2013
| news Romi CFO lays out new strategy
K2013 marked the start of a new international sales strategy for Brazilian machin- ery maker Romi, which acquired the ailing Italian Sandretto machinery operation in 2008 and, just weeks before the show opened, disposed of the manufacturing plant and associated IP. Romi CFO and supply chain
director Luiz Cassiano Rando Rosolen provided more details of that deal, which sees the former Sandretto Pont Canavese factory and its associated employee and labour liabilities sold to financial group Scout One and the Sandretto IP and trademark transferred to a new company owned by the Regione Piemon- te regional government. Romi retains the French, Spanish and UK sales operations. “The IP relates to the
Sandretto machines. The machines here at K are all Romi, they are more precise, more productive, and more energy efficient. Everything is much better,” said Rosolen.
“The IP we have passed on to the new [government-owned] company has no value to the Romi equipment.” Rosolen said that new
company will license the Sandretto technology and brand in Italy and it will be able to sell machines outside of Italy from the end of 2014. As part of the deal, however, Romi retains the right to service Sandretto machines world- wide. “We never abandon a customer so it was important for us to have those rights. But we are not going to produce [Sandretto] machines,” he said.
Romi CFO Luiz Cassiano R Rosolen (right) with international sales director Monica Romi Zanatta at K
The company initiated the
process that eventually led to the liquidation of the Romi Italia operation little more than two years after its acquisition. However, Rosolen said those first two years saw the Italian business, which was already weak and suffering product quality problems, face the full impact of the economic downturn. “That made the acquisition even more challenging for us and it was probably the thing that made it unsuccessful,” he said. Romi financial reports show the Romi Italia (Sandretto)
business made a loss before taxes (EBITDA) of around €4.6m on sales of €5.8M in 2012. Sales for 2012 were down from around €10m in 2011. Prior to the Sandretto
purchase, Romi was very much focused on its home Brazilian market. But Rosolen said the international experience it has gained since 2008, together with the new focus on its own Romi-developed machine lines, is now showing in sales terms. “Our performance this year selling only Romi machines has been much better,” he said. At K the company showed
examples from this new own-developed range, including a 450 tonne version of its energy saving EN Series hydraulic model and 75 and a new 300 tonne version of its EL Series all-electric. Romi manufactured around 350 injection machines at its plant in Brazil last year and around 100 blowmoulding units. ❙
www.romi.com.br
Nano-moulding targets product security
French injection machinery maker Billion partnered with the Oyonnax-based PEP polymer technology centre and Swiss engineering company Mimotec to demonstrate production of plastic parts with moulded-in holographic security markings. Running on a 50 tonne
Select all-electric machine, the system was producing small polycarbonate plates in a mould carrying a holographic
16
insert produced by Mimotec using LIGA techniques. An injection-compression moulding cycle was being used, together with variotherm (heat-cool) mould temperature cycling technology from SISE of France and vacuum extraction. According to Stephane
Dessors, R&D project manager at the PEP, the process accurately replicates the holographic nano-structure
INJECTION WORLD | November/December 2013
(which carries features measuring less than 1,000nm high and 300nm diameter). He says the mark can be read using a either transmission or reflection laser illumination, making it more simple to validate than additive-based anti-counterfeiting systems. “The process will work with
any standard moulding material, it just needs good fluidity,” Dessor says. “And you only need a laser to check if
the parts are original or not. It is really easy.”
Billion CEO Korbinian Kiesl said the Select H80-50T machine used was a standard model aside from the inclusion of an optional injection-com- pression control feature, which is achieved using the mould height adjustment on the toggle clamp system. ❙
www.billion.fr ❙
www.poleplasturgie.net ❙
www.mimotec.ch
www.injectionworld.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68