Husky Injection Molding Systems continues to make significant investments to support the strong growth of its Hot Runners and Controllers customers. Husky established its hot runners and controllers business as a strategic priority early in 2013 and is focused on developing innovative products and services that solve customers’ key injection molding challenges in areas such as gate quality, balance, ease of use and maintainability.
Recent investments in the business will enable Husky to further reduce lead times, increase global capacity, and enhance its global customer support capabilities. Specific investments in 2014 include expanding Husky’s facility in Pudong, China with new manufacturing equipment and new team members, and commencing hot runner manufacturing at its Chennai, India facility. This will allow Husky to achieve industry-leading lead times in Asia, and benefit customers around the world by streamlining the workload at its other manufacturing facilities in Milton, Vermont and Dudelange, Luxembourg.
In the next 12 months, investments in the business will include increasing capacity to manufacture hot half plates, and introducing new, more efficient manufacturing technology for manifolds at its Luxembourg facility. To better support customers with fast delivery needs or special technical requirements, Husky is also expanding its custom components manufacturing capacity with state of the art equipment and skilled machinists. A new generation of engineering automation is also being put into place that will greatly improve collaborative engineering with customers. Hand in hand with capital investments, Husky has added more people to its sales support and customer service teams to give customers better support on mold and part design consulting, resin trials, start-up assistance and field troubleshooting.
Innovative product launches add to business success
To support customers with hot runners and controllers for a wider variety of applications, Husky has launched a number of products recently. Such products include a PRONTO® and ULTRA SIDEGATE™ expansion, and the launch of innovative new products like the ALTANIUM MATRIX2™ and ALTANIUM DELTA3™ controllers, and the UNIFY™ pre-assembled manifold system.
“Husky’s goal is to be the industry’s first choice for melt delivery systems, and our new UNIFY™ manifold system and ALTANIUM® hot runner controllers continue to prove that we are leaders in the industry by continuously driving innovation,” said Gerardo Chiaia, Husky’s President of Hot Runners. “Customers continue to benefit from our technology with improved gate quality, balance, ease of use and maintainability.”
Husky has adopted a scientific approach to reducing sources of waste and variability in the injection molding process, and as a result has introduced new design and manufacturing processes that aim to make Husky hot runners the most thermally uniform in the industry. This approach is also being applied to developing nozzles with longer life and superior valve gate quality, as well as expanding the scope of current products. By focusing on innovation, Husky will further increase its ability to optimize hot runners for each application, helping bring customers’ products to market faster and at the lowest part cost.
