2018 was a key year for Piovan not just in terms of turnover –the Group closed 2018 with a turnover touching €246 million (up by more than 15% compared to the previous year) – but also thanks to its listing on the Milan Stock Exchange. Being a listed company gives the Group a higher international profile and increased visibility with major customers, attracts talents to the company and enables the Group to maintain its strategy of growth and good governance in the future.
The first part of 2019 was also exciting, with new branch openings, including Piovan Morocco, and the acquisition of new companies: Toba, a leading South-Korean company, based in Seoul, specialising in the automation of industrial processes for the plastics sector and particularly in the production of plastic powder conveying and storage systems, and Fea Process & Technological Plants, an Italian company based in Cuneo that specialises in the automation for the food industry.
Piovan at K 2019
In mid-October, the 2019 edition of the K Show will open its doors. The K Show is the most important international exhibition dedicated to plastics. From 16 to 23 October, more than 3,000 exhibitors from over 60 countries are expected to crowd the pavilions of the Düsseldorf’s exhibition centre as well as more than 200,000 visitors from all over the world.
Piovan Group will be at K 2019 – at stand 9B60, with its own brands, Piovan, Aquatech, Fdm and Penta.
A variety of solutions will be on show at the exhibition: from drying systems to temperature control, from traceability of the raw materials to solutions for industry 4.0 - aimed at providing complete turnkey solutions.
Focus on Innovation
Piovan has invested resources in innovation and the Group today employs over 171 R&D and engineering experts that can assess the specifics of customer requests, drawing on the knowledge acquired over the years. The Group’s various teams of technicians supply not just stand-alone products but also integrated solutions aimed at maximizing shop floor efficiency and performance.
Systems for PET treatment and handling of recycled materials.
At K2019, the new Genesys line will get its world premiere. Piovan says that this drying system is distinguished by self-adaptive technology that is now also optimised for the treatment of recycled PET. The company claims taht the new dryer can automatically manage the drying process by setting all the critical parameters: from the process air flow rate to its Dew point value, from the residence time to the temperature, maintaining optimum operating conditions even as hourly production and initial temperature and humidity conditions of the plastic granulate vary. The innovations that this new generation machine brings include more intuitive control and improved self-regulation. Improvements have also been made to the AIPC (Automatic Injection Pressure Control) technology that ensures the lowest production cost for each preform, not in terms of energy savings alone, but in terms of optimization of the entire preform production process, with increased end product quality and reduction of rejects, Piovan claims.
Regarding solutions for PET at K2019, visitors will be able to check out the new user-friendly range of instruments for analysing preform quality. According to Piovan, these devices enable the most important parameters, such as the acetaldehyde level in preforms, to be measured in a simple and intuitive manner.
Accurate dosing
Also Fdm, the Group company based in Troisdorf (Germany), specialized in the production of solutions for extrusion applications, will showcase new dosing technologies at K 2019 with GDS 5 blender. According to Piovan, this new gravimetric blender of the GDS line is optimized to enable mounting up to 5 granulate stations, while still maintaining compact dimensions and featuring a Siemens PLC system.
Handling of materials with Penta and Piovan
Penta, the Group company that designs and produces large systems for storing, conveying and dosing materials in powder or chips, will present the latest innovations in the production of pipes and cables for managing additives in the compounding sector. At the exhibition, visitors will be able to see Vakupulse, a system that will be in operation to show the conveying of materials in the dense phase - which is particularly suitable for conveying delicate raw materials at low speeds and flow rates over short distances, Piovan says..
For the first time on display at K2019, a manual coupling station equipped with the new coupling system: According to Piovan, this unit enables the operator to easily connect the pipes, even if only one hand is used. It is gasket-free to prevent contamination, ensuring that plastic granules come into contact with stainless steel only, the company says. The new RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tagging feature checks if the match between sources and destinations is correct, the company says. In an error occurs, the conveying system does not activate the loading cycle, thus avoiding risks of contamination between different materials. A system of LEDs, which can also be duplicated on a dedicated display, guides the operator. The LEDs change colour as the conveying pipes are coupled, enabling active connections to be checked at a glance.
Ready for medical applications
At the exhibition, Piovan will present important innovations also in the medical sector: a new microdosing unit will be on display for the first time. The manufacturer says that the unit is able to feed the machines even with only one granule at a time, whilst maintaining high accuracy to meet requirements that normally come from highly technical sectors such as the medical sector and precision micromoulding.
The medical range is also complemented by machines suitable for usage in clean rooms, such as the Pureflo filterless receiver, which requires neither compressed air nor maintenance, and the emission-free DPA dryer.
Cooling solutions
Aquatech, the Group company dedicated to industrial cooling and temperature control technologies, will be in the spotlight with many product innovations on display in a dedicated area: from temperature control units to new adiabatic dry coolers.
The Easytherm range of temperature control units will be completed with the new pressurized temperature controls that will complement the line of atmospheric temperature controllers, Piovan says. There are also interesting innovations related to the DigitempEvo water-cooled thermochillers that ensure high performance whilst keeping energy consumption levels very low, the company claims. Special focus also on the Easycool+ line of highly compact chillers used in plastics industrial processes.
Sustainability and Circular Economy
Piovan develops technologies and solutions that contribute to increasing the use of recycled materials, enabling a broad range of products to be created using post-consumer PET as a raw material. Consistent with its commitment to these issues, since 2006 Piovan has been developing technologies to give new life to recycled material by once again transforming it into bottles.
More generally, the decision to invest on high-efficiency solutions has made it possible to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption related to plastics processing.
Ever Closer to 4.0:
Industry 4.0 is a key topic on which the main players are increasingly focusing. Piovan continues to invest in innovation, extending the range of features offered by the Winfactory 4.0 supervision software. This software also includes a module for monitoring energy efficiency and, from this year, a module to monitor Aquatech solutions.
Data context integration and digital interconnection throughout the process: Piovan says that these are the guidelines of Industry 4.0 from which MTS, the new material tracking system, has been created. MTS consists of a new barcode terminal capable of reading barcodes for the identification of users and materials and a new app, developed to guide the operator in the management of raw materials. The system enables to optimise the storage of materials and to identify the flow of different batches from the initial phase to the finished product.
A new brand identity for Piovan Group
At the beginning of 2019, the Group launched its new corporate identity to convey more effectively that it is an international group consisting of many companies following the three pillars that have always characterised the group: Customers –People –Innovation.
The new Piovan Group logo is characterised by a pictograph with three circles evoking the Group's values, its business sectors and its strengths:
- 3 values: Customers. People. Innovation
- 3 businesses: Plastics. Food. Cooling.
- 3 strengths: Global Presence.Service.Team.
The new corporate identity spotlights a restyling of the graphic image. A crisp and sober graphics aimed at bringing together all group companies within the same vision. Piovan, Una-Dyn, Fdm, Aquatech, Penta, Progema and Energys: they all adopt the same graphic style and a new "Piovan Group" pay-off to highlight their belonging to a single group.
Source: Piovan
