How can you achieve maximum economy in injection moulding, while at the same time minimising energy consumption? Answers to these and other questions were the focus of the ENGEL Symposium 09 in St. Valentin and Linz. In keeping with its catch phrase "close to the customer. open to innovation" ENGEL presented 17 innovative exhibits that focused on high productivity and low energy consumption. On top of this, visitors had a fantastic opportunity to update their skills by attending talks on the latest trends in the plastics industry.

This is ENGEL's way of demonstrating that the company is continuing to emphasise innovation and development in these difficult economic times. Innovative products reinforce ENGEL's market leadership and form the basis for its own, and its customers' future success. At the symposium, ENGEL showed some highly ground-breaking solutions, such as the ENGEL clearmelt process. To do so, the manufacturing of a cover for an automobile interior with visually impressive 3D effects and excellent scratch resilience was demonstrated during the symposium. The production system for the demonstration used sliding table technology to inject transparent polyurethane over a thermoplastic carrier. Compared to legacy approaches – such as multiple layer coating – excellent productivity and thin layers are the major benefits. The partners in this project were Schöfer (product idea and mould), Hennecke (PUR machine), Votteler (PUR), Burg Design (foil) and Bayer (carrier material

The presentation of ENGEL onyx was another highlight. ENGEL onyx is a new carbide coating for screws which improves both the coating toughness and the bonding force by 300 percent. The unique selling point of the new ENGEL onyx coating is the evenly spread coating of carbide metal over the whole screw contour with an extremely high bonding potential and improved robustness.

Last but not least, ENGEL ecodrive introduced the new energy-saving drive system for the ENGEL victory and ENGEL duo machines. The new servo-hydraulic economises with energy: In contrast to the standard hydraulics with asynchronous motor used previously, the new system has a fixed displacement pump and servomotor. The ENGEL ecodrive gives manufacturers the ability to keep the speed down to the required level when the machine is running. In other words, the drive is only active during movements.

All told, an exhibition of superlatives.

"In these drastic economic times, our customers are increasingly relying on improving their competitiveness by increasing productivity, innovations and energy savings. And they look for innovative and stable partners for the future to help them achieve this. The very positive response with 2,000 attending the ENGEL Symposium shows that we fulfill these needs by offering our customers attractive solutions to help them continue mastering future market challenges and motivates to continue this way", says Dr. Peter Neumann, CEO ENGEL Holding.