KraussMaffei growing through partnerships, expertise in U.S.

Florence, Ky.—Edward Gay, process engineering manager at KraussMaffei Corp. (KMC), monitored a nylon compounding process going through a strand pelletizer at the machine builder's North American headquarters.

Gay was conducting material development trials of a proprietary formulation that contains nylon and natural hemp fibers grown by BrightMa Farms Inc., a Charleston, S.C., agri-tech company. He was able to increase the filler content from 20 percent to 40 percent to improve critical material properties like rigidity while maintaining an incredibly low moisture content.

"We're light years ahead of where the customer has been in previous trials at other extrusion development locations," Gay said during a plant tour given to Plastics News.

In a meeting room above the test lab, BrightMa CEO Harold Singletary was smiling. He has been searching for the right material to produce an injection molded sustainable automotive part for a Volvo truck.

At KraussMaffei, Singletary had success with three formulations and seems to have found a partner to recognize his vision for what he describes as "growing a sustainable future one seed at a time."

"I was looking for one formulation. This is much more than I anticipated," Singletary said, calling Gay his Tony Stark—a fictional Marvel Comics industrialist and inventor who becomes Iron Man.

"Ed pushed the envelope. He showed we have room to expand the research and the capability to provide more natural fibers into this plastic resin. It was an amazing milestone week," he said.

It was the kind of week that has been unfolding more often at KMC, a subsidiary of Munich-based and China-owned KraussMaffei Co. Ltd.—a machine builder for plastics and rubber processors that is marking its 185th anniversary this year and has been issued some 1,200 patents over the decades.

The parent company generated 1.03 billion euros ($1.09 billion) in annual sales in 2022 with 4,700 employees at 50 sites.

In "Florence, Y'all," as the city water tower proclaims just south of the Ohio River, KMC generated $230 million in new machine sales and $90 million in after-market services in 2022.

From a global perspective, about 60 percent of KraussMaffei machines are for injection molding, 30 percent for extrusion and 10 percent are reaction process machinery (RPM), which includes equipment such as mixing heads, foaming tools, mold carriers and metering systems.

However, the sales mix varies by regions and markets. For the U.S., it's about 40 percent each for injection molding and extrusion and 20 percent for RPM, according to KMC President Nolan Strall.

The subsidiary has seen growing demand for extrusion equipment, PET chemical waste recycling systems and RPM—the latter from customers turning not only to polyurethane but also carbon fiber composites to produce lighter parts and components.

"There are a lot of incentives from a U.S. tax perspective to reduce the carbon footprint for manufacturers in the U.S.," Strall said. "KraussMaffei is a leader in automotive composites and polyurethane and has been for years in Europe. Now in the U.S. market, we've seen a significant increase in activity from the electric battery vehicle market for injection molding and reaction processing equipment."

In addition, the Department of Energy has released funding to advance carbon dioxide reduction initiatives and technologies.

"This is driving demand for innovative processes like our ColorForm technology, which KraussMaffei brought to market over 10 years ago, and can eliminate the need for exterior painting processes and drastically reduce ... emissions for our customers," Strall said.

While the subsidiary has a 30,000-square-foot KMC Innovation Center to conduct a myriad of trials for its single- and twin-screw extrusion products, it was lacking space in North America to showcase and demonstrate the other technologies in the portfolio at scale.

To demonstrate spin form injection molding and RPM technology, KMC entered partnerships with Clemson University Composites Center in Greenville, S.C., in 2021 followed by the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) and its Advanced Technologies Lab for Aerospace Structures (ATLAS), which are both at Wichita State University in Kansas, in 2022.

"At these locations, we're engaging with the industry as well as academia, and the students—along with our mutual customers—can develop their processes and produce real production parts," Strall said.

He started at KMC as after-market director in July 2020 following 10 years in the aerospace machine tool business.

"The alignment with the universities and industry creates a win for everyone," Strall said. "The university labs generate revenue from the trials, the students are gaining incredible real-world experience on industry leading technology, and we are getting to work with our customers to develop their processes on production scale equipment."

The Clemson composites center has a 1,000-ton vertical press with fully integrated RPM, injection molding and infrared heating systems.

Clemson, KraussMaffei, the SC Fraunhofer USA Alliance and others are collaborating with Time Bicycles—one of Europe's most prestigious cycling brands—to transform the bicycle manufacturer's manual resin transfer molding (RTM) technology, which is used at its factory in Gajary, Slovakia, into a high-pressure RTM process with automation.

"Not many companies can do it all on their own," Strall said. "There is generally an ecosystem of companies to make advanced solutions and processes successful, and that's something becoming prevalent in industry. You need strong, complimentary partnerships to provide the very best solutions. You've got to know what your core competency is and excel at it but be willing and humble enough to work with partners to offer complete solutions to industry, especially in areas where it might not be your core competency."

Time Bicycles, which is owned by Little Rock, Ark.-based Cardinal Cycling Group, is investing $6.5 million in a Landrum, S.C., factory to modernize the manufacturing process for its carbon-fiber-frame bicycles.

Time Bicycles CEO Tony Karklins said in a statement earlier this year that the collaboration with KraussMaffei, Clemson and others "[looks] to produce the most advanced carbon fiber bicycles in the world, with technologies and partnerships in place to rival production out of Asia."

The Time bicycle frame collaboration also will open doors for KMC to automated sandblasting and automated painting, according to David Judge, KMC's business development manager for composites and light weighting.

In addition, the project is catching the attention of manufacturers in the automotive and aerospace markets, Judge said.

"Although it's a bike, it's a complex braided preform, hollow cylindrical part, which is similar to parts found in automotive and aerospace applications," Judge said. "We have a lot of activity and interest with these trials and this demonstration capability in South Carolina, which happens to be close to some large automotive and aerospace OEMs, so it's an exciting time."

Judge spent the first half of his career in aerospace composite machine tools and automotive Tier 1 plant and tool shop management.

"I joined KraussMaffei about 1½ years ago based on all the North American initiatives for light weighting," Judge said. "I'm looking at bridging those prior two experiences to where the industry is going."

At NIAR, founded in 1985 to promote aviation safety, research and manufacturing, the ATLAS lab's staff specializes in aerospace R&D, such as composites, coatings and advanced materials and technologies, including automation and additive manufacturing.

Inside the production-scale maker space, KraussMaffei is adapting its automotive injection molding, high pressure resin transfer molding, polyurethane over molding, and composite forming capabilities to meet aerospace standards.

"We want to serve the industry request for higher volume thermoplastic components and lighter weight solutions for the future," Strall said. "We can combine our injection molding or SpinForm process knowledge using thermoplastic materials, with our thermoplastic carbon FiberForm technology. Our injection molding and polyurethane overmolding technology, or ColorForm, is where we see a clear advantage over our competition, as we have both technologies in our portfolio and can provide fully integrated solutions for our customers." Strall said.

KraussMaffei is helping manufacturers undergo major industrialization growth, such as taking their production from 1,000 parts per year to 50,000 parts per year.

Companies in the logistics, commercial goods, and personal recreation markets are looking for advances in lightweight, high-volume applications, Strall said.

"There's a need in industry for lower-cost, higher-rate, recyclable composite and polymer solutions that might not have the structural and material properties you would find in traditional aerospace components but are perfect for an e-bike or a drone," he said.

The center of the country is tough to get to, Strall added, so having the right local expertise is critical for the success of ATLAS and everyone wanting to develop processes there. Eugen Schubert, an expert from the KraussMaffei headquarters in Germany, transferred to the U.S. and is based in Wichita to support the ATLAS lab and other customers in the region.

"He moved his entire family, including two young children, to Wichita and he's our applications engineering and technical sales manager for the area," Strall said. "It's part of our culture and DNA at KraussMaffei to make sure we support the advanced technology we install at our customers as well as at development and partnership locations. We don't just drop a system on the floor and walk away."

At the North American headquarters, KraussMaffei also is expanding capacity at its extrusion technology center, which can produce up to 4-inch diameter pipes or 4-inch profiles.

"We have the ability to do an entire line or process, which creates a unique opportunity for customers," Strall said.

The center has two co-rotating twin-screw extruders for blending and pelletizing and three single-screw extruders and one counter-rotating twin-screw extruder for pipes and profiles.

A third co-rotating twin-screw is on the way to help handle a three-month backup of projects, Strall added.

One extrusion customer, Ironton, Ohio-based PureCycle Technologies L.L.C., recently produced its first batch of ultra-pure recycled (UPR) resin made from post-industrial recycled polypropylene.

PureCycle uses KraussMaffei's BluePower twin-screw extruder series to process dried post-consumer recycled materials through melting and then a proprietary extraction process to obtain a clean solution. The solution is fed into KraussMaffei's KE single-screw extruder for devolatilization, which results in Ultra-Pure recycled resin.

In addition to Schubert in Wichita, other KMC staff are transplants from Germany.

The head of engineering, Thomas Elfroth, relocated to the U.S., bringing 30 years of RPM and polyurethane over molding experience to the U.S. team for a two-year stint.

"Hopefully longer," Strall said. "He's already helped tremendously with our local RPM and PU capability and engineering knowledge, which is an area where we see a lot of market potential. We've been able to capitalize on his experience internally, while at the same time give our customers confidence in the local team we have for support on advanced applications like ColorForm."

European colleagues from KraussMaffei Technologies GmbH in Germany also have stepped into other KMC roles as operations overseas undergo a transformation of the business.

In March, KraussMaffei Technologies officials were in talks with workers' representatives in Europe over "several hundred" layoffs.

The war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and transportation bottlenecks contributed to a loss of about $230 million last year at KraussMaffei, including a goodwill impairment of at least $108.6 million.

"Yes, we are currently executing a restructuring plan, but the commitment from our shareholders is unsurpassed, and they are standing firmly behind us," Strall said. "It's not a matter of if we will be successful, we will be, and are showing it step by step. Our team in Germany is making progress daily at the new facilities, which have us poised for a very strong and bright future."

The job cuts didn't impact the North American subsidiary, which worked in lock step with the German headquarters to shift top talent around the world to areas where the market need is high.

"We're a global company, so of course, we're all in it together. However, certain areas are more effected than others," Strall said. "The U.S. has been minimally impacted from the restructuring, but it drove us to look at our short and mid-term workforce planning strategies differently, in terms of addressing our talent needs in the U.S. market."

The staff transfers have eliminated the need to turn to the already depleted U.S. job market to fill some critical positions.

"It's a huge benefit for our customers in the U.S, as we have top factory talent and expertise to support our growth organically," Strall said.

KMC is growing in many ways. The number of employees is up to 238 compared with about 190 when Strall started in 2020.

"That shows the trajectory we've been on. The majority are in service," the company president said. "With injection molding, the technology differentiators between competitors is very tight, so a big differentiator is service and support. How well can you service customers? How organized are you? What's the speed with which we can react in a crisis, and be the trusted partner to our customer? Or better yet, how proactive can we be to avoid the crisis in the first place? We're really focused on having that be our big differentiator in North America."

Strall showed a map of where field service technicians were located in 2020 and pointed out that none were west of the Mississippi River. That's changed, he said, and the number of training hours completed in the areas of software, hydraulics, controls and machines has increased dramatically year over year.

KMC has an online matrix where every service employee is listed along with specific skill sets and learning modules everyone needs to go through to make sure they're trained to support customers.

"We have customers with machines that are 20-plus years old. Our machines don't stop. Normally what stops them is you can't buy the control parts on eBay anymore," said Mike Gunner, KMC vice president of automation—a department that works closely with the service and training departments.

KMC does have programs to retrofit older machines with new controls and to service older control systems going back to 1997, Gunner added.

At the other end of the solutions range, KMC offers automation for plastics processors to leak test, label, laser mark, feed parts, weld, convey, trim, fold and palletize.

"There's a need for automation in the industry but it can be daunting if you've never had to use a robot interfaced with a machine before," Gunner said. "We're offering automation to companies that never considered it before and we're cognizant we have to help them through this learning curve."

KMC offers the technology and training, especially for companies dealing with high employee turnover.

"They struggle to keep people so now they're looking at adding automaton to redeploy those labor assets," Gunner said.

Other automation benefits include reduced labor costs, improved product quality with vision inspection technology, and added value through automated secondary processes like labeling and laser marking.

Some plastics processors started automating their facilities years ago and will continue.

"Automation lets you advance your products and processes to the next level. You can't hold a carbon-fiber panel in front of an infrared heater and heat it at 300 degrees Celsius prior to molding. You must have automation there," Gunner said. "As the parts and processes become more complex to address specific performance and industry needs, automation will continue to grow as an essential part of the overall solution from KraussMaffei."