THE Ferromatik company name has long been one of the best known in the plastics and rubber injection moulding sector. Recently Ferromatik was transitioned to a product brand name under the Milacron umbrella of product brands.

In the early years of the South African plastics industry, what were then known as Klöckner Ferromatik machines, were widely used around the country and were a virtual benchmark for reliability. Originally a German business, Ferromatik continued to produce a range of injection machines, including those with the name Klöckner Ferromatik, during its cooperation with Klöckner & Co Trading. A steel distributor established in 1906, Klöckner became involved as the early injection moulding machines, from the 1950s, used large amounts of steel.

But time moved on, Klöckner exited and the Ferromatik business was taken over by Milacron LLC, headquartered in the USA. At this point, Milacron had been in the plastics industry for many years, originally offering Cincinnati Milacron injection machines.

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Milacron is now a major global scale group with wide ranging interests in the injection moulding, blow moulding and extrusion machine manufacturing and hot runner systems and controllers, mould technologies and fluid technologies. Milacron technologies are used in aerospace, automotive, construction, electronics, packaging, medical sectors and more. Milacron builds injection moulding machines in the USA, Germany, Czech Republic, India and China.

The Ferromatik-Series branded machine, a high speed hybrid machine currently manufactured in Germany, will soon be manufactured in Milacron’s new state-of-the art facility in the Czech Republic. Milacron all-electric machines also include the aptly name Elektra, Elektron and Powerpak.

 

Milacron in South Africa Users are also able to select machines from the respective Milacron manufacturing centres (USA, Germany, Czech Republic, India and China) which offer different technology features – and different pricing. The choice to position manufacturing internationally by Milacron was clearly driven by the fact that these countries are also the major users of injection machinery.  Although a fairly large number of Milacron machines come into South Africa, this is but a tiny percentage of the group’s global sales.

In South Africa, Milacron machines are supplied by SES cc – Seidel Electronic Systems in Wadeville, Johannesburg and users are able to select from a wide array of high-efficiency machine options. Karl Seidel and Anton Nel of SES cc are men who take the performance of the machines they supply very seriously and their business thus offers comprehensive back-up for all operational machines around the country.

According to Anton, the machines built in India are very popular in South Africa, offering a good price-performance ratio. Machine manufacture in India is operated to Milacron standards, and the bulk of componentry comes from Germany too.

“The rumour published in an international article suggested that Milacron was going to reduce the range of machines it produces in Germany, but subsequently decided to keep the K-TEC, Vittesse and Elektra machines together with the high speed Hybrid Ferromatik-Series. The variety of machines to choose from is incredible,” said Anton. Each manufacturing centre specialises in machines ranging from clean room medical applications, high speed packaging, housewares, general moulding and large Milacron Maxima G, 2 platen machines up to 4400 tons.

A number of convertors have also recently opted for Milacron’s PET preform machines. The ‘PET Series’ machines come in a variety of sizes. The flagship M-PET machine from USA is based on the fast Ferromatik toggle clamp and newly designed two stage injection units. This system focuses on performance and output per capital.

Preform moulds are also produced by Milacron group, which now also owns Mold-Masters as well as DME, a manufacturer of a range of mould components and industrial supplies,

The result of this is that the Milacron group is now also a major supplier of injection moulding equipment manufactured at its five main production centers in Germany, USA, Czech Republic, China and India.

Whether it is the old Klockner Ferromatik, Cincinnati Milacron, Ferromatik Milacron or the new Milacron, the brand remains very strong and SES cc has positioned itself around this brand. SES cc fully supports the brand in South Africa with parts and technical on-site service.