Plastics News Daily Report - May 9, 2018 - 50

50 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 9, 2018

Haitian electric about NPE opportunities
At NPE2018, Ningbo, China-based Haitian International
Holdings Ltd. is highlighting its
third-generation Zhafir electric
injection molding machines with
smaller, more efficient motors.
The company, which is the
world's largest maker of injection
presses measured by number of
machines, is exhibiting through its
local agent, Absolute Haitian Corp.
"The third generation will be
shown for the first time at NPE,"
said Haitian board member Helmar Franz.
Customer-driven enhancements
will deliver greater efficiency at an
attractive price point, he said.
"Servo motors have undergone
tremendous development in the
past five years," Franz said. "Now
we have servo motors that can
be overloaded briefly [to 5x or 6x
power]."
The injection process requires
high peak powers, Franz said.
"Older motors could only be
loaded to [2x power]. So, you
needed a big motor, but this extra
power is only needed very briefly
in the clamping process," Franz
said in an interview at the publicly traded company's shareholder
meeting in Hong Kong in March.

Plastics News photo by Michael A. Marcotte

By Kent Miller
Plastics News Correspondent

Helmar Franz, a member of the Haitian board of directors, with one of
the company's machines at NPE2015.

BOOTH W143
HAITIAN INTERNATIONAL
HOLDINGS LTD.
"You had to install a big motor
for just this two seconds in the
cycle."
The smaller motor uses less
electricity and also costs less, he
said.
Other improvements in the Zhafir Venus III series include a bigger mold space and a more com-

pact injection structure. Venus III
comes in clamping forces from 400
to 6,500 kN.
Franz also talked up "modularity," or assembling a Venus
machine with the components
best suited for the product being
manufactured. For example, very
different configurations might
be needed when making medical
parts, as to making consumer
products with in-mold labeling.
Medical parts often require very
precise injection but do not require highly exacting clamping.

Last year, Haitian sold 2,255 Zhafir electric
machines, a 19.1 percent jump from 2016.
Worldwide, Haitian sold a record 35,768
injection molding machines last year, up
21.1 percent from the previous year.
"Why does the clamp unit need
to be very precise?" he asked rhetorically. "[The clamp] just opens
and the part falls down into a
box."
With in-mold labeling, on the
other hand, the plasticizing and
injection unit can be very simple,
but "the robot placing the label
inside the mold requires absolute
precision."
"The very difficult thing is to
open the mold and stop the machine precisely," he said. "This is
the real challenge."
At NPE2018, the company is
also showing its third-generation
Mars machine. The servo-hydraulic machine has been a mainstay of
Haitian's global growth in the last
decade, and the company is previewing an MA1700 III model running a housewares mold.
The company is also showing a
machine in its Zhafir Jenius series,
a JE6500 molding an automotive
grille.
Last year, Haitian sold 2,255 Zha-

fir electric machines, a 19.1 percent jump from 2016. Worldwide,
Haitian sold a record 35,768 injection molding machines last year,
up 21.1 percent from the previous
year.
Looking to the future, Franz said
Haitian is bullish on the North
American market.
"The United States, in 2017, was
the largest single market for us for
the first time," he said.
While some Chinese rivals rely
on homegrown sales talent, the
52-year-old company has long
been shy of top-down sales management. Haitian International
does not have a single employee
in North America, Franz said. Instead, sales and service for the
USA and Canada are handled by
independently owned Absolute
Haitian Corp., founded in 2006
and headquartered in Worchester,
Mass.
"It is not a good time for people
who have not diversified their
sales force," Franz said.

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