Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Plastic Technology Ties Up

ENGEL will supply hydraulic double-injection machines with a rotary platen system and featuring less than 1,000 ton clamping capacity. MHI-PT will soon begin accepting enquiries mainly from Japanese customers. MHI-PT will undertake all activities relating to sales of this machinery; from marketing, coordination of customer specification requests and order acceptance to installation, test operation and after-sale services, including parts supply. By expanding its product offerings in the Japanese market, MHI-PT will further strengthen its capability to provide a broad variety of solutions suited to the local market.

At present MHI-PT has commercialized extra-large and large-size electric double-injection molding machines with rotary platens offering clamping capacities of 3,000 and 1,450 tons, respectively. While the company has already delivered these machines in significant numbers to major automobile parts manufacturers and home electronics makers, demand has been increasing for multi-resin component molding machines with clamping capacities below 1,000 tons. By adding machines made by ENGEL - which has established a firm position in hydraulic molding machinery as the world's largest injection molding machinery manufacturer - to its product lineup, MHI-PT aims to respond expeditiously to this demand for smaller machines.

ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH is the core company of the ENGEL Group. In addition to injection molding, it engages in a wide range of plastic processing-related businesses. The company has its head office in Schwertberg and more than 70 business footholds worldwide.

Spurred by heightened environmental protection awareness, demand for multi-resin component molding is increasing, especially in the automobile and home electronics industries, in a quest for weight reduction, which is an effective yardstick for measuring energy consumption reduction, and streamlining of production processes, which ultimately contributes to energy-saving throughout the entire lifecycle of a product, including the production stage. In Europe, the introduction of multi-component molding machines in manufacturing has been progressing in earnest due to increased use of resins in various parts such as glazed transparent sliding roofs in automobiles. MHI-PT expects adoption of multi-component molding machinery in Japan to accelerate this year.

Going forward ENGEL AUSTRIA and MHI-PT will progressively expand their collaborative relationship. Leveraging each company's business resources such as product technology and sales network, and further enhancing their attentive customer services by responding to customer needs precisely, the two companies aim to develop and nurture this new market to a position of prominence.