UK moulder buys Maplan's CoolDrive unit

ERJ staff report (DS)

Northampton, UK -- Austrian press manufacturer Maplan has delivered the first Cool Drive press in the UK to Burnetts Manufacturing in Northampton, UK.

Burnetts is a rubber moulder making gaskets, seals and other products from rubber, silicone and TPE materials. It was previously part of the McKechnie group, and was saved from closure in 2006 when a management team, led by Alan Murphy, purchased the Rubber and Liquid Silicone facilities. The company subsequently relocated to new premises in Northampton and now employs 33 people producing a variety of Rubber, Silicone and TPE components which are shipped all over the world, including China.

Murphy said Maplan is an important partner going forward. “Our expectations in 2006 were very conservative. We went into this with tremendous support from our existing customers and our increase in turnover reflects this. We bought our first Maplan last year and have been very impressed with the whole experience. We are therefore very happy that it was Maplan who were able to supply 2 new presses so quickly and so keenly priced. Some manufactures quoted 6 months, which would have proved catastrophic, but Maplan were able to deliver within 5 weeks which has allowed us to keep up with our customers' high expectations.” The company will install the new Maplan unit during December.

Cool Drive from Maplan is a technology designed to reduce power consumption of the drive by up to 70%. It achieves this by stopping the hydraulic drive whenever the cylinders are not moving. This eliminates the energy wasted in trying to pump hydraulic oil against -- effectively -- a brick wall. This saves energy in the pump, but it saves further energy by reducing the cooling load , as the oil does not heat up so much. Cool Drive is available across the entire Maplan range of injection moulding presses.

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Press release from Burnetts