FRIDINGEN, Germany—Desma aims to become "a solution provider for production and services and a partner for integrated production and business processes," according to Martin Schuermann, managing director of the Fridingen-based rubber injection molding machine maker.
Welcoming around 500 visitors to its 'Let's talk future' open house on Sept. 27-28, Schuermann said that throughout the last 10 years, Desma had doubled turnover to just over $117 million and invested $27 million across all its locations.
Recent projects included expanding the production areas at the company's locations in Germany by 23,680 square feet, establishing a mold shop in China and acquiring a fourth milling center in Slovakia.
Desma also made its largest single investment into machinery: a $2.7 million, combined turning and milling center with robot automation for the Fridingen site.
Going forward, Schuermann said, Desma's investment strategy would target flexibility, high availability, one-piece flow, quality requirements, know-how protection and cost control.
Schuermann went on to condemn "the 100 percent outsourcing strategy" of many special-machinery builders which, saying the move "would degrade them to mere assembly operations."
Desma's expects to spend $8.84 million through 2017-18, and has so far included an investment of around $1.8 million to expand the company's SmartConnect4u product range and internal digitalization, Schuermann said.
With regard to training and further qualifications, the company invests around $1.2 million annually in programs, such as its one team and Desma 4.0 initiatives that support personnel during organizational, process and product-related changes and developments.
Turning to international activities, Schuermann highlighted a cooperation between Desma and Japanese injection molding machine supplier Matsuda to produce a jointly developed machine design under the concept name "desmatsuda." This, he said, is tailored to the increasing demands of Japanese production companies in the NAFTA market.
"Neither Matsuda nor Desma will change their marketing in the Japanese market," Schuermann said, noting that "opportunities that could result from the cooperation of the two companies are further future issues."