Plastics News 2017 Show Daily - October 17, 2017 - 10

10 * Plastics News, October 17, 2017

Plastics News photos by Jim Johnson

FAKUMA SHOW DAILY

Caprio: Machinery market
is healthy across the board
By Jim Johnson
Plastics News Staff

KraussMaffei adds $3 million
technical center in Kentucky
By Jim Johnson
Plastics News Staff
Florence, Ky. - KraussMaffei
Corp. has created a new innovation center at its U.S. headquarters, a $3 million project designed to help the company help
its customers.
The company, a subsidiary of
KraussMaffei Group in Munich,
renovated about 20,000 square
feet of existing space. Work included a new inventory management control system and
additional meeting space for customers.
"I would say it just gives us
a better image to the market in
professionalism and training for
our customers in a world-class
environment," said Paul Caprio,
president of KraussMaffei Corp.
"We've become rather large in
the Americas in terms of market
share. I felt we needed to look
better than we did. I think it was
good, but I think it's better. It's a
reflection of who we are. I think
you have to look how you want
the market to perceive you," he
said.
The project took place between January and September
and was on display at the company's recent open house for
customers and suppliers.
That gathering attracted about
750 attendees and featured dis-

KraussMaffei
Continued from Page 1
planning, control and monitoring
of the entire production process."
"With the new MaXecution, we
support our customers in the
long term on their path to digital, paperless production and
offer them a tailored system to

plays from 80 other firms showing off their products and services to the industry.
KraussMaffei undertook creation of the technology center
during a time of strong growth
for the company.
Employment has increased by
about 20 positions this year for

KraussMaffei Corp., which covers the United States and Canada,
to about 220 workers. Those jobs
are located at the company's U.S.
headquarters in Florence, which
now has about 100 people, and
elsewhere in the United States
and Canada, Caprio said.
The Florence location provides
sales and service for the company's three brands - KraussMaffei, Netstal and KraussMaffei
Berstorff. Both KraussMaffei and
Netstal make injection molding
machines, while Berstorff makes
extrusion machinery.
"We completely overhauled
this 20,000-square-foot space.
New floors, new LED lighting, new
air conditioning for climate-controlled space. New power to run
extrusion equipment trials, injection machinery trials for Netstal
and KM, as well as training for all
equipment," Caprio said in an additional email interview.
New machinery in the space
includes equipment for trials
and testing for "extrusion, pipe,
profile, sheet, pelletizing and color batch, as well as KM injection
and Netstal injection," he continued.
"We also added a new shuttle inventory system to better
handle incoming and outgoing
spare parts inventory as we better space management," Caprio
said.

improve the capacity utilization
of their machinery pool and to
increase their overall equipment
effectiveness," Golz said in the
statement.
Creation of MaXecution, the
company said, adds another offering in KraussMaffei's portfolio
of Plastics 4.0 products.
KraussMaffei, with partner
MPDV, is presenting live demon-

strations of MaXecution for the
first time ever at Fakuma 2017.
"Visitors can experience live
how manufacturing data for the
injection molding process are collected and evaluated. In addition,
in several brief presentations
each day KraussMaffei will provide information on useful MES
functions in plastics processing,"
the company said.

KraussMaffei's technical center
includes a new inventory
management control system
and additional meeting space for
customers.

Paul Caprio
a published intent to do more
manufacturing in America
or near shoring. And I think
that has had impact, without
question. Positive impact. And
those people need equipment
to handle the volumes. Or to
compete with the Chinese they
need to have state-of-the art
equipment.
Q: What are the factors impacting the industry in 2017?
Caprio: This will be another
record year off of last year. And
that was a record year from the
year before and so on, all the
way back [to the Great Recession]. And I anticipate that that
trend continues. We will slow
down when the market slows
down. We are one of the first
line of fire when things stop
moving. It's very, very healthy.
Very healthy.
Q: And how do you see
2018 shaping up?
Caprio: Our plan is to grow.
The forecasts are in from internal planning, and it's to do
more than we did the previous year. And that is every
year that we make that plan.
But only the market can make
that happen. With lead times
of a half a year or more in particular on the big machines,
we know what we are going
to ship next year already
through June. So sales won't
be the problem next year at
all. We just have to make sure
the next six months of orders
are at the same level or better
than today and that will determine next year.
But speaking to the customers, there's more products. It's
just everyone [making] more,
more, more. I would say it's
not as frantic as it was one year
ago with the automotive guys
needing so much so fast, but
it's picked up in other markets.
Plastics News photo by Jim Johnson

Employment has increased by about 20 positions this year for KraussMaffei Corp., which covers the
United States and Canada, to about 220 workers.

A strong economy means
strong demand for plastics machinery these days, according
to KraussMaffei Corp.'s president.
Paul Caprio took some time
during a recent open house at
the company's headquarters
in Florence, Ky., near Cincinnati, to talk about KraussMaffei
Corp., which is a subsidiary
of KraussMaffei Group based
in Munich. Caprio's unit is responsible for operations the
United States and Canada.
Q: What's your view of the
health of the machinery industry these days?
Caprio: It's still at an all-time
high. If people aren't making
money now, then something is
wrong. It's very robust. I don't
think there's been a year since
the downturn that we haven't
grown. And we are just pushing the limits. We're the only
ones holding ourselves back
from even further growth. And
we're taking steps to get more
productive and open more
facilities and add equipment
internally. The company is investing pretty heavily globally
to meet the demand. It's super
healthy.
Q: And for KraussMaffei
Group in particular?
Caprio: Automotive has
been a tremendous push, from
the vehicle demands and all
the changes that are common.
But also the fact that the automotive guys are making money.
They are actually investing
in getting the [machinery]
fleets younger. Getting rid of
30-year-old machines or older.
We haven't seen that really in a
long, long time. A lot of companies are updating their fleets.
That's on one side. The other is
just strictly demand. After the
downturn, there were a number of suppliers that weren't
around, both on the machinery side and the processor
side. There is a resurgence of
products coming back to the
states. Walmart definitely has

Paul Caprio, KrausMaffei Corp. president, says the machinery
maker's forecast is to increase growth in 2018.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News 2017 Show Daily - October 17, 2017