ARBURG GmbH + Co KG, Loßburg, Dr Christoph Schumacher, Marketing and Company Communications Manager

Once again, FAKUMA was the most important external trade fair in Europe for us this year. Even our very high expectations were surpassed! Our booth had large numbers of visitors from day one. Our international visitors were not only there to get more information about our injection moulding techniques. In fact, it was more a matter of discussing projects in situ with the experts and then getting them up and running. Also, we were able to establish contacts with new co-operation partners, for example, from the packaging sector.

This year we were, once again, the biggest exhibitor, with our two-storey booth spanning approximately 14,000 square feet. Added to this was the large number of ALLROUNDER injection moulding machines at the trade fair as a whole. In addition to the nine exhibits with applications and the three display machines at our booth, there were a further ten ALLROUNDERs at other booths. This wide variety of applications enabled us to demonstrate very effectively in Friedrichshafen the level of performance and broad scope of application of our machines and manufacturing cells.

Apart from the innovative injection moulding technology, the exhibition celebrating “50 years of ALLROUNDER” was also a real crowd-puller. What surprised even us was the large number of participants in the anniversary competition, especially as the rules for taking part were very strict; we were looking for the oldest ALLROUNDER still with its first owner and still being used in production. The winner will walk away with an ALLROUNDER 370E. This is the smallest representative of the new electrical line of the EDIVE range which, together with other energy efficient machines, was the focus of our exhibition this year. FAKUMA shapes ARBURG’s year and ARBURG shapes FAKUMA; the subject of energy and/or production efficiency was not only a much discussed issue at our booth, but also at the special show in the east foyer initiated by the trade fair organiser, P.E. Schall, which we ran together with material manufacturers BASF. The idea of showing visitors various areas and influencing factors and making them aware of energy and production efficiency was a point of great interest.


BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Dr Rainer Büschl, Director of the Communications Performance Unit, Polymers

Once again, we had high quality and very focussed discussions with enthusiastic and informed trade fair visitors at this year’s FAKUMA.
Light-weight construction loomed large again this year. At the BASF booth, we were able to demonstrate a spectacular application of the synthetic wheel belonging to smart forvision, a conceptual vehicle, which is constructed from a special polyamide material. There was also a lot of interest in the use of plastics in medical technology. The trade fair is also very much the forum for innovative injection moulding in new areas of work, for example the award-winning plastic tray for photovoltaic modules.


KOCH-TECHNIK, Ispringen, Prof. Dr h.c. Werner Koch, Director and Proprietor

KOCH-TECHNIK has been an exhibitor at FAKUMA from the very beginning. With my then still young enterprise, I introduced interested trade fair visitors to peripheral techniques for plastics processing. And thus I’ve been able to observe how the trade fair has established itself over time, how the quality of trade fair visitors has grown and how more and more positive signals have been generated for the plastics industry and its associated markets.

This year’s FAKUMA has once again definitely exceeded my expectations. In particular, the demand for our solutions for energy efficient drying and for our central pellet feeding has continued. Furthermore, this year’s FAKUMA was particularly good for us at KOCH-TECHNIK in terms of the increase in selected trade fair visitors and the high throughput of people from the first to the last day. For me, the increase in enquiries as well as actual sales once again reflects the success of the event in 2011.


RESINEX GERMANY GmbH, Zwingenberg, Elmar Schröter, Managing Director

FAKUMA at its best! As the largest trade fair for plastics in the German speaking countries in 2011, FAKUMA was once again the highlight of our trade fair presentations this year, and it’s our favourite event!

We very much appreciate the opportunity of presenting ourselves to our customers at this outstanding plastics industry exhibition with all its diversity.

This year, we placed the emphasis of our presentation on innovative products for E&L applications as well as on our comprehensive portfolio for the medical and pharmaceuticals sector. The feedback surpassed our high expectations, and thus we are already looking forward to the next event in 2012!


gwk Gesellschaft Wärme Kältetechnik mbH, Kierspe, Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Gries, Manager, Sales and Marketing

FAKUMA is traditionally one of our top trade fairs. Against this backdrop, we rate FAKUMA 2011 as the best FAKUMA we’ve ever experienced. Everything was just right; the quantity and the quality of the visitors, as well as their internationalism. Never before have we taken so many orders directly at the event. We’re showing all of our current developments here and our range of products is completely in line with this year’s central focus at FAKUMA – “energy efficiency”. The focal point for our customers in 2011 is mainly dynamic cooling, as well as further increases in efficiency during the cooling process.


Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH, Schwaig,Dipl-Ing. (FH) Bernd Tröger, Head of Marketing

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag can look back on a very successful trade fair where we were able to achieve extremely optimistic targets. Better than average results became apparent as regards the kind of visitors we had, that is to say new/potential customers. The company succeeded in awakening interest thanks to numerous innovations aligned to customer needs in terms of precision, increases in quality, energy savings and reduced cycle times. Furthermore, confidence in the supplier plays a key role in our customers’ purchasing decisions, and due to the size of the company, the variety of divisions and last but not least, its global orientation, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag managed proved convincing at all levels, and this is a fundamental factor behind its increased market visibility.
Market positioning and location of the trade fair, excepting a few traffic issues, was positive overall. A trade fair by specialists for specialists and decision-makers in a narrow industry environment are the optimal surroundings for targeted acquisition of new customers. We see room for improvement in terms of catering (quality) and in structural matters, for example, a covered walkway from hall A to B.


ILLIG Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Heilbronn, Wolfgang Konrad, Company Communications & PR

As one of FAKUMA’s original exhibitors, our company motto fits very well to 30 years of FAKUMA, that motto being “tradition shapes the future”. FAKUMA is still the ideal platform for us, because it takes place in a region where a large part of our customers are based. This trade fair is highly rated and acclaimed by all our customers. Here we meet predominantly with qualified specialists and can conduct detailed discussions with potential customers. Our target audience ranges from small companies to large concerns. We appeal to all of them with our wide product range and also use the opportunity to inform the appropriate visitors about our products that have not been of interest for them to date – and this we do with success. Our main focus this year is “energy saving – energy optimisation”, and this created a lot of interest amongst the visitors. In short, we achieved our objectives at FAKUMA 2011 and our expectations of the trade fair were met.


Wittmann Battenfeld GmbH & Co. KG, Kottingbrunn (Austria), Andreas Hollweg, Head of Sales

Wittmann Battenfeld is very positive about FAKUMA 2011. Right from the first day of the trade fair, our booth was very busy and this continued through to the last day. The importance of FAKUMA as a trade fair for Wittmann Battenfeld was reflected by our very much larger booth. The fortunately large number of direct leads fielded our booth validates our general presence at the fair, where our motto was “world of innovation”, and our expectations were exceeded. The Wittmann Battenfeld booth offered our audience the opportunity of informing themselves comprehensively about our  product range and convincing themselves of our leadership qualities. The high quality of discussions conducted at the booth underlined once again the family-like character of the trade fair. In addition to lots of German visitors, we were also pleased to welcome many customers and potential customers from other European countries from and overseas.


Ferromatik Milacron, Malterdingen, Robert Trube, Director Sales & Marketing

Together with K, FAKUMA is the most important trade fair in Europe for us. With our head office in Malterdingen, near Freiburg, this is a home game for us. We received much praise from all quarters for our 3200 square foot booth – the FERROMATIK LOUNGE with its black design, white furniture and hints of red. We managed to sell the three exhibited machine during the trade fair – we even sold three mono-sandwich machines. This time-tested  FERROMATIK technology one again attracted special attention at the trade fair. Our booth was well frequented right from the start, and we are also very pleased with the quality of our discussions. We are particularly pleased with the interest in the new modular F-series and the numerous quotation we’ll now have to write.

The only criticism is and remains the traffic situation – this year with a partial closing of the B 31. However, overall we really do rate the atmosphere at FAKUMA; fine exhibition halls with plenty of daylight in the midst of beautiful countryside.


OxiMaTec GmbH, Hochdorf, Dr rer. nat. Wolfgang Burger, Managing Director

At our joint booth with Cimatron and engraving company Leonhardt, we demonstrated high performance ceramic injection moulding live in action for the first time ever. Using the sleeve nut for HASCO’s hot runner with tooling from Leonhardt, designed with Cimatron software, as an example, the components were produced on an Arburg injection moulding machine. Our illustration of the complete process chain (CIMATRON: CAD/CAM solutions; Leonhardt: tools; OxiMaTec: material, moulding, sintering) drew many visitors to our booth. Even Dr Günther Horzetzky, Secretary of State in the Department of Trade and Industry, North Rhine-Westphalia, visited our booth to learn more about this innovative process. Other highlights, for example erodible ceramic and full ceramic milling tools for the processing of dust-generating materials (graphite, glass-fibre reinforced plastics) attracted a lot of interest from tool and mould makers. We can be satisfied with the reaction to our main exhibits. At FAKUMA, we were pleased to welcome visitors from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. We also received interested visitors from North America (USA and Canada) and Asia (India).

During the trade fair, we took orders for our milling tools. The interest in our concept for manufacturing components with customised material formulations using injection moulding processes was also evident; we are already negotiating several projects with customers from home and abroad. We are hopeful for some good follow-up business.