September 16 saw the Italian-based injection machine manufacturing operations of Netstal and KraussMaffei brought under one roof at the plant in Cerro Maggiore (Milan). The announcement was made on September 25 by the group's deputy sales manager Frank Peters. The new KraussMaffei Group Italia will be managed by Andrea Bottelli, who previously headed Nestal's Italian subsidiary, while KraussMaffei Italiana is to operate exclusively as a centre of excellence for polyurethane process technology, under the lead of Gabriele Amodeo.
"Through this reorganisation, our injection molding activities for the Netstal and KraussMaffei brands in Italy have been pooled under the competent leadership of Andrea Bottelli. I am convinced that this decision will be welcomed by our Italian clients," commented Hans Ulrich Golz, president of the group's injection moulding technology division. "I am delighted to take on this new challenge and sure that, by unifying the know-how of KraussMaffei and Netstal, we will, in the future, be able to offer our Italian customers in the injection moulding sector added value, taking into account their specific needs", added Andrea Bottelli.
The two brands will nevertheless be kept separate on the Italian market, in order to offer processors a wider choice of system solutions so that they can find the ones best suited to their particular needs. The centre of excellence, on the other hand, will focus exclusively on system manufacturing and sale of polyurethane processing machinery. "In recent years, KraussMaffei has established a centre of excellence for reaction mouding technology in Abbiategrasso (near Milan), and is therefore ideally placed to serve the industrial white appliances sector. We plan to further strengthen this center of excellence under Gabriele Amodeo", concluded Nicolas Beyl, president of the polyurethane technology division.