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40 years of experience and a passion for challenging injection-moulding projects

In 1973, Vladimir Mayer started his injection-moulding company with in-house mould making in the Swabian town of Laichingen. He is still at the helm today, now assisted by his son Marcel. The Mayer GmbH generates around half of its turnover directly with various car manufacturers and their suppliers. A “special field” is child safety: child seats and accessories.

Ingo Staib (motan-colortronic) and Vladimir Mayer

Mayer sees himself as a flexible, fast-reacting system provider who supplies everything, from the product idea to ready-toinstall modules. Approximately 40 injection-moulding machines with clamping forces between 250 and 17,000 kN produce mostly complex parts, many of them used in visible areas. What is unusual for a company of this size is the high-performance surface finishing: owing to various print technologies and a modern in-house paint shop, matt or glossy exterior vehicle parts can be delivered directly to the belt. Various connection and assembly technologies as well as Mayer’s own logistics complement the performance spectrum. Mayer processes a wide range of thermoplastics including TPE and can also do multi-component injection moulding.

The company has grown continuously over time. motan-colortronic accompanied it right from the start. And further expansion is just around the corner.

Tier-1 and tier-2 supplier for the automotive industry and its suppliers – as a medium-sized injection moulder and mould manufacturer with 110 employees in the Swabian Alb? How have you accomplished this, Mr. Meyer?

Vladimir Mayer // We have always had a passion for products and projects not every injection moulder takes on – e.g. seemingly simple parts like TPE floor mats for the BMW X1. Design elements the customer can use to give the BMW Mini a personal touch must have excellent surfaces and must be available in many colours. What helps us here is that we have several in-house plants for surface finishing and that we process a wide range of materials. This makes us very flexible and efficient. And in this way even a medium-sized company like us can secure challenging and attractive projects like design elements for the VW Passat, which are painted both matt and glossy.

Talking about a wide range of materials – one look into your modern production facilities shows that in terms of material handling you seem to rely completely on motan-colortronic. Why?

Vladimir Mayer // 40 years of good cooperation. Each side knows what the other wants. We simply understand each other. Ever since our company was established in the 1970‘s, we have had good experiences with motan dryers as well as with mixing and dosing devices. And of course with the way they took care of us. Especially when it came to processing materials that were new and difficult for us, motan-colortronic were at our side with good advice and quick service. So every time we expanded, we upgraded to the next level of motancolortronic equipment. Finally, in 2014 we worked together to realise a new, integrated and energy-saving concept including central material handling in order to be able to manufacture our products even more economically and flexibly in future. Today, around 70 per cent of our materials such as PA, PC and ABS are pre-dried. 

MINICOLOR V: Volumetric dosing and mixing device for the exact dosing of masterbatch. In the background, the supply lines of the central material handling system.

What does the new concept look like?

Vladimir Mayer // If you have as many as 40 injection-moulding machines and process more and more materials, you will not get very far with a “grown” decentralised material handling system. You will need an integrated concept, even if it‘s only to save energy during drying. And this is all the more true the more you expand. To be able to accomplish this step, we again teamed up with Ingo Staib and Anton Küble of motan- colortronic and together we developed a forward-looking concept that is exactly tailored to our needs. It comprises the entire process from material storage to drying and distribution up to the automatic loading of recycling material and the mixing and dosing technology at the machines.

For all these issues we simply needed comprehensive and competent support, even for minor subjects like the effect of dedusting on injection quality, which for us is very important.
motan-colortronic proved to be a reliable partner and did not make promises they could not keep. Everything went as planned. Just to give you a figure: today our energy consumption is down to 40 per cent of the amount needed before. We actually save 60 per cent. This is definitely something. And it gives us a competitive edge.

Ingo Staib // What is more, the transition to a central material handling system makes material transport easier for the staff. You do not need expensive storage space on the shop floors and avoid faulty loading. The production facilities are much cleaner.

As judged from your many years of experience, would you do things differently today?

Vladimir Mayer // Definitely not. We are currently expanding our production on an adjoining piece of land with injection-moulding machines of up to 2000 tons and multi-component technology. Again, motan-colortronic will be at our side. The motan solutions help us convince customers of our first-class production. At the end of many tours, we lead our visitors past our drying system and demonstrate – directly at the machine – what we do to enhance the quality of their products. They are always impressed …

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#Injection moulding#Materials handling#motan consultancy#Partner
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mo explains: " Injection molding produces sprues that can immediately be turned into regrind and reused. This makes sense because it saves money and protects the environment. If the initial material needs to be dried it can save even more money as regrind does not usually need to be dried if it is being reused immediately. Are you interested in more questions regarding plastics manufacturing and processing"?

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