Barry Hill, managing director of Wittmann Battenfeld UK and Ireland says Irish SME manufacturing is doing well. The company took part in the All Ireland New Technology Forum in plastics, which featured two key Irish centres for plastics – in Athlone and Waterford.
Both events were supported by a small table top show, with Wittmann Battenfeld among the exhibitors.
“Similar to the UK we are finding many parts of Irish SME manufacturing to be pretty buoyant currently,’ said Hill. ‘The turnout for both of these days underlines that fact. We have also taken the opportunity of this week in Ireland to visit a number of Irish clients old and new and in the north and south.”
According to Hill, the Wittmann Battenfeld order book is prospering in the medical market because of its continuing gains via the new MicroPower and EcoPower machines.
“Our one-stop-shop approach is popular, especially in automated and medical production environments where companies need to design complete production cells around the moulding machine, including robots of various speeds and capacities; materials handling; polymer blending and granulation - something for all stages of the production cycle.”
The first day of the Irish SPE event saw the opening of the Applied Polymer Technology (APT) Gateway in Athlone; a national technology centre focused on all aspects of polymer research funded by Enterprise Ireland in Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT).
The second day saw the launch of Ireland’s first Super Critical Fluid assisted polymer processing facility located in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). This facility will be a key driver for developing sustainable research partnerships and providing technical assistance to a range of companies in the south east of Ireland, through the National Applied Technology Polymer Gateway Centre, such as ClearStream Technologies (CR Bard), FastForm Research, Bausch & Lomb, Eirgen Pharma, Nypro, Genzyme, Allsop Europe and Teva Pharmaceuticals.