In-line for success Union Officine Meccaniche

IN-LINE FOR SUCCESS

Union Officine Meccaniche is a European market leader in the development and manufacture of extruders and extrusion lines for sheets, foils, profiles and hollow sheets. Philip Yorke spoke to Mattia Valtorta, the company’s general manager, about its latest innovative in-line extruders that lead the field in eco-friendly efficiency and reliability.

Union was founded in 1950 at San Vittore Olona near Milano and has seen consistent demand for its complete extrusion lines for rigid and foam plastic materials. The company’s on-going application of innovative technology and the constant research towards high quality standards has resulted in Union becoming a leader in its field. The extrusion lines are custom made and engineered for flexibility and ease of operation, as well as offering quality control systems that guarantee high production performances. The company’s products offer a warranted non-stop productivity capability and after-sales technical assistance and service worldwide. All the extruders are completely designed and manufactured by Union with a production capacity of between 100 to 5000Kg/h in relation to the materials being processed.

The company’s latest PET lines are composed of gravimetric dosing systems, with multi-components that are able to convey recycled flakes, granules, additives and masterbatch, according to the customer’s requirements.

Broad portfolio

Union produces single and twin screw extruders as well as complete turnkey extrusion lines for sheets, foils, profiles, hollow sheets at two or more walls. The company also produces special production lines for composite panels of plastics and metal. This is in addition to complete lines for undulated and greca sheets of PMMA, PC and PET. Union also manufactures advanced equipment for XPE, XPS, XPP and XPET foam boards, sheets and profiles.

Valtora said, “As a private company we are both flexible and customer oriented and prefer to stay a medium-sized company

in order to maintain our high standards of innovation and service. From the outset we produced high quality extruders and later extended our range of products to include complete extrusion lines for the production of rigid films or rolls of rigid films utilising flat die extrusion technology.

“Despite the years of economic recession we are in very good financial health with a positive balance sheet. A milestone was reached in 2008 when the ownership of Union changed hands to Mr Ferdinando Passoni who acquired the company from the founder’s sons, and as a result, new lines were added for polypropylene and ABS etc. for expanded materials. Another milestone was reached in 2012 when we introduced our first double PT extruders for bottles, which is the fastest growing market and far greener than PE as it is a recyclable plastic.”

Ground-breaking innovation

Valtora added, “We installed our first recycling systems in 2014 and further to this there was an ecological innovation that is the first in the world: We introduced a fourth degassing unit to remove gasses that contain contaminates. The Union extruder is still the only one in the world with this concept, which significantly reduces the moisture of the material during the extrusion process. We have already installed 15 extruders like this worldwide for PT. In fact, over the past 65 years we have installed over 1000 production lines in 54 different countries worldwide. We are a relatively small company by choice and our competitors are much bigger than us, but they are unable to offer the dedicated services and flexibility that we can offer. No challenge is too much for us and we always work closely with our clients to achieve the best outcomes for them.

“Furthermore, we manufacture all our lines in-house with some selected suppliers delivering parts when we are oversubscribed. All our lines are tested with our customers before being dismantled and delivered; we also provide a start-up service and offer thorough training for the operators. We see our growth continuing organically but mainly via mergers and joint-ventures. We recently bought a 65 per cent share in one of our suppliers so that we now own all the software for our equipment. We have an ‘atomic’ business structure of which we are the central hub. We are planning to acquire a new company producing compounds, which is a side business of our industry. We will be producing extruders for the compounding market using specially designed Union technology.

“We provide an unrivalled customer service which is operational 365 days per year and have exclusive agents in 132 countries worldwide. Our main markets are Italy, Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Ukraine and in China, where we have a permanent office staffed by our own employees. We are also looking at increasing our presence in South East Asia as well as in Latin America.”

With its range of highly specialised business units, Union has evolved into a formidable technological force in its chosen disciplines. Industry Europe believes that the future for the company looks very positive based upon its successful track record to date. n

For further information about Union and its latest innovative products, visit: www.unionextrusion.it