Plast Platinum Award 2015 goes to Freeformer

Arburg was awarded the Plast Platinum Award medal in the plastics processing machines and systems category.

This Plastpol trade-fair award, which is presented annually, honours the development and implementation of ground-breaking technologies as well as economic and ecological innovations. Dr. Slamowir Sniady, Managing Director of Arburg Polska Sp. z o o. accepted the award for the Freeformer.

This year the independent panel of judges, comprising of eminent specialists from the Polish plastics community, met under the chairmanship of Prof. Marek Bielinsky of the Bydgoszcz University of Science and Technology.

Initially, all the applications were examined in detail. The members of the judging panel then visit the companies at their exhibition stands, view the exhibits there and discuss details with the specialists from the various companies. Finally, the award-winners are selected and the prizes awarded to the relevant submissions.

Arburg has been awarded one of the coveted medals, in the area of innovations to plastics processing machines and systems, for its Freeformer, as the most innovative system for industrial additive manufacturing of fully functional one-off parts of multi-variant small-volume batches.

With the Arburg Plastic Freeforming process, fully functional parts can be manufactured additively from conventional standard plastic granulates based on 3D CAD data without a mould. Similarly to injection moulding, the granulate is first melted in a plasticising cylinder and the part is then built up layer-by-layer from tiny droplets. The discharge unit with the nozzle remains stationary and it is the part carrier which moves along several axes.

Since its market launch at the K 2013, the Freeformer has already received a number of prizes, including the renowned Red Dot Award for excellence in product design and now the Plast Platinum Award.