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Industry 4.0: International journalists visit Arburg

  • Exclusive press tour makes a stop in Lossburg
  • "Industry 4.0" embraces both products and production at Arburg
  • Application examples of the successful implementation of "Industry 4.0"

Lossburg. On 29 June 2016, Arburg received a visit from a delegation of international journalists who wanted to find out how "Industry 4.0" can be successfully implemented in practice. The Lossburg machine manufacturer was one stop during the press tour organised by "Baden-Württemberg International" (bw-i) an organisation that focuses on international economic and scientific cooperation.

Each year "Baden-Württemberg International" organises press tours for international journalists on a variety of topics. This year, the aim was to treat eight members of the press to an exclusive introduction to the current developments in relation to "Industry 4.0 in Baden-Württemberg". The journalists were a broadly international group. They came from Belgium, France, India, Latvia, Serbia and Spain and are involved in radio and television, as well as print and online magazines. In addition to Arburg, the press tour also included stops at the likes of the Fraunhofer Institute forIndustrial Engineering IAO in Stuttgart and Robert Bosch GmbH in Feuerbach, as well as the Technical Faculty of the University of Freiburg and Testo AG in Titisee-Neustadt.

Over three decades of experience

At Arburg, the members of the press learned how customers can use Arburg products to implement "Industry 4.0" and how Arburg has already put this principle into practice at its own production facility.

The group was welcomed by Dr Christoph Schumacher, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications. He introduced them to the company, its philosophy and its product range. He explained that "Industry 4.0" relates to both Arburg's products and to its production facility, mentioning that the company already laid the foundations for digitally networked production in both areas over 30 years ago.

"Industry 4.0" for Arburg customers

A film about a system that has already been presented successfully at trade fairs to illustrate "Industrie 4.0 – powered by Arburg" highlighted the potential that this topic offers to plastics processors. Interlinking injection moulding and additive manufacturing with Industry 4.0 technologies enables the individualisation of mass-produced articles. As well as enhancing added value, this also allows completely new business concepts to be realised.

"Industry 4.0" in Arburg production

The subsequent factory tour offered the journalists an insight into production at Arburg. Klaus Schäfer, Head of Work Preparation, explained various systems and processes and showed just how Arburg successfully implements "Industry 4.0" in its own production facility. These include, for example, interactive production planning and a just-in-sequence supply of parts to the assembly stations. Furthermore, the company uses IT in all aspects of its work, from logistics through to data archiving, relaying on SAP and a number of self-organizing processes. Further examples of Industry 4.0 include highly automated machining centres that operate unmanned during the night and at weekends, a flexible production system that links the warehouse, assembly stations and processing machines, as well as a transport control system that manages more than 3,500 transport tasks each day fully automatically. The components and products at the Arburg production facility can be uniquely identified and located at any time and their history and current status are known.

Extensive information on "Industry 4.0"

The international members of the press were highly impressed by the high-end production on show at the Lossburg-based machine manufacturer. A communal lunch with the guests provided a further opportunity to answer and discuss individual questions. This enabled the journalists to gain new insights into "Industry 4.0", which they could take home with them.

Photo

ARBURG 104332 bw-i Pressedelegation 2016.jpg

During the tour, Klaus Schäfer, Headof Work Preparation at Arburg, explained to the international press delegation just how Arburg successfully implements "Industry 4.0" in its own production facility.

Photo: ARBURG

About Arburg

German machine manufacturer Arburg is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of injection moulding machines with clamping forces between 125 and 5,000 kN. This is complemented by robotic systems, customer- and industry-specific turnkey solutions and further peripheral equipment. An innovative additive manufacturing system was added to the plastics processing range in 2013.

The company places the topic of production efficiency at the centre of all its activities, taking into account the entire value-added chain. The objective is to enable the Arburg customers to manufacture their plastic products, whether one-off parts or high-volume batches, in optimal quality and at minimum unit costs – e.g. for the automotive and packaging industries, communication and entertainment electronics, medical technology or the white goods sector.

An international sales and service network guarantees first-class, local customer support. Arburg is represented by its own organisations at 33 locations in 25 countries and by trading partners in more than 50 countries. The machines are produced exclusively at the parent company in Lossburg, Germany. Of a total of roughly 2,550 employees, around 2,100 work in Germany. About 450 further employees work in Arburg’s organisations around the world. In 2012, Arburg became one of the first companies to gain triple certification: to ISO 9001 (Quality), ISO 14001 (Environment) and ISO 50001 (Energy).

Further information about Arburg can be found at

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