At NPE2015, three firms announced their partnership to deliver turnkey production systems for the thermoforming in-mold labeling market.
Kiefel GmbH, Freilassing, Germany; Ilsemann Automation, Bremen, Germany; and Marbach Group, Heilbronn, Germany, have teamed up to provide complete thermoforming IML systems.
The partnership is completely dedicated to thermoforming IML, said Erwin Wabnig, director for the packaging industry market for Kiefel Technologies, during an interview at NPE2015 in Orlando, Fla.
"We think it's good for the customers, to give them full service for that particular technology. At the end of the day, we found that these are the best partners in that technology," Wabnig said.
Kiefel operates as part of Brückner Group, which also manufactures the stretching lines for the particular film used in thermoforming IML.
At Marbach's booth in the West Hall, officials also were displaying signage and talking about the partnership, for which it will supply its tooling and IML handling systems.
The North American market is seeing increased demand for thermoformed IML packaging, said Thomas Sawadski, Marbach's director of North American sales. This is being driven by the replacement of round containers as big box stores like Wal-Mart impose stricter shelf space requirements and that trickles down to meeting shipping restrictions. More rectangular or square containers can fit on a truck, for example.
Marbach also provides the cutting tools for the label industry.
Back at the Kiefel booth, Wabnig emphasized that the company is pushing technology and is in its next phase for speed and precision for its tilting machines.
"We are working together with Ilseman to speed up the hand-over time between our two systems," he said. "We will open our system to let Ilseman come into our system to have a very smooth and quick interface to handle the labels in our machines."
