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KraussMaffei delivers largest injection molding machine in Switzerland

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KraussMaffei chartered 22 trucks to deliver the MX 4000 to container manufacturer Georg Utz AG.

The MX 4000 after installation at Georg Utz. Photo Credit: KrausMaffei

A new 40,000 kN KraussMaffei injection molding machine – said to be the largest unit in Switzerland – has been installed at the manufacturing plant of Swiss container maker Georg Utz AG in the city of Bremgarten.

The colossal machinery traveled on a total of 22 trucks from Munich to Bremgarten: one for the machine bed, each platen, one per two tiebars and one each for many other components.

Installation and setup of the production cell, which includes a two-story automation system, took 12 weeks, officials with KraussMaffei said. The MX 4000 replaces an older machine owned by George Utz with a clamping force of 27,000 kN that offered few technical options, had only a simple linear robot, and had fallen far behind the state of the art in terms of energy balance.

The MX 4000 is much more energy efficient, KraussMaffei said, and also will enable increased production volume through the use of stack and multi-cavity molds.

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“We have a group-wide standard for the machine specification. However, this machine size was unprecedented for us as well,” said Andreas Schlegel, Georg Utz’s head of operations/managing director. “Very little space was available and the equipment of the machine was expanded further by adding a few options. At the end of the process, everybody was relieved that we’d done everything correctly in the planning stage, because many interfaces have to be coordinated with each other. Including automation, the entire system is now significantly larger than before.”

Georg Utz makes approximately 20 different products weighing up to 50 kilograms, including pallets, boxes, and paloxes. Polyolefins such as polypropylene or high-density polyethylene are typically used, but the containers can also be molded from ABS or technical plastics.

The containers currently contain 35 per cent of recycled material, which is set to increase to 80 per cent as part of the Utz group’s sustainability goals. KraussMaffei molding machines assist in this effort via APCplus. Based on the melt viscosity, APCplus adjusts the changeover point and holding pressure, balancing out batch fluctuations that result from different raw materials and percentage of recyclate.

Georg Utz runs a total of 50 KraussMaffei injection molding machines, 22 of them in Switzerland. It also operates production sites in Germany, France, Poland, China, the UK, the U.S., and Mexico.

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