![]() As has been the case for many companies in the machinery manufacturing sector, business for Cima Impianti has changed dramatically over the past decade. The Italian maker of tyre production machinery states that it has required a “great capacity to evolve and adapt to the new market situation” in order to gain the flexibility it needs in both people skills and machining process equipment. The precise makeup of Cima’s activities within the retreading sector varies from year to year and depends both upon the individual contracts it receives and trends within the market. Thanks to its deep market knowledge and the flexibility it has fostered, Cima reports it has been able to develop new equipment and also adapt existing products to meet evolving market requirements. Today, the company offers a portfolio that covers the entire retreading process from passenger car to OTR tyres, a range of equipment that includes CNC peeling, buffing and grooving machines along with a line of CNC extruders, skive fillers and cushion gum application machines. ![]() All these machines are designed as well as manufactured by Cima Impianti and complement the company’s mould business – but Cima says curing press manufacture occupies the “unchallenged top spot” in its production activities. It offers 25 sizes of retreading curing press models, in six different versions, and the company states that “whatever rubber related product you need to cure, Cima has a suitable press or will develop a customised one for you.” During the past two decades, it has also developed a number of presses specifically designed for the curing of rubber tank tracks, rubber coated traction wheels, wheelchair tracks, pre-cured circular treads and solid tyres. Cima considers bladderless (tubeless) systems a particular company strength, and prides itself on the ability to provide bespoke solutions for sectors such as aviation tyre retreading, businesses where end users, typically new tyre manufacturers, require very specific customisations. As already mentioned, evolving market requirements necessitate the ongoing rollout of new and improved products. The most recent innovation that Cima has adopted for its curing presses is the introduction of self-lubricating materials that eliminate the need for centralised lubrication. The manufacturer states that the use of self-lubricating materials is a “substantial improvement” that benefits both the work area and the end product by eliminating the use of grease, a substance that can contaminate the product and end up smeared around the machine. The system was initially introduced in Cima’s truck tyre presses and is now being gradually rolled out in all models of Cima press. Another sign of Cima’s flexibility is its diversification into areas outside the traditional tyre sector. Some time ago it established a new division catering to the steel industry, and today the company manufactures, assembles and tests plants for rod mills and other types of machinery. Additional recent markets Cima has entered include moulds for memory pillows and for stone grinding. Today’s market is one that requires companies to keep in regular contact with their customers in order to maintain a strong relationship and to keep pace with any changes taking place. This desire to keep customer relationships strong prompted Cima to venture into the field of consumable material supply. Three years ago, it opened a new division to look after this business, and after restricting its activities to the Italian domestic market for the first two years and searching for suitable suppliers that produce quality materials, the company has now begun supplying materials to the rest of Europe.
With the same goal of strong customer relationships in mind, a new company – Cima Technical Services and Marketing LLC – was founded last year in cooperation with Cima’s US distributor, Central Marketing Inc. The purpose of this company is to deal with aftersales service, technical support related to the commissioning of new equipment, as well as training end users in retreading processes and in equipment maintenance. Cima Impianti stresses that it is “very well aware of the current market difficulties” and says it is doing “everything possible to support those who keep believing in this business.” This attitude has been confirmed by a recent investment of over €800,000 in a new high-tech milling machine; this is now being commissioned at Cima’s production facility. The new investment aids Cima in its aim to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ that offers everything needed for its customers’ tyre businesses. Source: Tyrepress
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Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press, a process by which many copies are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable type into the "bed" or "chase" of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type which creates an impression on the paper. In practice, letterpress also includes other forms of relief printing with printing presses, such as wood engravings, photo-etched zinc "cuts" (plates), and linoleum blocks, which can be used alongside metal type, or wood type, in a single operation, as well as stereotypes and electrotypes of type and blocks. With certain letterpress units it is also possible to join movable type with slugs cast using hot metal typesetting. In theory, anything that is "type high" or .918 inches can be printed using letterpress. Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the 20th century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. All forms of data collection were affected by the invention of letterpress printing, as were many careers such as teachers, preachers, physicians and surgeons and artist-engineers. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form. ![]() Smooth Machinery is an experienced printing machine manufacturer based in Taiwan. We have launched a series of industrial printers, such as Rotary Letterpress Machines. Shaftless and intermittent feeding technologies lead to high-quality printing result and economical printing; shaftless letterpress intermittent rotary printing machine produces product with minimum ink and material wastage. Smooth Machinery proudly cooperates CNC computer programmers with Japanese partner. Smooth's machines will satisfies you both on quality and cost. The massive China Import and Export Fair — informally known as the Canton Fair — traditionally caters more to budget-conscious buyers from places like Southeast Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Yet even here, amid the pressure of closing deals at the three-week long event, plastics companies were focused on upgrading technology and looking for new ways to be competitive. At the booth for Foshan-based Kebeln Plastic Machinery Co. Ltd., General Manager Gao Conghua touted new apps that work with the company's extrusion machines. "We're putting a lot of effort into remote diagnosis applications," Gao said through an interpreter. Kebeln's bread-and-butter is PVC pipe-making machines, but it is edging into peripherals with a line of pipe-packaging machines that feature Industry 4.0 connectivity. To stand out in a crowded domestic marketplace, Kebeln said it's considering setting up a German research center within the next three years. "The strong competition inside China is leading companies to explore overseas markets," Gao said. While there are plenty of signs of difficulties ahead — the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a mid-April report that 2017 could be "one of the most challenging years in decades for U.S. companies in China" — statistics show the country's plastics machinery industry's exports continue to grow. Last year, China exported 9,057 plastics machines, up 7.5 percent from the year before, according to the Beijing-based China Plastics Machinery Industry Association. As always with the Canton Fair, there's a strong sense that one has wandered into a modern-day Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca, teeming with buyers from around the world haggling at booths so tiny that many vendors have no room to show their equipment. Still, the event is huge on China's export calendar. About 25,000 exhibiting companies and 180,000 foreign buyers crowd the fair, which runs in three phases over three weeks in Guangzhou. Beijing's much-ballyhooed One-Belt, One-Road initiative, aimed at forging closer trade links with countries along the old Silk Road, showed signs of traction at the fair. Gao noted Kebeln secured sales to customers in the Middle East and Central Asia. Buoyed by show sales to customers from Iran and Egypt, sales representative Belinda Lin of injection molder Guangdong Haixing Plastic & Rubber Co. was upbeat: "This show is great!" Haixing sells to the household and kitchen products industries, making molds and manufacturing with 250 injection molding machines. It said many of its products wind up on the shelves of Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers. To keep costs down, Haixing has embraced automation, such as robots that do packaging, said Lin. The Canton Fair is very much a blue collar affair, with plastics machinery firms shoehorned among purveyors of bubble-gum-making machines, juicers and deli equipment. But among the admittedly tiny contingent from the plastics machinery industry, plans to embrace automation and advanced technologies are afoot. Hangzhou-based injection molding machine maker Zhejiang Sound Machinery Manufacture Co. Ltd. is working on an ambitious roster of new products. "At ChinaPlas we will show a fully electric machine, a two-platen machine and a dual-color machine," said Frank Qi, manager of international trade, through an interpreter. While there's more tension in China-U.S. trade relations with the election of President Donald Trump, Zhejiang Sound is actually eyeing an American expansion. It has sold "a few" machines in the United States and plans to open a sales office in Oakland, Calif., this year, Qi said. It is also considering opening a plant in India, he said, to get out from under that country's onerous antidumping duties on China-made injection molding machines. "Before, India was the biggest market for us," Qi said. "Every year, we'd sell 120 or 130 machines a year there. But now, because of antidumping, we cannot sell smaller machines there." Foreign sales representative Jessie He of injection machine maker Ningbo Tongyong Plastic Machinery Manufacturing Co. Ltd., was also touting her firm's first all-electric machine, introduced last year. It's sold a dozen in China, she said.
Other plastics machinery firms were similarly looking at new technology. Zhangjiagang Haibin Machinery Co., which makes extrusion and recycling equipment, is developing an energy-saving machine that does not use water to wash trash plastics prior to recycling. "Ours will be the first by a Chinese company," said Export Manager Sophia Zhang, through an interpreter. Source: Plastics News Improving market conditions helped Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) report strong growth in sales, profitability, order intake and deliveries in the first quarter of 2017.
During the first three months of 2017 Volvo CE saw net sales jump by 30 percent to SEK 16,163 M (SEK 12,452 M in Q1 2016). Operating income was also positively impacted, rising to SEK 1,617 M, up significantly compared to SEK 341 M in the first quarter of 2016. In the first quarter of 2017 Volvo CE also enjoyed an increase in order intake, which rose by 34 percent to 17,487 machines, with increases in orders coming from all markets, but particularly China and Europe. Deliveries were also up 34 percent during the period, to 16,369 machines. Operating margin also saw good improvement, at 10 percent, compared to 2.7 percent in the same period the year before. At Conexpo/Con-Agg in Las Vegas, Volvo CE unveiled a new generation of its largest wheel loader – the 50-ton class L350H. Among other products on display in Las Vegas was the L260H wheel loader, a 34-ton machine purpose-built to load on-highway trucks in just two even passes. Volvo CE also launched ActiveCare Direct in North America, a telematics monitoring service supported through the company’s dealer network. Volvo CE has built a dedicated uptime center with a team of analysts who proactively monitor and report on customer fleets throughout the United States and Canada. Volvo's market continued to improve during the quarter, with all regions (with the exception of South America) showing growth. The European market was up 17 percent, driven by increased demand in Germany, the UK and France. North America was up 1 percent, with improvements in compact equipment and large excavators offsetting lower demand in other product areas. South America saw further declines, while the total market in Asia (excluding China) was 10 percent above the same period last year, boosted by improvements in India and Korea. There was also strong growth in Indonesia, driven by a recovering mining sector, while demand shrank in both Turkey and the Middle East. China, meanwhile, continues to recover, with the market growing by 48 percent during the first quarter, compared to the same point the previous year; driven by a surge in demand for excavators, which increased by 99 percent during the period. “After years of tough market conditions, the Volvo CE business is growing again,” commented Volvo CE’s president Martin Weissburg. “Higher sales volumes linked with increased internal efficiency and a lower cost base helped us deliver good profitability levels during the quarter. Volvo CE is on the right track, the improvement plan is yielding results and there are further opportunities to improve the long-term competitiveness of the company.” Source: Construction Equipment Company manages to record its third-best year despite difficult market conditionsGlobal machinery and industrial heavyweight Liebherr has reported total sales of $9.79bn for 2016 – a fall of 2.5% on the year before.
It was, however, Liebherr’s third-highest turnover ever and came in year that the company described as having a difficult market environment, and also after a record high in 2015. Liebherr’s construction machinery and mining equipment segments recorded sales of $5.9bn, down $243m or 4% year-on-year. Sales maintained the same level as the previous year in the maritime cranes segment, registering $3.92bn. Going by territory, sales were up in the Western European market, especially in Germany, France and The Netherlands. Eastern Europe also saw growth, led by Russia and Poland, while the Middle East retained its 2015 level. The US, Africa, Australia and the Far East all reported slight falls. Liebherr has forecast in increase in turnover for 2017 and has also projected an increase in its workforce this year. Source: MEConstructionNews.com |
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