Jenoptik wins plastic innovation award for laser trimming

Citation

(2004), "Jenoptik wins plastic innovation award for laser trimming", Assembly Automation, Vol. 24 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2004.03324cab.003

Jenoptik wins plastic innovation award for laser trimming

Jenoptik wins plastic innovation award for laser trimming

Keywords: Lasers, Trim

Jenoptik has been awarded the Plastics Innovation Prize 2004 for its outstanding achievements in integrated plastic processing. The prize was presented at this year's VDI Injection Moulding technical conference, held during February at Baden-Baden, Germany (Plate 1).

Plate 1

Won in the face of stiff international competition, the prestigious award recognises an innovative automated laser trimming technique developed by Jenoptik.

The pioneering laser trimming technique is designed to be used with a novel method of film back-moulding utilising a special long fibre-reinforced thermoplastic material. This is of particular importance to manufacturers of moulded car body parts who, until recently, were restricted to the use of thermosetting materials. A production cell combines the moulding and laser trimming operations in a single automated process with no manual intervention. Cycle times of approximately 60 s are achieved, thereby making the system ideal for high volume production applications.

Commenting on the award, Bill Hogan, Director of Jenoptik UK, says “Everyone in the team is delighted to receive this very visible and prestigious award in recognition of our pioneering work. We are ideally positioned to provide sales, application engineering and service support for the exciting new technology developed by Jenoptik Automation Technology.”