PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2017

TRADE SHOW PREVIEW PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 04/17 www.petpla.net 61 Tour Sponsors: From preform design to bottle blowing – Andy, Chairman of Demark Holding, talks to PETplanet about his company’s past and future projects Entrepreneur with a vision by Alexander Büchler There are still young entrepreneurs who, with fresh ideas and vision, can transform a small machine manufacturing business into a major international company and then grow it over the decades. The PET industry counts a number of such people in its ranks. Amongst this cohort of entrepre- neurs, mention must be made of Robert Schad, who turned Husky into a major player, Franco Zoppas, who developed Sipa into a full service provider or Volker Kronseder, who made Krones a market leader. In China we have discovered someone else, who - we believe - may come to be men- tioned in the same breath as these pioneers: Andy. Just Andy, nothing else. 13 years ago Andy set up Demark China, with the vision of becoming a high-tech provider of tools and machines for the PET industry. Even more, he aimed to offer the full range from preforms via bottles to the closing device. The thirty five year old is now sitting opposite me. He has invited me to join him in the traditional Chi- nese tea ceremony to talk about how the company developed. His first job was working for his uncle. The company manufactured manual blow- ing machines. It was quickly clear to Andy that the future lay elsewhere and this prompted him to set up his own company. In 2001 China joined the WTO and western machines came into China. Andy learned a lot from these foreign-made machines and began to build his own. For him, automation is key. And simi- larly, a full and clear commitment to the two-stage process. Moulds and rotary blowing machines came next, in 2008. The 10-cavity machine was capable of 16.000b/h. At the time, he restricted himself to 48-cavity pre- form moulds. Today, the blow-moulding machine runs at 1,900 b/h/cavity with 16 cavities. In the preform area, his machines can accommodate moulds of up to 128 cavities. He produces his own moulds, and has cooper- ated with MHT at the China Brew and Beverage exhibition. The preform- line was running at 128 cavities with an MHT tool. Two robots handle the removal stage. The first takes the preform out of the mould and the second one is responsible for cooling. His clients can now choose either the Demark moulds or in the higher cavities area, the MHT mould. “The fact that we offer European tools on our machines should create confidence in our technology,” is how Andy explains this rather unusual step. 60% of sales are exported. Andy assesses the inland market currently as quiet. However, he sees the cur- rent situation has a good side to it as well: “The market needs times like these, so that weak compa- nies disappear from the market and the strong ones will come out of it stronger”. Andy is investing further in his production. Next year he would like to acquire another factory with a production surface area of 20,000m² for moulds, 30,000m² for injection moulding machines and 15,000m² for stretch-blow moulding machines. In order to strengthen sales, he is building up a Sales and Service network in various countries. Initially he is restricting himself to the rapidly growing markets in Asia, Africa and South America. He is excluding the industrialised nations from his strat- egy. In answer to my question as to what we will be talking about were we to meet in ten years’ time, he does not hesitate: “Well, obviously about moulds, preform machines and stretch-blow machines”. A man who not only possesses vision but also staying power. www.demark-pet.com Booth 9.1 R41 Andy, Chairman of Demark Holding