Festo wins Arburg Energy Efficiency Award 2014

The Arburg Energy Efficiency Award was officially presented on 18 March 2014. Since 2008, Arburg bestows this award each year to a company for outstanding activities in the field of energy efficiency.  

The winner for 2014 is Festo, leading global supplier of technology for automation. The company has won the award for the conception of its new plastic parts production facility, which is fully geared towards energy efficiency, as well as cooperation on the Freeformer. In keeping with the special occasion, a five-strong high-powered delegation from Festo travelled to Lossburg to receive the award.  

Festo decided to set up a plant with a completely new polymer production facility and a focus on energy efficiency, the Global Production Centre Hassel, at its St. Ingbert location in the Saarland. The plant is currently under construction and will be finished in early 2015. All the important factors in terms of the building, production and machines are taken into account here.

Arburg was an important advisor and partner for Festo in this area as the two companies jointly examined the 45 Allrounders for thermoplastic and 12 vertical Allrounders for elastomer processing in detail with regard to energy requirements and production efficiency. Arburg was then tasked with devising optimal machine concepts. For the thermoplastics, electric Allrounder Alldrive machines were selected, which were specially configured to meet the requirements at the Hassel plant. For the elastomers, the machines are to be converted to speed-regulated pump drives.

The key elements of the holistic concept also include insulation of moulds and plasticising cylinders, optimisation of material pre-drying and supply through an efficient central solution and waste reduction, e.g. through lower sprue weights and fewer hot runner connections. Due to the nature of the products, the temperature levels were selected so that cooling is only necessary during midsummer, meaning that heat recovery can be dispensed with.  

Owing to its many years of wide-ranging experience in the additive manufacturing of prototypes and one-off parts, Festo was already supplied with a Freeformer in early 2013 in order to subject it to in-depth testing from a user point-of-view. The Freeformer expands the energy and efficiency end of the Arburg portfolio because fully functional one-off parts and small-volume batches can be produced very cost efficiently directly from standard granulates without a mould using 3D CAD files.  

The results and feedback from Festo provided Arburg with valuable information for optimisation and further development. Festo sees opportunities for using the Freeformer in its own business predominantly in the areas of prototyping and, following subsequent further development, in small-volume production.