Minister President impressed with Arburg and Industry 4.0 exhibit

Lossburg. On Wednesday 26 April 2017, the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, visited Arburg at the Hannover Messe. Managing Partner Juliane Hehl and Gerhard Böhm, Managing Director Sales, extended a warm welcome to their esteemed guest. They offered him a brief introduction to the family-owned company as well as the Industry 4.0 exhibit and presented him with an individualised “smart” luggage tag.

Baden-Württemberg’s Minister President, Winfried Kretschmann (centre) was welcomed to the Arburg stand at the Hannover Messe on 26 April 2017 by Juliane Hehl, Managing Partner, and Gerhard Böhm, Managing Director Sales. He was presented with an individualised “smart” luggage tag as a souvenir.
Photo: ARBURG

“As a medium-sized family-run company that develops and produces its machine technology and solutions for plastics processing exclusively in Baden-Württemberg, we were pleased to have the opportunity to present our innovations in the area of Industry 4.0 to Minister President Winfried Kretschmann,” emphasised Arburg’s Managing Partner, Juliane Hehl. Together with Gerhard Böhm, Managing Director Sales, she demonstrated how “smart” luggage tags can be produced in a smart factory following the principle of spatially distributed production on the company’s exhibition stand in Hanover. The Minister President was enthusiastic about the practical example of Industry 4.0 and was eventually presented with his own personalised luggage tag.

Industry 4.0 in practice
With more than three decades of experience in digitally integrated machines including peripheral equipment, Arburg is the industry leader in the field of Industry 4.0. At the “Digital Factory” trade show within the Hannover Messe 2017, the stand was designated as a “Highlight@Industrial Supply”. Visitors were also given the opportunity to find out more about Industry 4.0 in plastic parts production through numerous guided tours.
The small trade fair production facility on the Arburg stand, as well as the associated “webshop” on the stand of partner Pöppelmann, showed important elements of Industry 4.0: sequential manufacturing at spatially distributed locations, “‘mass customisation” – in other words the customer-specific individualisation of high-volume parts through the combination of injection moulding and additive manufacturing – as well as the end-to-end traceability of each individual part. Injection moulding, industrial additive manufacturing and automation are combined for the flexibly automated, cost-efficient production of individualised luggage tags and the process data is recorded using the ARBURG host computer system (ALS).

Arburg named among the top 50 most innovative medium-sized companies
In 2016, Arburg was ranked among the top 50 most innovative medium-sized companies as the best machine manufacturer. “Wirtschaftswoche” magazine arranged for 3,500 medium-sized German companies to be analysed for this purpose. In the overall ranking, Arburg finished eighth with an innovation score of 181 out of a maximum 200 possible points behind companies like Rimowa (wheeled suitcases), Leica (cameras) and Lamy (writing implements). Arburg is well-known to the plastics industry as a manufacturer of high-end technology. Allrounder injection moulding machines, the Freeformer for industrial additive manufacturing, robotic systems and modern Industry 4.0 solutions are developed at the company headquarters and the central production site in Lossburg on a total of 171,000 square metres.