Consumables
Trade fair highlight KURZ IMD UNIFY: Individualisation meets smart decoration technology
Tuesday 12. October 2021 - Making every product unique: Under this motto, LEONHARD KURZ will be presenting pioneering plastic surface solutions, especially for the automotive, consumer electronics and home appliances sectors, at the 27th Fakuma from 12 to 16 October in Friedrichshafen.
The guiding principle of the trade fair presentation also applies in particular to the IMD UNIFY innovation, the advantages of which can be experienced in live demonstrations with a hybrid machine from KURZ subsidiary BAIER at the trade fair. With the new overprintable IMD decoration, KURZ has developed a solution to subsequently individualise surfaces decorated directly in injection moulding (in-mould decoration) while ensuring excellent adhesion and durability of the overprint. “UV digital inks do not adhere well to a conventional highly resistant IMD postcure surface, which has made efficient, subsequent individualisation of products very difficult until now,” explains Nikolas Wagner, Head of Business Area Plastic Decoration at LEONHARD KURZ. “With IMD UNIFY, this problem is a thing of the past. The new premium decoration now makes small and very small series as well as the personalisation of components economical for our customers.” The secret behind the trend-setting development is the additional equipment for UV inkjet on the IMD premium surface.
The answer to current trends
It is not only in the consumer electronics and household appliance industries that Nikolas Wagner sees great potential for IMD UNIFY, for which a patent has already been filed. Here, the trend is increasingly towards smart devices with touch control and the most modern, personalised design with seamless surfaces and without mechanical buttons or switches. LEONHARD KURZ can serve these trends with IMD UNIFY: Especially in the automotive sector, the highly efficient individualisation of series and unique items is more in demand than ever under the keyword Rapid Manufacturing. The combination with backlighting and shy-tech effects is just as feasible as the use of touch sensors in different integration variants – for example through functional foil bonding or functional in-mould labelling. In addition to special series and single-image decorations, thanks to IMD UNIFY, full-area decorations can also be reproduced for the first time. Even 3D deformation of components is usually not a problem. Nikolas Wagner puts it in a nutshell: “Everything that is possible with the conventional IMD process, we can also implement with IMD UNIFY!”
Sustainable through efficiency and consistent end performance
At the same time, the innovative finishing option also takes into account the increasingly important idea of sustainability. On the one hand, in-mould decoration is per se more efficient and sustainable than previous processes, as it combines the two production steps of injection moulding and decoration in just one processing phase. At the same time, the new variant of surface decoration makes an important contribution to the longevity of the products thanks to the significantly improved adhesion and resistance of the overprinting. In addition, the IMD UNIFY premium decoration has no effect whatsoever on the recyclability of the components, which can therefore be returned to the recycling cycle without any problems.
Machine competence from the KURZ Group
At Fakuma, LEONHARD KURZ will be demonstrating the possibilities of future-oriented surface decoration on a hybrid machine from its subsidiary BAIER, which combines digital printing and hot embossing. The subsequent finishing of a 3D-formed automotive door trim as well as the individualisation of a washing machine panel by digital overprinting will be demonstrated live on the stand. Ljubisa Drinic, Managing Director of Baier Maschinenfabrik: “We are pleased to be able to demonstrate directly to trade fair visitors how, thanks to IMD UNIFY, we can decorate surfaces from KURZ in a modern and individual way according to the customer’s specifications and achieve a final performance of the component that is unprecedented in our core markets. At the same time, changing decors and components in the machine is simple and very quick, as we will demonstrate at Fakuma.”