40 years of success in the production and marketing of thermoforming machines
WM Thermoforming Machines is 40 years old!
The 40th anniversary of the company represents a great opportunity for its sales director, Luca Oliverio, to recall the stages of the great commercial success of WM. A great technological climb that began many years ago. The idea stems from the need to trace the the current state of thermoforming machine production, with reference to the nascent Industry 4. 0.
80s: birth of a historical company, specialized in the production and sale of thermoforming machines
The historical context in which the WM’s company project comes to life is that of the mythical 80s. This decade marked a great turning point for humanity, in the broadest social, political, and cultural contexts.
The 1980s are, above all, an inexhaustible factory of ideas, innovation and growth. The 70s of the great political debates and the cineforums, seem to be a long way off. In the 1980s, the idea was to grow and to face new industrial challenges, especially with regard to the advent of new technologies.
With the end of the 80s, that world came to an end. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world was preparing for new global challenges.
In this time of great change many successful companies such as WM were born. In 1981 WM Thermoforming Machines was founded in the city of Monza. From that moment on, an adventure and an incredible story began, which today marks forty years of success.
WM Thermoforming Machines: Forty years of unstoppable technological development
There is a great common thread connecting the founding of WM back in 1981 and the corporate image that characterizes it in 2021. We are talking about the great passion for their work and their mission: as suggested by the company’s payoff, “moved by passion”.
The great passion and the time devoted to research and technological innovation, have always represented for WM a cornerstone of its business and management.
Luca Oliverio explained how the company has achieved technological improvement over the years. The journey and the long corporate history of WM began right from the Computer-Aided Design/Drafting systems, which have supported the design and technical drawing of WM’s thermoforming machines.
To fully understand the great technological advancement that has always characterized WM’s activity it suffices to think that the company already used CAD systems during the years 1984-1985.
However, even before CAD systems were introduced, the Swiss company’s technical staff made use of programmable logic devices (PLD), used today in digital systems, already in 1982.
Another very important date and step for the company is 1988: that year WM installed its first PLC for the management of industrial thermoforming processes. Later in 1994 WM produced its first fully electric machine integrating the extrusion and thermoforming units in the same plant.
And again, Oliverio proudly remembers the first trade fair where WM presented a particularly advanced version of the electric machine that was born in 1994. This machine proved to be the fastest in productivity, defeating the German competition.
The company’s technological evolution was unstoppable. In 2003, WM technologists moved from 2D CAD to 3D CAD. 2005 was the year that marked the birth of a new machine with in-mould cutting system: the most interesting detail about this machine was the footprint (occupied area/productivity). For example, the US approach to thermoforming is to build steel rule die machines of large size, European production, on the other hand, is characterized by an optimal ratio between the space occupied in the industrial plant and the productivity of the machine.
Oliverio himself recalled that in 2007, this efficiency logic was applied to WM’s thermoforming machines, with form-cut system, with a lower tilting platen.
Another important moment that marks the great technological development made by WM was between 2017 and 2019. In this regard, while in injection moulding the Euromap standards provide for the interchangeability of moulds, in thermoforming there is still a certain “anarchy” both from the point of view of production and that of application.
To remedy solve this problem, WM decided to produce the Twist range and the FLEX92. These machines provide the possibility of mounting the moulds made for competitors machines.
Considering this latest great technological insight on the part of WM, the sales director of the company Oliverio stressed how the 40th anniversary of entrepreneurial activity is undoubtedly a great achievement, but also a starting point after the Covid-19 pandemic. Oliverio is confident that WM will continue to be an important player in the coming years, capable of providing cutting-edge solutions and of responding to the new requirements of Industry 4. 0.
WM Thermoforming Machines: New Digital Strategies after the Covid-19 Pandemic
WM Thermoforming Machines has understood the importance of innovation and adaptability to be able to compete today in the global market. The advent and acceleration of digital transformation, due to the global pandemic, represents a great change in the world of industry and commerce. A variety of companies were not ready to face the new challenges of digital transformation. For this reason, these companies have found it very difficult to relate to the latest digital technologies. In the case of the industrial sector in which WM operates, before the advent of the pandemic, no customers ever dreamed of asking their supplier to deliver a production plant, without asking for installation service.
The commercial director of WM Luca Oliverio carefully described the business dynamics that followed the Covid-19 pandemic. During the year 2020 WM sold worldwide for millions of Euros, without ever meeting the customers physically. Sometimes the company found itself installing production systems without moving its staff to the site of installation.
Obviously, this was possible because the machines produced by WM were already equipped with different solutions, able to greatly facilitate the remote operations, such as the single-frame feature of all WM thermoformers. Before the pandemic, these characteristics were important, but after the global spread of the virus, they became indispensable and able to make a real difference.
This is the reason why WM is today the most reliable reference partner for the production and marketing of thermoforming machines able to meet the highest quality standards.
Contact us on:
sales@wm-thermoforming.com for any questions or further information.
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