As our European OEM manufacturing industry moves to outsource the majority of its operations, critical decisions on choosing partner machine manufacturers and technology often becomes a secondary issue for them.

At HBC however, this movement to outsource makes every decision we make to source the right machines more critical as the machine is chosen to complement the projects we partner on, as if we were the OEM themselves.

Recent demands for technical mouldings have led us to work closely with machine manufacturers who can offer new technologies. In working with one of our customers we went through a very prolonged machine selection process to find a technical solution for a complicated product that included over moulding of a brass insert, and three screw threads formed by side action rotating cores. After much debate the tiebarless technology of Engel won our vote as well as the vote of the customer.

Tiebarless technology, as the name suggests, redefines tiebar technology. On the Engel Victory model machine there is a choice of a standard platen, one that is vertically enlarged and another that is both vertically and horizontally enlarged. The two C frames give a cross sectional area 10x larger than comparable tiebar machines. You will see from the pictures that the tool in this case almost touches the edges of the housing. Engel Flexlink technology, the link between the moving platen and the ram of the hydraulic clamping unit, compensates frame distortion and ensures optimum parallelism of the stationary and moving platens when clamping pressure is applied. Reliability and low maintenance are key feature benefits of this machine.

There are other upsides. Firstly the machine is physically 30% smaller than a comparable tie bar machine of 350 tonnes and as a result the press itself requires less space, height and power to run. To achieve the same output from a tiebar machine, the Engel also makes for sound economical choice as the machine uses technology rather than size to pay for itself. The tool size in this case is 750x750cm with a weight approaching 2 tonnes.

Engel’s Tiebarless technology won this contest, however HBC has a real mix of technology led moulding machines to compliment our operation spanning a global market, manufacturing millions of varied plastic and metal components for over a dozen well known OEM manufacturers in Europe. Demag, Neggrobossi and Billion along with Engel make up the bulk of our plant and we have excellent relations with these machine manufacturers and each new machine selection is made on the merits of each contract order we partner.

For more information on how HBC can benefit your OEM Manufacturing project , please contact Gordon Nicholson or our sales office online. click here.