Marketing

Preparations for K 2019 have begun. In its first meeting, the exhibitors’ council set the course for the world’s most significant trade fair for the plastics and rubber industries, which will take place from October 16 to 23, 2019 in Düsseldorf. The exhibitors’ council is made up of representatives from the exhibiting industries as well as the…

On April 19, Victrex announced that David Hummel has notified the board of his intention to retire after 24 years as CEO. The board is pleased to announce that Jakob Sigurdsson, the former CEO of Promens, who has more than 20 years' experience in diverse multinational companies, will join the company on September 1, 2017, as CEO designate...

Jindal Films Europe, a global leader in the development and manufacture of specialty films for the flexible packaging and labeling markets, is further expanding its metallizing capabilities at its site in Brindisi, Italy. The new metallizer will add a further 10,000 tons of metallization capacity with start-up expected in the second half of 2017...

Size reduction equipment specialist Rapid Granulator is making one of its biggest investments in decades to bring US production back under its full control. The company says this is a major move in its most important market. Rapid will begin in-house production of its full product range of equipment for granulating...

Ahead of the 2018 deadline, Negri Bossi has already obtained the certification of its quality system in conformity with the new ISO 9001 standards (issued in 2015), adopting a risk-based thinking approach in order to determine the factors that could make the quality control system and processes ineffective and to put in place the...

Victrex announced that it has acquired Zyex, operating in the manufacture of PEEK-based fibres, principally for the aerospace, automotive and industrial markets. The move further enables Victrex to offer differentiated PEEK-based solutions to open-up new markets, in line with its strategy. This is now strengthened with additional fibre...

Milacron Holdings and Sepro Group have reached an agreement that calls for Sepro to manufacture 3 and 5-axis robots to be sold with Milacron injection moulding machines throughout Europe. All robots are marketed under the Milacron brand name to equip its full range of injection...

Work-related accidents have marked a significant downturn in the recent years. The topic however, remains central, not only for general welfare policies but also in defining company’s growth strategy - a manufacturing system can be defined efficient and safe only if operators’ health and safety are non-negotiable values in the same...

While final preparations and team announcements continue for the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018, the event’s leadership team are working in parallel to map out the race’s future. The edition after this one, the fourteenth, will be contested in brand new One Design racing yachts designed by France’s Guillaume Verdier and built under the direction of…

Specialty chemicals company Lanxess continues to target growth. During the next three years, its business unit Advanced Industrial Intermediates will be investing some 100 million euros in expanding production facilities for chemical intermediates. Around 40 million euros each will be invested in the Leverkusen and Krefeld-Uerdingen sites in...

Solvay has signed a definitive agreement to sell its polyolefin cross-linkable compounds business in Italy to family-owned group Finproject. "Following Solvay's transformation, polyolefin cross-linkable compounds no longer fit within the portfolio of high-performance specialty polymers. Solvay has consistently grown...

ABB on April 4 announced the acquisition of B&R, the largest independent provider focused on product- and software-based, open-architecture solutions for machine and factory automation worldwide. B&R, founded in 1979 by Erwin Bernecker and Josef Rainer is headquartered in Eggelsberg, Austria, employs more than 3,000 people, including...

A company specialised in manufacturing extrusion and packaging machines for plastic pipes and profiles, IPM is now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. IPM was founded in 1987 by Claudio Argnani, Bruno Barabani and Silvia Geminiani (see picture below) after they had worked together for another company operating in the plastics sector for...

German plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers can look back over the past year with great satisfaction. 2016 as a whole saw substantial growth in sales, continuing the positive trend of the past few years. “At 4 per cent, growth is actually higher than the 2 per cent originally anticipated,” says Ulrich Reifenhäuser, Chairman of the VDMA…

On March 21, the company Negri Bossi celebrated seventy years in business. It was, indeed, 1947 when Pietro Negri and Walter Bossi, with the participation of Marco Giani, founded what is now one of Italy’s oldest industrial companies. The three had already worked together, from 1943 to 1947, at Cogema...

EuPC (European Plastics Converters) recently created the independent VFSE (Vinyl Films and Sheets Europe) association, whose mission is to represent the interest of European suppliers of plastics sheets, films and foils. To this aim, VFSE will drive common action tackling environment and recycling issues and carry out studies relating to the...

JEC World 2017, the exhibition dedicated to composites materials, closed its doors on March 16 with a two-digit attendance growth (+10%). “JEC Group’s strategy towards end-users is a winning one as we welcomed more architects, creators, developers, designers, style engineers and trend-setters”, said Frédérique Mutel, JEC Group president and...

Assocomaplast (Italian trade association, member of Confindustria, bringing together over 160 manufacturers of plastics and rubber processing machinery, equipment and moulds), through its Statistical Studies Center, has completed its year-end balance sheet for 2016, incorporating foreign trade data from Istat (Italian Institute of Statistics)...

The three companies, Baruffaldi Plastic Technology (machinery for profiles and roller shutters), Primac (machines for smooth and corrugated pipes) and Dosi (machining and engineering) have been reunited at Dosi headquarters in Fusignano (Ravenna, Italy), that have been enlarged for this occasion and now cover more than 4,000 square metres...

In 2016, sales of PVC in the US and Canada rose considerably (+4.4%, taking the total volume to around 7 million tons), while sales of PP and PS saw less marked increases. These figures are among data released by the American Chemistry Council, which, for these materials as a whole, has estimated growth rates of 3.7% and 5.7% for the...