Getting in form for global competition

Injection molding is a hotly contested market. With hundreds of manufacturers delivering around 100,000 injection presses each year, the success of a machine relies heavily on differentiation through technological features. But Woojin Plaimm hasn't stopped there. Together with B&R, the injection molding specialist is ensuring that its DL and TE series also stand out in terms of usability, visualization and human-machine interaction.

Founded in 1985, Woojin Plaimm is Korea's largest manufacturer of injection molding machines, producing up to 2,700 each year. Woojin is exceptionally vertically integrated – from the casting and machining of the molds to the final assembly of the machine.

Long represented primarily in Asia, in recent years the company has redirected its international strategy to target the markets in North and South America and Europe. In the fall of 2014, Woojin opened a new 70,000-square-meter plant in Korea with an annual production volume of 6,500 machines.

Two years ago, the company also opened an R&D center in Leobersdorf, Austria. With the addition of this European location, systems engineering requirements – such as industrial control and IT systems and the acquisition and processing of production data – have moved into the foreground. In order to ensure optimal integration of European standards into the company's technology, the location in Austria has been expanded into a full-fledged European headquarters with its own sales and service center.

The cooperation between Woojin and B&R began in Korea in 2008 with the all-electric TE series. The companies also collaborated on development of Woojin's hydraulic toggle-clamping TH series – followed by the TH-S variant.

The first big project implemented in Leobersdorf was a redesign of the DL series, a two-platen machine for high clamping-force requirements. "With its complete solutions, B&R is our preferred partner," says Dietmar L. Morwitzer, CEO of Woojin Plaimm's European headquarters. "B&R control systems have always been highly advanced, including technology specific to plastics and injection molding. With solutions that are state-of-the-art even by the highest European standards, we're able to reach a whole new range of customers and compete with the top-players on the international market."

The DL-A5 650, a hydraulic two-platen machine with 650 tons of clamping force, has a dry cycle time of under three seconds. The servo pump that comes standard on the DL-series helps lower energy consumption because it is only needed for movement along the machine axis. The machines are available with a clamping force ranging from 550 to 3,300 tons. The new mechanical design places the hydraulic reservoirs near the cylinder for high-speed injection, while the pumps are positioned near the oil tank and left easily accessible for maintenance. Numerous other details were also optimized to increase accessibility for operators and service technicians.

The TE series was designed with a focus on performance. This includes executing movements in parallel – a clear advantage of all-electric machines. TE machines use an ACOPOSmulti servo drive, whose compact construction helps minimize the machine footprint. In addition to automotive parts, these machines are also used to produce components for medical devices and consumer electronics.

B&R Automation Studio provides an integrated development environment, which Woojin uses for everything from machine and motion control to communication and HMI. This saves not only time, but maintenance costs as well. "B&R's Automation Studio is the perfect tool for measurement, programming and diagnostics, offering enormous advantages in terms of time savings. To use a competitor's product – where the web-based HMI application would have to be developed outside of Automation Studio – would have added a considerable amount of overhead," explains Wagner.

With Woojin's increasingly international operations, it has also become necessary to handle certain service and diagnostics tasks either directly on the machine or remotely via the Internet. "This has enabled us to retrieve and exchange data much more quickly and easily. That's one of the biggest highlights of the new controller," reports Morwitzer.

Following the K 2016 exhibition, Woojin will once again be turning to B&R – this time for safety. The first project will begin with the company's VH series of vertical injection presses, which feature numerous light curtains. On a vertical machine, the operator typically places parts into the machine manually, so there is direct human-machine interaction. Compared to a machine with an automatic cycle, this makes it particularly crucial that there is safety technology in place to protect the operator.