Current news from the mold and die industry

For four days, Formnext 2022 turned host city Frankfurt into the global capital of industrial 3D printing. And this year’s exhibition was very much in tune with the times. As the coronavirus pandemic continues and new political and economic challenges emerge as a result, additive manufacturing can play a key role in decentralizing manufacturing processes and production, making supply chains more resilient, and facilitating resource and energy efficient production in order to get innovative new products onto the market faster.

The industry continues to face significant bottlenecks along the entire supply chain. As a consequence, prices for both raw materials and commodities continue to rise, along with massive increases in energy, freight and transport costs. This creates uncertainty for many companies. ‘The optimism that many companies initially had due to a good volume of orders is now severely affected by the procurement crisis. The current supply problems are clearly slowing down economic growth’ explains Guntram Meusburger, Managing Director of Meusburger. 

The same year that saw Queen Elizabeth II ascend to the throne, the first artificial heart valve implanted in the USA and the musical “Singin’ in the Rain” inspire millions at the cinema, history was also made in Germany with the inaugural edition of K, hosted in Düsseldorf from 11 to 19 October 1952. At that time nobody suspected this event only just taking off would develop into the world’s leading trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry.​ (Picture: Messe Düsseldorf)

Thermoplay customers in the DACH market – Germany-Austria-Switzerland – will benefit in the future from the technical advice, project support, parts, supply, and repair services available directly through mӓnner at its German headquarters in Bahlingen.

Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division announced the signing of an agreement to acquire MECADAT AG, a distributor of CAD CAM software and complementary solutions for tool and mould making. 

Wittmann Battenfeld has intensified the cooperation between its Sales and Application Engineering departments so that it can offer customized and industry-specific solutions worldwide faster and in a more targeted way than before. To this end, special focal areas of application technology have been defined and appropriate reorganization measures taken.

“Hello, new EMO Hannover!” is the greeting that was shared at the EMO Hannover Relaunch Conference in the hybrid event hub “H’UP” on the Hannover Messe trade fair grounds. As organizers of EMO Hannover, the German Machine Tool Builders’ Association (VDW) had invited international media representatives and EMO Hannover exhibitors to a digital presentation of the new exhibition concept on September 14 of this year.

The Fakuma international trade fair for plastics processing has been officially launched on its new digital trade fair platform, namely Fakuma-Virtual. Immediately after postponing the scheduled trade fair dates in 2020 to next year, trade fair promoters P. E. Schall GmbH & Co. KG acted quickly and officially opened the new digital meeting place for suppliers and users of industrial plastics processing.

The preparations for Moulding Expo, International Trade Fair for Tool, Pattern and Mould Making, 
which will be held at Messe Stuttgart from 8 to 11 June 2021, are gathering momentum: not only is the project team already in the middle of the planning stage, the first companies have also already secured their stand location.

"If anything good has come out of this difficult time, it is the stimulation of creativity," stated Dr Wilfried Schäfer, Executive Director of the VDW, (German Machine Tool Builders' Association) at the METAV 2020 reloaded Preview on 10 December 2020. The press conference was originally intended to pave the way for the METAV 2020 reloaded fair next March. But the trade fair has now been completely reinvented as "METAV digital". It will be held from 23 to 26 March 2021.

Although Formnext is fully online this year, it will still be the leading international marketplace for innovations in additive manufacturing and intelligent production, and represents the ideal platform for making new business contacts this November. In the guise of Formnext Connect, the exhibition will feature, among other things, presentations and the latest innovations from world-leading exhibitors, intelligent matchmaking, and diverse supporting events to give participants a unique insight into specific technologies and recent developments in the industry.

Due to the COVID 19 pandemic the important industry event, AMB in Stuttgart, cannot take place this year in its usual format. "With the AMB Technology Forum in September there is still a good reason to come to the Stuttgart trade fair grounds", says Gunnar Mey, Department Director for Industrial Solutions at Messe Stuttgart. In the AMB week from 14 September various topics will be the focus of presentations and the accompanying table top exhibition. What's planned: software and control, tool solutions, machine elements and peripheral devices, machine tools, as well as machine tool automation.

DP Technology, leaders in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software, announce a new update to their popular ESPRIT CAM system. The new ESPRIT includes new features such as a balanced turning cycle, as well as enhancements to existing features such as probing and additive directed-energy deposition (DED). 

16.12.2020 As a company of the international Horn Group, Horn USA has found its greatest successes by mimicking the positive examples of its parent company. Just as Paul Horn GmbH has increased its manufacturing capacity for faster delivery and to better meet its customers’ requirements, Horn USA has also kept its finger on the pulse of customer needs while looking towards expansion.

voxeljet AG, a leading global technology company for industrial 3D printing solutions, is delighted to further expand its presence in India. The Indian steel casting expert Peekay Steel Castings (P) Ltd has decided to invest in the VX4000, with a Job Box size of 4,000 x 2,000 x 1,000 mm. The VX4000 system is one of the world's largest and most productive 3D printers with a build volume of eight cubic meters. Peekay Steel has chosen the VX4000 system to quickly and economically realize technically demanding projects and to expand into new business areas.

The new REVERSE CUBE developed by FOBOHA in combination with an ARBURG ALLROUNDER CUBE 2900 injection molding machine manufactures single and multi-component parts from various materials and has an integrated handling robot for autonomous assembly of parts. The automated process improves quality, accelerates cycle times by up to 40 percent compared to separate injection molding and installation processes, and delivers tremendous cost savings.

The current corona virus makes it clear how quickly the base of human life can be endangered. This makes it all more incomprehensible that we ourselves haven’t redirected our consumer behavior and production towards sustainability yet. We prefer to listen to the one who questions the whole and apparently justifies our insistence on the old structures, rather than to the many scientists who warn louder and louder and call for a change of course. Do our children have to be even clearer in their protest until we finally listen to them?

In the midst of the corona crisis, in between restrictions on movement and contact, a key word that seems to be a universal remedy for industry and the economy is suddenly doing the rounds again: digitalisation. The virologists who are constantly searching for answers surrounding the corona epidemic should be able to use the large quantity of anonymised data of mobile phones in order to better understand how the population is behaving and thus make better predictions on curbing the spread. 

Cooling systems play a key role in plastics injection molding – and there are naturally many different options available here for optimizing the process as a whole. The goal is to only cool for as short a time as is necessary so as to keep the production cycles as short as possible too. At the same time, the highest possible part quality is to be guaranteed on a permanent basis.