20
In his speech, the Minister for Environment of North
Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Remmel, complimented
the technical centre's contribution to energy efficiency
and pointed out that we all need to move towards a
central task for the future when talking about the energy
turnaround. In a time where Germany has opted to
decommission all nuclear energy by 2022, we have to
revert to alternative energies and energy efficiency start-
ing now. In regards to this topic, the technical centre is
already a pioneer, due to the fact that we as the HF
MIXING GROUP also want to realise plans to work towards
more energy efficiency as soon as possible.
A promising start
Managing Director Dr Andreas Limper commented pos-
itively on the technical centre's successful first year: ‘We
are happy that our large investment in this optimal and
conveniently situated location in the Siegerland region
resulted the best and technically state-of-the-art level.
The construction of the technical centre took nearly ten
months. The 600 square meter area was expanded by
another 700 square meters, more than doubling the
available capacity.’
Success through teamwork
With the merger of our Group, we transformed ourselves
into the biggest manufacturer of machines for the rubber
industry. Now we can offer optimum solutions from one
hand for both mixing technologies – tangential and inter-
meshing mixers. Farrel will concentrate on tangential
mixers and Harburg-Freudenberger will focus on inter-
meshing mixers. Furthermore, the engineering at Pomini
develops twin-screw dump extruders and VIC mixers.
The best service for our customers
The technical centre in Freudenberg is equipped with
high-capacity machines that can be coupled with each
other depending on the required target. Up to 600 kilo-
grams of elastomers can now be processed per hour. It
is part of our service promise to offer our customers the
possibility to test the machines and to improve their pro-
cesses. ‘Our customers often do not have the technical
possibilities to do this with their own machines. At the
technical centre, they can test our machines and our
proposals for automation in the best possible conditions
which are as close to reality,’ says Dr Limper. Last year
leading tyre producers such as Michelin, Goodyear and
Toyo carried out trials in our technical centre. This year
also Continental will get our full support – amongst oth-
ers with an automation workshop. That speaks in the
favour of our excellent order situation and highly-quali-
fied teams. Furthermore, a new laboratory mixer GK5E
will be available. This mixer reaches rotor speeds of over
200 rpm, which is similar to the other machines installed.
Crazy about mixing
Besides customer trials, mixing seminars take place reg-
ularly in the technical centre. In collaboration with
‘Deutsche Kautschuk-Gesellschaft e. V.’ (DKG), ‘Deut
sches Institut für Kautschuktechnologie e. V.’ (DIK) and
participating groups from all over the world, we equip the
people with knowledge related to practice and then we
carry out a ‘mixing competition’. In this racing, each
group has to carry out three mixing trials on two labora
tory mixers. Only the best can win! Furthermore, the
‘At the technical centre, customers can
test our machines and our proposals for
automation in the best possible conditi-
ons.’
MIXING
TOGETHER
| The MIXING GROUP’s world
