Plastics News Show Daily - April 4, 2012 - (Page 60)

60 PLASTICS NEWS, April 4, 2012 South Korea’s Woojin Plaimm adding foreign sales offices By Steve Toloken PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — South Korean injection press maker Woojin Plaimm Co. Ltd. (Booth 1521) wants to expand its international sales significantly, setting up direct sales offices in Japan and Mexico this year and expanding its North American service staff. The Incheon-based firm, which makes 1,500 injection molding machines annually and claims to be South Korea’s largest press Intelligent Additive Solutions manufacturer, made a similar push in the last two years in Asia, setting up direct sales offices in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. “The Korean market is very small,” said Steve Gwon, director of the company’s Brea, Calif., sales office. “Our concentration is to globalize.” This is the first time the company has exhibited at NPE, and Gwon said Woojin is looking to add technical support staff in Illinois and Georgia later this year so it can expand sales outside of its base on the West Coast. “In the U.S., we are just selling machines in the West Coast,” he said. “We would like to expand to the East Coast and the Midwest.” The company sells about 25-30 presses a year in the U.S., with annual business of about $4 million, but wants to more than double that in the next two years, he said. Globally, the company has injection molding machinery sales of about $147 million annually, with its Incheon factory accounting for about $130 million and the rest coming from a small factory in Ningbo, China. Its worldwide sales have grown from $30 million a decade ago to five times that now, Gwon said, in part because it started making presses with more than 1,000 tons of clamping force in 2008. About half of the company’s sales are outside Korea. It opened its new Japanese sales office in late March, and it plans to open its Monterrey, Mexico, sales office this summer. “We have many customers in Monterrey and Tijuana,” Gwon said. At NPE2012, Woojin is exhibiting two high-speed all-electric presses with clamping forces of Steve Gwon, director of Woojin Plaimm’s sales office in Brea, Calif., says this year marks his company’s first-ever appearance at NPE. 165 and 220 tons, along with two different versions of energy-saving motors for hydraulic presses, and several other presses. It also is showing its injection machines with heaters wrapped in what it said is the world’s first nanoporous insulation material to prevent energy loss. The equipment was developed by Aerogel Application Group in Deajeon City, Korea, two years ago, and last year was installed on thousands of injection presses at factories making components for Samsung mobile phones and televisions, said Aerogel CEO Brian Kim. He spoke in an interview at the Woojin booth. The equipment cuts energy loss and reduces the temperature around injection molding machines, making the environment more comfortable for employees, Kim said. As of April 1, Woojin changed its name from Woojin Selex to Woojin Plaimm. It plans to expand in three or four years and move to a much larger facility in central South Korea. Gwon said the company is running out of space at its 540,000-square-foot factory in Incheon, near Seoul. A Product Line as Varied as Your Business Intelligent Additive Solutions Booth 31017 www.struktol.com/solutions To find out how our products can improve your process, call 330.928.5188 or email solutions@struktol.com Plastics News photo by Steve Toloken  http://www.gauging.com http://www.guenther-hotrunner.com http://www.struktol.com/solutions http://www.struktol.com/solutions http://www.guenther-hotrunner.com

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Plastics News Show Daily - April 4, 2012

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