Technologies for the future

About SPLAST

Green is the predominant colour on the one hundred and fifty metre long production floor at SPLAST's headquarters in Krosno in southern Poland. "ENGEL is our go-to supplier for injection moulding machines," emphasises CEO Marek Sanocki , whose company has seen substantial business growth. 700 employees at four production plants – three in Poland and one in Hungary – generated sales revenues of 78 million euros in the fiscal year 2022. This makes SPLAST Sp. z o.o. one of the largest plastics processors in Poland. The Krosno plant alone processes 32 tonnes of raw material per day on 23 injection moulding machines, creating sophisticated parts and fit-for-purpose prefabricated assemblies.

How SPLAST boosts competitive position with state-of-the-art injection moulding technologies

"We are development partners and co-designers for our customers and contribute many ideas for series production ourselves," says Dr. MONIKA ST?CEL , Head of Research and Development at SPLAST. "This is what makes it so important for us to keep pushing forward. Expanding our own know-how and conducting our own research."

?"The decisive factor in favour of ENGEL was their technological expertise," as Dr. Henryk Majcherczyk , the Technical Director of SPLAST explains. "We can group many different technologies on a single injection moulding machine and combine their use." "We also benefit from the fact that ENGEL supplies all of the system components from a single source as integrated production cells," as Production Manager Przemyslaw Dylewski adds. "Right down to training our employees, because that is our only way to make sure we leverage all the opportunities the production cell offers."

A jack-of-all-trades production cell

CEO Marek Sanocki is proud to point out the most recently delivered production cell. Two ENGEL duo injection moulding machines with a wide-platen design and clamping forces of 500 and 600 tonnes – the 500-tonne combi M machine with a horizontal indexing table – stand next to one another and encompass two ENGEL easix articulated robots, two ENGEL viper linear robots, an IR oven and a polyurethane line. Both of the machines are impressive. Any number of technology packages, including packages for multi-component and structural foam moulding, in-mould decoration and in-mould painting, and composite processing. And beyond this, numerous smart assistance systems from the ENGEL inject 4.0 range.

"The biggest challenge for us was to design the production cell so that it could be used in a totally flexible way while complying with all safety standards," reports Thomas Auboeck , Automotive Sales Manager at ENGEL.

"Production cells with this kind of complexity are usually tailor-made for a specific product. But we have a special case here where many different moulds are set up and the two duo machines are used in both interlinked applications and independently of one another."

Technologies doing their magic

#1 organomelt

"SPLAST continually poses new challenges for us," emphasises Adam Marciniak , who has worked closely with SPLAST for many years as Sales Manager at ENGEL Polska. "The team at SPLAST is very creative when it comes to combining different technologies. For example, they were the first to combine the ENGEL organomelt and decoject technologies in a single application – and they have been successful with this." The main target group is the automotive industry, which faces the challenge of efficiently combining lightweight construction with surfaces which offer a premium appeal paired with functionality. "The technology expertise that ENGEL has helps us achieve the cost efficiency required for the mass market," says Marek Sanocki.

Another application of the organomelt process at SPLALST is parts for cleaning trolleys. Organomelt has helped to reduce the weight of the cleaning trolleys' floor plates from 4.5 to 1.3 kilograms. Instead of the previous 4 mm, the new plates are only 0.5 mm thick, but they have become even more stable at the same time. Another advantage, and one which impresses customers in the automotive industry in particular, is that polypro-pylene, which is more cost-effective than the legacy high-performance thermoplastics, can be used as the basic material in these applications.?

#2 in-mould decoration

Decoject is an in-mould decoration (IMD) process which helps to achieve the desired surface properties using a film that is fed to the mould reel-to-reel. This enables special surface structures or even a soft-touch tactile experience. SPLAST uses Decoject technology to manufacture the handles for the cleaning trolleys and ensure a good grip.

Again, the basic material is PP; with a recycled material content of 20 percent in this case. "Decoject offers us the opportunity to increase the use of recycled material, even for high-quality visible components, right up to 100 percent," explains St?cel, who is also targeting applications in the vehicle interior here.

?#3 clearmelt process

The handles are located on a frame component which neatly seals off the larger cleaning trolleys at the top. SPLAST relies on another innovative ENGEL technology for these two-component parts, which are produced on the duo combi M injection moulding machine: clear-melt or in-mould painting, as the SPLAST engineers refer to it.

The integrated clearmelt process involves first injecting a basic thermoplastic carrier, the surface of which is then immediately enhanced with a layer of polyurethane in the same mould. The polyurethane ensures both a high gloss level and excellent scratch resistance. Thanks to the combi M design with a horizontally rotating indexing table, the two process steps take place in parallel on the duo injection moulding machine.

"We used to paint these parts," as Majcherczyk notes. "The integrated process has made us far more efficient, especially since we are also saving on logistics overheads. After all, the parts used to be painted by an external supplier."?

Future plans to increase recycled material

Future ideas for further use and combination of injection moulding technologies are already in discussion with SPLAT’s customers. Across the entire product range, SPLAST has set itself the goal of successively increasing the share of recycled material.

Innovative processing technologies such as Decojet play a central role here. Another approach is to embed the recycled material in a shell of virgin material, which is possible with the skinmelt technology. The SPLAST managers have also already set their sights on the new two-stage process as a particularly energy-efficient method of processing plastic flakes directly. Innovative applications are sure to follow at SPLAST in the future.