Beyond thermoforming

On December 11, Comi held an open house event at its Ciserano plant (Bergamo, Italy)  in order to introduce its latest machines to its customers, both current and potential, and also to the specialised press.

Hosting the event, in particular, were the company’s CEO, Franco Ballabio, the general manager Silvio Tavecchia, and the technical and sales directors of the group, which is a leading manufacturer of thermoforming machines for the electrical household appliances sector (through its brands Comi, Parco and Effelle), but which is also expanding into the sectors of  in-line thermoforming machines for packaging (thanks to the Amut-Comi joint venture) and machining centres (through TechMill).

Five machines were exhibited during the event. First of all, an in-line thermoforming plant for the high-output production of interior parts for domestic refrigerators. “This is the fastest system of its particular kind in the world, with an output of up to about 170 cells/hour, and when it comes to this type of machine, there is no one who can match us”, declared CEO Franco Ballabio during the event.

Exhibited right alongside it was a LaborMax machining centre from Techmill. Even though the model on display was equipped with a simple 3-axis head, the LaborMax machining centres are among the most versatile of the range and can also be configured with 5 axes, in versions suitable for milling plastic materials, composites, aluminium and light alloys.

LaborWind and LaborMidi, on the other hand, are larger machining centres that feature unique mechanical and software solutions. The fifth machine on display was a Labortech vertical, two-platen laboratory press, featuring active parallelism control, a vacuum chamber and magnetic heating platens.

“Having recorded an excellent 87% growth between 2013 and 2014, in the period 2014-2015 we have basically maintained our positions, recording a turnover pretty much in line with that of the previous two years. Over 80% of this turnover was generated through exports, to over 50 countries throughout the world,” remarked Comi CEO, Franco Ballabio. “Our decision to organise this open-house event was prompted by the fact that at this particular moment in time we happened to have various machines from our range available at our facilities, which is quite an unusual circumstance, given that Comi essentially produces machines to order, and each one is different from the other. This is also why it is difficult for us, as already indicated, to maintain stable volumes and turnover from year to year, even though our results continue to be positive.”

“Our core business continues to be thermoforming, which accounts for about 70% of Comi’s turnover,” Ballabio added, “even though, as a group, we are also expanding in the  fields of milling and cutting systems, and entering new markets such as the aerospace and automotive industries which offer good growth prospects. Furthermore, we are soon to begin constructing thermoforming moulds internally, initially for the refrigerators sector, but then also for the automotive and packaging sectors. In the future we may also look at the possibility of producing thermocompression moulds, but for the time being we are concentrating on the technologies in which we already have considerable know-how, naturally linked to the group’s production activity.”