ENGEL reopens modernized subsidiary

Together with over 200 guests, ENGEL opened its much extended and modernized subsidiary in Hannover on May 9 and 10.  ENGEL invested around 5 million euros in the location to equip itself for further growth on the German market and to meet future customer requirements.

Construction of the facility took 12 months. The entire ENGEL Hannover team had moved to a free adjacent industrial building since the refurbishment was very extensive, resulting in a doubling of floor space. A total of 2,400 square meters is now available for the office wing, training center and the technology center. The building has two floors covering the entire footprint and even the event and training area is now on two floors.

Christopher Vitz, managing director of ENGEL Deutschland GmbH at the Hannover location, is delighted with the new building and especially the new possibilities it offers. "Everything was completed on time to start operations," he says. Founded in 2000, space had become a premium at the most northerly of the four German subsidiaries over the last few years. "In the last few years, Germany has grown quite considerably," says Mr. Vitz. "Now that we have the extension, we can meet this growth head-on and it also means we are even better equipped to meet current and future customer requirements."

For several years, the strong growth in Germany has been partly due to the increase in cross-border business, i.e. international companies based in Germany make purchasing decisions in Germany. They also carry out project engineering for machines and production cells in Germany but install and operate them in a different country.

With a current work force of 80 employees, ENGEL Hannover is globally the second largest sales and service subsidiary of ENGEL AUSTRIA. The plan is to further increase the number of staff to cater to the requirements of customers.  

The driving forces behind technology growth in Germany include lightweight composites, continuing increases in process integration and Industry 4.0. These trends make manufacturing processes more complex and it requires more and more intensive collaboration between ENGEL and plastics processors.

The technology center and the training center were extended and totally refurbished with new equipment. ENGEL aims to present its latest machines, robots and technologies at the technology center and place them at customer disposal for them to carry out their own tests. There is even space for large machines with clamping forces up to 7,000 kN.  

inject 4.0 and lightweight construction for trying out and understanding

In addition to alternating the exhibits, two themes are a standard fixture in the new interactive technology center: inject 4.0 and lightweight construction.

ENGEL combines all activities linked to Industry 4.0 under the term inject 4.0. "The term Industry 4.0 was born in Hannover in 2011 and a couple of days ago at the Hannover Fair, we saw just how fast progress has been made in digitalisation and networking in various branches of industry," according to Mr. Vitz. ENGEL sees its role as a partner supporting its customers along the path towards the smart factory.

Today, ENGEL already offers its customers several software products and services for the digitalisation and networking of injection moulding processes. For example, the intelligent assistance systems of iQ weight control and iQ clamp control have become very well established. During the opening ceremony in Hannover, ENGEL clearly demonstrated these functionalities on a self-optimising injection moulding machine. All the machines at the technology centre are linked within an intelligent network which even allows automatic load management to avoid expensive energy peaks.

ENGEL is already an important partner in the development of lightweight construction solutions for large automobile manufacturers, some of whom have their plants in the immediate vicinity of Hannover. For example, ENGEL equipped the Open Hybrid LabFactory with a v duo machine for research into lightweight construction. The Open Hybrid LabFactory is the lightweight construction campus at the Braunschweig University of Applied Sciences and started up by several companies including Volkswagen. Project managers and lightweight construction specialists work at ENGEL in Hannover and are therefore available locally to work on customer projects.