DESMA reports positive K2025, despite reduced sector presence

Fridigen, Germany – Elastomer moulding machinery major DESMA attracted a “very high“ level of interest in its latest developments at the K2025 plastics & rubber expo and recorded almost the same number of customer visits as at K2022.

The new vertical machine platform Reference 300+ met with “great customer interest, especially in terms of its ergonomic overall design and new performance data,“ general sales manager Harald Schmid reported in a summary of the global trade fair, 8-15 Oct in Duesseldorf, Germany.

Likewise, he said, a virtual presentation of the Sealmaster 450+Duo horizontal machine provided “many new ideas for future manufacturing processes and new product groups that can be produced using this technology.“

K2025 visitors were also attracted by DESMA‘s IT-based innovations, including a demo of newly developed machine networking system DESMA DataHub, which is designed as a cost-effective way to network machines between different control generations.

Sustainability features provided a further point-of-interest, not least the networking capabilities of the PCF Navigator ECOS: providing ‘real‘ data from the manufacturing process to enable “very realistic“ calculations of the CO2 footprint of elastomer parts production.

Furthermore, Schmid reported that DESMA Automation, with its new host computer technology and comprehensive process simulation, also provided a strong platform for new project discussions.

However, he added that “in some customer discussions, the importance of K for the elastomer industry was clearly criticised, as there are fewer exhibitors for this industrial sector."

Indeed, noted DESMA’s general sales manager, the number of exhibitors in the areas of mould-making, automation [and] article inspection systems for the elastomers sector “declined significantly.“

Some elastomer injection moulding machinery makers, he said, were no longer represented among K exhibitors, with visitors indicating a future preference for more specific trade fairs [for] all companies involved in the process chain.

Nevertheless, concluded Schmid, K2025 “came at the right time to provide a forum for new technologies and trends in challenging times.“

See also: ERJ Preview - K stands for rubber