Sumitomo (SHI) Demag joins the R-Cycle Community

With 80.000 all-electric machines in operation around the globe, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag’s strong focus is on the sustainable and resource saving operation of injection moulding machines in the plastic processing industry. The company is part of the Sumitomo Group which is headquartered in Japan and has four production plants - one in Japan, two in Germany and two in China. With almost 800 Mio. Euro turnover in this year - Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is the world leader in all-electric injection moulding machines and will offer its strong expertise in plastic packaging applications like thin wall packaging and pails to the R-Cycle-Community and the whole industry.

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is convinced that a broad collaboration within the whole value chain of plastic packaging will gain the biggest impact to transform the linear to a circular economy. Furthermore, the use of digital product passports can leverage benefits to many areas of our daily business. Digitalization is key for a circular economy and can transport the necessary transparency to the different process steps in the chain – regardless of whether for the more effective sortability of plastics in the recycling process or as an information carrier in the communication between different machine and processing operations in the context of Industry 4.0 applications. 

Christoph Wynands, Product Manager for packaging machines at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, explains: "As a specialist for thin-walled packaging in the food industry, most of the products manufactured on our machines are made of PP or HDPE and our customers want to significantly increase the recycled content in their products. In order to do this economically, they are particularly dependent on clean recyclate streams. Unfortunately, the corresponding approvals for the broad use of mechanical recycled polyolefins in the food sector are still lacking in Europe. Accordingly, we want to provide support here and see in R-Cycle a fantastic opportunity to improve the purity and quality of PP and HDPE recycling streams to such an extent that the necessary food approvals for the use of this recyclates can be achieved. Here, we want to contribute our expertise with technologies such as In-Mould-Labelling (IML) and Injection-Compression-Moulding (ICM) to generate convincing applications and make them available to all stakeholders in cross-industry projects. In this way, we will generate new knowledge to be able to competently consult and convince as many packaging manufacturers as possible.”

Last but not least, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag will use the digital product passport technology to provide detailed transparency about the footprint of their machines in the future. Christoph Wynands stated: “We review and analyse our internal value chain and discuss with partners and suppliers in our network the carbon footprint of our own machines and improve the supply chain whenever it is possible and necessary to reduce the carbon footprint. Furthermore, sustainable measures and ecological conducts are our very DNA since many years. The ecological impact and sustainable aspects are two of the highest rated criteria in our scoring charts when we evaluate and prioritize all our new developments. For this reason, we have streamlined our machine portfolio to all-electric injection moulding machines and powerful services, for example, to support our partners and customers in the responsible use of virgin material and to enable them to increase the recycled content in their products. Or – even in near future - to halve the energy consumption of their packaging production by upgrading from a conventional hybrid injection moulding machine to our all-electric PAC-E without losing a single millisecond of cycle time.”

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag has shaped the development of the plastics industry from its very beginning. As a specialist for injection moulding machines for plastics processing, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag and its Japanese parent company are leading the industry.

The global development and production network of Sumitomo Heavy Industries and Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is comprised of four facilities in Japan, Germany and China with more than 3,100 employees. The product portfolio includes all-electric, hydraulic and hybrid injection moulding machines with clamping forces of between 500 and 15.000 kN. With more than 162,000 installed machines, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is present in important global markets and ranks among the largest manufacturers of injection moulding machines in the world.

At Sumitomo’s headquarters in Chiba, Japan, the company manufactures machines with clamping forces in the small to medium range. Nearly 95 % of all delivered machines are equipped with an all-electric drive concept. Sumitomo (SHI) Demag’s German facilities in Schwaig and Wiehe produce the Systec Servo range with hybrid drive as well as the El-Exis SP and Systec SP range of high-speed, high-performance machines. The all-electric IntElect range for international customers is also being produced in Germany.

As early as 1998, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag set up its first production site in Ningbo/China. In 2015, the Chinese subsidiary Demag Plastics Machinery (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. installed a new facility with a 13,000 m² floor space. It is earmarked for the production of the Systec C range with clamping forces of between 500 and 10,000 kN for the Asian market.

In addition to injection moulding machines, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag offers customised and standardised systems for the part handling automation, technical and process solutions for special applications, tailored services and service concepts as well as a range of financial options to support investment in injection moulding machines.

With its comprehensive sales and service network of subsidiaries and agencies, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag is present in all major markets.