposure, don't get government-forced shutdowns, so companies' top brass see once again the importance to automate."

Hillenbrand officials provided an outlook that assumes a gradual stabilization of the global economy continues with no increase in pandemic-related disruptions. They expect total sales to decrease 1-4 percent year over year, with a 12-15 percent drop in Advanced Process Solutions due to continued softness in its midcycle product lines and aftermarket parts and services.

However, Hillenbrand expects a 2-5 percent increase in its Molding Technology Solutions and a 12-15 percent increase for Batesville "based on a continued trend of elevated burial casket volume due to the pandemic," Hillenbrand Chief Financial Officer Kristina Cerniglia said during the quarterly call.

At CH America, Heyse said the outlook calls for continued, carefully managed growth, especially with the company's larger two-platen machines doing well in the market. Like others, he hopes trade shows can resume as part of marketing efforts.

"We are obviously concerned about NPE being canceled due to COVID-19 and the potential loss of that exposure to the broader market, but we also believe that if a vaccine or supereffective therapeutic arrives in time that NPE and 2021 could see a serious upside in business activity," Heyse said.