PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2016

CHINA EDITOUR 8 PET planet insider Vol. 17 No. 07+08/16 www.petpla.net SPONSORS The China Road Show Year by year in China May 25, 2016, Demag Plastic Group, Beilun We met: Stephan Greif, Vice President China Demag in China has been producing injection moulding machines since 1999. At that time, Stephan Greif set up production close to Ningbo. Despite Demag’s many take- overs in the last sixteen years, Stephan is still holding the reins today and is continually developing the Chinese busi- ness for Demag. capacity for up to 1,500 machines a year. At the moment, 500 machines a year go through the production halls. “We were the first European injection moulding machine manufacturers to set up machine production in China” says Stephan, “Continuity is our recipe for success.” In addition to continuity, the trans- formation of the Chinese plastics industry is playing into the hands of the Nurembergers. The high-end segment, the high quality area with customised machines, is increasingly getting bigger at the expense of the low-end high volume machines. Of the 45,000 machines that were sold in the year in China, 6,000 of them constitute the high-quality segment. With the production of the hydraulic machines, Demag is hitting exactly this area. Customers can order any machine with different special features just as they are accustomed to do in Europe. Up until 2009, only 4% of the Demag machines were made for the packaging sector, such as caps, cups, or handles for oil bottles; today that trend has increased to14% i.e. 70 machines. “We are offering the fully-hydraulic version up to about 5s cycle time - for everything below this, we recommend the El Exis SP high speed machines from Germany,” says Stephan. For packaging applica- tions, Demag China is now offering a system with a bigger hydraulic pump and hydraulic accumulators in order to be able to achieve faster injection times. An all-electric machine from Beilun is not on the cards for the fore- seeable future. In contrast to the parent plant in Schwaig, Beilun is an assembly only facility. There are 42 injection mould- ing machine manufacturers in the region, so Demag can fall back on the well-equipped supplier industry. Ste- phan for instance purchases moulding parts and has them processed by the 100% Sumitomo subsidiary NSJ. The quality is so good that Demag China also purchases a few moulding parts for Demag Germany. www.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu “We have always been too far away and too small to be a major target in the takeover game,” Ste- phan assumes this is the reason for Demag China’s independence. Only last year he had inaugurated a new plant for the fourth time with 27.000m² of production space, paid for by their own funds, without financial support from Germany or Japan. This provides Stephan Greif (right) and Alexander Büchler in front of a Systec 650 C 3300 with a flip cap tool and a parts removal system by Pushmold.