Injection moulding specialist, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, has opened a service and support office in Limerick, Ireland.
This office marks the company’s commitment to supporting its Irish customer base and will aim to provide customers in both Northern and Southern Ireland with on-the-ground preventative and reactive machine maintenance and troubleshooting support.
Polymer Technology Ireland previously reported that the polymer sector comprises of 230 enterprises which employ 7,000 people. It is anticipated that the Covid-19 pandemic will further strengthen Ireland’s medical polymer value chain.
Nigel Flowers, managing director, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK, commented: “The polymer knowledge pool and maturity of the market in Ireland means it is well placed to take advantage of future economic opportunities. Being part of the Eurozone will clearly be an export advantage. Additionally, Ireland has attracted a large number of multinational organisations in recent years, especially clusters of US pharma, technology and electronic firms with their EMEA operations located here. Continuing investment shows no sign of slowing.”
This office is also part of a post-Brexit insulation strategy for the injection moulding company. A permanent in-country service and support base will ensure timely sourcing of spare parts and allow trading in euros without incurring hefty exchange fees.
Sumitomo (SHI) Demag already has a presence in the Irish market
Following a long time serving the Irish market, at the end of 2018 Sumitomo (SHI) Demag appointed material handling and dosing specialist TSM Control Systems as its machine sales agent. Talking about this appointment, Flowers said: “TSM has an excellent reputation in Ireland for sales and commissioning, but we recognised the need to underpin that with advanced technical support and a very swift turnaround on parts.”
Additionally, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag has invested in the Applied Polymer Technologies (APT) centre to support Irish plastic processors with their research, product development, tool testing and validation projects. A new cleanroom IntElect is now installed, and available to Northern and Republic-based polymer manufacturers and innovators to perform trials and de-risk projects, the centre also serves as a hand-on customer training and demonstration facility.
Kris Thacker, senior support engineer, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, concluded: “Until now, our Irish customers have had to travel to the UK for mould trials, training and machinery demonstrations. With the APT centre and a dedicated service and support office, they can now access everything they need locally. Given the current travel restrictions, this will continue to be hugely beneficial and more responsive and resource efficient.”