“Made in Germany” quality for the Middle Kingdom

FEDDEM delivers twin-screw extruder to AKRO Engineering Plastics, Wujiang, China

In today‘s rapidly emerging China, “Made in Germany” is a prized mark of quality. Particularly in the machine-building and plant construction industries, German manufacturers enjoy great success and are renowned for both innovative technology and excellent quality.

Since 2005 Niederzissen-based AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH, a specialist for innovative, application-orientated plastics compounds, has been successfully represented in the Chinese market with its own production facility. But strong demand and rapid growth in the Chinese plastics industry prompted the compounder to plan a new plant in China. Since the options for expanding the production facilities at the previous site between Shanghai and Suzhou were inadequate, it was decided to move into a new production plant in the city of Wujiang, located the same administrative district.

To ensure the compounds produced here would meet the same high quality standards as in the German parent factory, AKRO-PLASTIC relied on a tried-and-test partnership with the extrusion and compounding plant manufacturer FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG, a member of the same corporate Group.

Founded as the continuation of Decroupet Maschinenbau’s “Extrusion and Compounding Line Construction” division, FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG are able to draw on the extensive experience (over 25 years in some cases) of all the employees belonging to this division in order to manufacture versatile compounding lines for the production of high-quality engineering plastics compounds and master batches. Since 2009, the company has been a member of the internationally active Feddersen Group head-quartered in Hamburg.

But FEDDEM was not chosen simply on the basis of the “family ties” between the two companies. The companies, both head-quartered in Ahrweiler District, Rheinland-Pfalz, have maintained a successful partnership going back many years. FEDDEM are the equipment supplier for the AKRO-PLASTIC headquarters in Niederzissen and are also in charge of engineering services there. Thus it was possible to realize not only the extrusion technology, but also the entire plant, from raw materials supply through to the finished compound, to the exact building specifications of the German plants. Since formulations for the Chinese subsidiary are also developed in Niederzissen, the compounder is able to use only one data sheet for its products, irrespective of whether the compounding takes place in Germany or China.

Of course, a further prerequisite for the comparable product quality of the compounds is the quality of the raw materials used. “All of the raw materials used in the Chinese production are first approved by R&D in Niederzissen, and are again tested for quality in the modern in-house laboratory in China”, explains Dr. Thomas Wehrmeister, Head of Research & Development at AKRO-PLASTIC.

AKRO-PLASTIC can rely on FEDDEM employees’ decades of expertise in the construction of twin-screw extruders and design of complete turnkey systems, as well as the wear protection of all peripherals. Alongside the extruder itself, the peripherals are purchased exclusively from the renowned plant manufacturer and are delivered to customers in a custom FEDDEM equipment package.

True to the proverbial German punctuality, the plant in Wujiang was constructed, delivered and commissioned on time and according to schedule. “From the time the contract for the complete turnkey system was awarded until commissioning and handover to the customer, just eight months went by”, says Jürgen Welter, Project Manager at FEDDEM. “Quite a normal time frame for the delivery of a comparable plant within Europe, but very speedy for a delivery to China, considering the system had to be shipped and set up on location”, adds Welter with a smile.

Once again, membership in the Feddersen Group paid off. Many years of experience in logistics and the global export of products of all sorts helped to overcome many bureaucratic hurdles, ultimately enabling everything to be accomplished on schedule.

On location in China, all that AKRO Engineering Plastics had to do was to erect the production floor according to typical Chinese construction standards. The floor’s concrete slab was made by a Chinese construction company according to a foundation design by FEDDEM. It included special-purpose foundations designed to support the load of the steel structural elements, the required conduit shafts used to lay the main electrical lines and the cooling water pipes, which were brought to the designated positions along with the sewer manholes and gutters.

As its name suggests, FED 72 MTS, the new compounder operating in the Chinese city of Wujiang, has “Multi-Tasking” capability, allowing customers to compound a wide range of engineering plastics: PA6, PA6.6, PPA, PBT, PET and PP. The materials can be colourless or coloured, non-reinforced or mineral-reinforced (< 40%) and/or reinforced with a glass fibre content of as much as 60 percent by weight. The materials can also be finished with additives such as flame retardants.

These compounds can be processed with a comparatively short processing length of 32 L/D and only one screw configuration. A side feeder is all that is required.

Kneading units have been intentionally left out of the screw configuration in order to achieve glass-fibre-filled compounds with outstanding technical properties, in particular.

With the plug-in 10 L/D process extension, the basic machine can easily be adapted to accommodate the processing of mineral-filled compounds with a mineral content of over 40 percent by weight. In conjunction with a separate 42 L/D screw set configured for these products and the use of a second side feeder, fillings of over 70 percent by weight are possible.

In the third quarter of 2010, the AKRO Engineering Plastics factory began operating in Wujiang, in the province of Jiangsu. The very “first granule” from the line constructed and assembled by FEDDEM was fit to be sold; no process-optimization loops were required to achieve the desired product quality.

Starting off with two compounding lines, the yearly production capacity in China has been expanded to 7,000 tonnes. Additional lines will be added successively. The plant is designed to accommodate growth.

Thanks to the booming domestic auto industry, AKRO-PLASTIC’s business in China grew by around 35 percent in 2010. “For 2011, we are extremely optimistic and, based on the positive signs, we are forecasting further growth of approximately 70 percent”, says Frank Tao, Sales and Marketing Manager at AKRO Engineering Plastics (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

“With the new, second compounding line and the growing demand for our compounds, we will definitely achieve this ambitious goal,” adds Tao.