In view of the growing importance of electric vehicles, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag has expanded its production capacity, catering for suppliers of new components and those who want to upgrade their technologies.

The company has added an extra 4,000-square-meter production hall at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag China in Ningbo last year, despite the economic slowdown and reduced demand in the Chinese market under COVID restrictions during the year.

“We took the time to focus on our facility expansion and internal development to prepare for future market needs,” recalled Pietro Scattarreggia, CEO of Demag Plastics Machinery Ningbo Co., Ltd.

Nevertheless, the expansion in the relatively difficult year of 2022 came after two years of satisfactory business results.

“2020 was a good year for us despite the influence of the pandemic,” said Scattarreggia. “In 2021, we recorded the highest result in turnover and profit we ever had in China, driven by the demand in the packaging and medical markets.”

He said that Demag is planning to expand its product range with higher clamping force of up to 1,500 tons and aiming to increase its output, so more space for stocks and production is needed. The company will also be paying more attention to electric machine technologies in the future.

Pietro Scattarreggia, CEO of Demag Plastics Machinery Ningbo Co., Ltd. stands in front of an IntElect 130.

Scattarreggia affirmed that the Asian market in general, particularly automotive and electric vehicles in China, is booming. “When we look at the passenger cars in terms of registration amount in China last year, 20.4 million passenger cars were produced, of which some 5.7 million were electric vehicles,” he cited. “The percentage was around 27%, and we expect the percentage to rise to 60% in 2025.”

He predicts that the total number of electric vehicles will double in the coming few years and there will be a 30-40% increase every year on average.

Scattarreggia said that electric vehicles have less components inside, but they require higher connectivity. It is necessary to enhance signal exchange of cameras and sensors, which are used for detecting environment, transforming information and communicating with some clouds or other interfaces. Therefore, there is demand for new component products targeting electric vehicle applications.

The new components consist of precise parts, like connectors, light interfaces, light cameras and light sensors. These kinds of parts require much higher precision and process ability when compared to the parts for combustion engine cars.

“For us, as machine supplier, we have to pay attention to these trends and react to them with our technology advancement, so as to ensure safe and stable production of the new components for the electric vehicles industry,” said Scattarreggia.

He also said that suppliers in the combustion engine car industry would need to upgrade their know-how and production capability to keep pace with the market trends.

At CHINAPLAS 2023, the company is presenting the rotation mold technology and 4*12 double-color cap molding technology on a customized Systec120 machine.

Double-color rotary mold technology is suitable for manufacturing efficiency-sensitive double-color and multi- color products used in the automotive, packaging, and consumer goods industries. With the design that allows high cavity molds, the machine is also applicable for manufacturing disposable packaging and medical products.

Also on display is IntElect 130, which uses direct drive technology, where the drives and the controls are precisely matched and come from the same manufacturer, achieving a response time of 0.1 ms.

According to Demag, the “powerful dynamic performance” of the machine makes it possible to handle demanding process applications. It is characterized with comprehensive mold safety, optimized platen design, increased platen rigidity and more uniform force distribution.

IntElect's intuitive controls provide a variety of options for process monitoring and control, and an intuitive and easy-to-program control system that can be combined with flexible predefined machine sequences allows users to take advantage of IntElect's flexibility and efficiency.

Booth: 11G41