CHINAPLAS 2014: KraussMaffei opened second plant to meet strong demand

TO celebrate the opening of CHINAPLAS 2014 in Shanghai, the KraussMaffei Group officially inaugurated the second production hall at its manufacturing plant in Haiyan, China. Around 400 of its customers and business partners attended this event in Haiyan. As part of the expansion of the plant, the production space has been doubled and now covers 22,000 sq.m. By doing so the company is continuing its expansion strategy in China, where it sees considerable growth potential for its brands KraussMaffei, KraussMaffei Berstorff and Netstal.

"By doubling our production capacity, we are accommodating the increasing demand from China and Asia for products that are manufactured locally yet drawing on our considerable European expertise and meeting our high standards of quality," emphasizes Jan Siebert, CEO of the KraussMaffei Group during the plant opening.

Following several years of successfully producing KraussMaffei Berstorff extrusion machinery and KraussMaffei reaction process machinery in China, KraussMaffei MX-series injection moulding machines have been being produced in the expanded manufacturing plant since 2013 – with great success.

To strengthen the local injection moulding portfolio, Netstal has now opened a new Demonstration and Training Center, which is also available for customers to visit. It is home to a fully electric Netstal ELION machine with a clamping force of 2200 kilonewtons (kN), which is demonstrating sample production of PET blood collection tubes, and a complete PET-LINE system, which is acting as a demonstration machine for the beverage industry. "We are very well positioned in China with our three brands KraussMaffei, KraussMaffei Berstorff and Netstal. We are also continuing our expansion strategy by stepping up our marketing and service activities, which will drive company growth in China even more," Mr. Siebert added.

High expectations on the China market

During CHINAPLAS, the company’s reaction process machinery segment brought attention to its product portfolio of machines and system, which can be used to process polyurethane raw materials and other reactive materials also with foaming agents. In a single process step, mouldings are thus created through chemical reaction. These products are then used, for example, in the automotive sector as upholstery material in the vehicle interior or in the cooling and air conditioning systems for insulation.

                 Mr. Nicholas Beyl

KraussMaffei is also a system provider in the product areas mixing heads and dosing machines, presses, die cutters, flexible cutting systems and foaming tools as well as machines and systems for insulation applications.

“We have very high expectations on the China market as we view the rapid growth in such applications as automotive, consumer appliances and composites as factors that can drive demand for our products. The response to our products have been very positive so far because we combine cost-efficiency with proximity to customers with our local production, and on the other end premium technology and innovativeness as some of our components are still being produced in Germany,” according to Nicholas Beyl, President of Reaction Process Machinery at KraussMaffei.

Mr. Beyl explained that the company has been highly optimistic on the China market and eyes growing automotive production, consumer appliances and composites as areas where KraussMaffei products can serve customers. “As a market for composites, China holds promising prospects. We see customers in China acquiring lab equipment to perform tests on composites and this sector is very much on its way to full development in 4 to 5 years,” he said.  

At the CHINAPLAS booth, the topic of lightweight construction was prominent. For instance, the roof module for the Roding Roadster R1, which is manufactured using the surface RTM process was on displayed and explained by company staff. The newly developed surface RTM process enables cost-effective mass production of paintable fibre-reinforced visible components for automotive construction. Paintable components are created by flow-coating the surface of the fiber-composite component with a polyurethane layer directly in the cavity, without the need for any additional intermediate steps.