INNOVATION CENTER IN THE USA TO BE EXPANDED FOR MORE CUSTOMER TRIALS

KraussMaffei Corporation becomes the leading industry competence center

The Innovation Center and logistics area of KraussMaffei Corporation at the company's North American headquarters are being expanded and extended in line with the corporate strategy. This will create the industry’s leading competence center for plastics manufacturing in the US.

KraussMaffei Corporation's 30,000-square-foot Innovation Center at the company's North American headquarters in Florence, Kentucky, is undergoing extensive expansion.

The innovation center, previously designed for compounding and a limited number of pipe extrusion trials, has been, in a significant investment, expanded to include injection molding, sheet extrusion and profile extrusion lines. This means that the US compounding, pipe and profile markets are now likewise optimally served. The expansion will soon be supplemented by polyurethane reaction processing. In addition, staff numbers at the Kentucky site are also being increased to include more first-class service technicians and engineers complementing innovative digital services, such as smartAssist, socialProduction and DataXplorer.

"We had recently been able to collaborate with a key customer on the development of its new material and processes for tube, sheet metal and injection applications - all at our state-of-the-art Innovation Center in Florence," says Nolan Strall, Vice President Operations & Aftermarket. "It is an outstanding service we can provide in Florence. This is where we will continue to invest to best serve our customers in the future."

Expansion also in the logistics area

For 2021 and beyond, KraussMaffei plans to expand activities in its Innovation Center to include small batches in order to support customers dealing with complex extrusion and injection molding processes.

The expansion of the facility extends not only to the Innovation Center, but also to the company's logistics area. This was reorganized to function as a central spare part hub for North and South America.

"Having the right spare parts at the right time is paramount to our customers' success," explains Strall. "The investments will make us more agile and respond faster to spare part requests. In addition, we will be able to stock the right number of parts – based on our customers' installations and equipment age."

This data-driven approach to spare parts is part of a larger global drive by KraussMaffei Group in Munich to systematically link up all its regional parts hubs and ultimately provide to all customers access to their global spare parts inventory.