Metav 2016 – Moulding Area New Information Pool for Tool and Mould Constructors

In Düsseldorf, from 23rd – 27th February 2016, the Metav will again be presenting all the value-creating links in the modern production chain. From the idea to the machine, from the design to the workplace is the motto here. One of the important elements involved is tool and mould construction, which receives for the first time, with the Moulding Area, a dedicated exhibition platform.

On the 23rd February 2016, the Metav makers will again switch the power on, as they say: for five days, Düsseldorf will once again be the most important international meeting point for those interested in metal processing. This year, the slogan “Power your Business” accompanies the offers open to exhibitors and visitors. Among these, the protagonists from the important sector of tool and mould construction will be trying for the first time to boost their business in the new and specially planned Moulding Area. The Moulding Area is thus celebrating its première, and this special exhibition is of course intended to present new solutions for medium-sized firms in tool and mould construction. For, according to the fair organiser VDW, the raised productivity due to automation should not be limited to the deluxe players in this field.

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The new Moulding Area aims to satisfy many visitors’ wishes

One exhibitor involved from the beginning is the Meusburger Georg GmbH & Co KG from Wolfurt (Austria), we hear. Sales manager Lutz Schaller explains: „Tool and mould construction is an integral part of the metal industry and its customers activities. We are therefore very glad that this aspect is reflected in the new Metav concept.“ The Moulding Area is therefore ideally embedded in the exhibition structure of the fair, with emphases on CAD methods, production processes and quality assurance, Schaller adds. He sees this as the reason why Meusburger wants to set new standards at the event.

Dr. Wilfried Schäfer, CEO of the Metav organiser VDW, confirms this: „From surveys we know that almost every fifth Metav visitor is interested in the construction of tools, moulds and models.“ The new Moulding Area will therefore be entirely to the taste of many visitors, showing interesting applications and solutions for their special field – for both the metal and plastics sectors, according to Schäfer. Additional synergy effects result from visiting the other areas: complex shapes, for example, can be produced using alternative methods with additive processes. What is possible here can be seen in the corresponding Additive Manufacturing Area. Questions arising on measurement technology, including those going beyond production technology, are then topics for the Quality Area. „This is not available in this form at any other event,“ the VDW boss emphasises.

Product spectrum expanded by 90 items specially for the Metav

These preconditions also motivated Andreas Stute, CEO of the Intercam Deutschland GmbH in Bad Lippspringe, also known under the name Mastercam, to appear on the new presentation platform: „In the Moulding Area, visitors receive all information needed for efficient product development and production. That is why we are showing our know-how at the Metav.“

The Moulding Area represents the entire bandwidth of tool and mould construction, from design to prototyping and on to series production of components. For the première of the Moulding Area at the Metav 2016, their existing exhibition catalogue for this field was expanded by over 90 items, Stute informs us.

In this setting, tool and mould construction also offers novel and extended possibilities for realising complex geometries in plastic, metal or glass. In the Moulding Area, the topics shaping of moulds, surface structures and also kinematic and thermal design are just as important as the competence fields design and prototyping.

One thing is clear: competition in manufacture has become very stiff. This applies particularly to tool and mould construction, where strong competition comes from the Far East and Eastern Europe, the experts say. Yet tailor-made automation does not work out only for large companies, as two almost identically large middle-sized firms from Lower Saxony and Thuringia prove. „It is becoming constantly more difficult to get the necessary number of good workers, so one must automate and rely more on the qualification levels of staff for success in the future as well,“ says Udo Fenske, CEO of the Maschinen- & Formenbau Leinetal MFL GmbH in Neustadt am Rübenberge. For him, automation therefore plays an essential role in survival. This member of the VDMA specialist group Precision Tools has for years therefore been a regular visitor to information events at which firms demonstrate their automation solutions. He was particularly impressed on a visit to the Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG in Blomberg in spring 2015. In the firm's own tool construction network, over 300 different injection moulding tools are produced every year in locations in Germany, China, India and Poland.

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