Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwan-based electronics behemoth with 2013 sales of $131.8 billion, has begun manufacturing and selling all-electric injection molding machines. The company’s FAE series includes all-electric machines ranging from 50 tons to 450 tons clamping force, with injection speeds of up to 350 millimeters per second. The target market includes precision manufacturing needs in the medical, packaging and electronics industries.
While AdvanTech Plastics utilizes a variety of plastic injection molding equipment made by the likes of Toshiba and Husky, and is happy with it, we will certainly look hard at the new machines manufactured by Foxconn. This electronics powerhouse is the world’s largest contract manufacturer for consumer electronics, with more than 1 million employees globally grinding out computers, smartphones, tablets and other items for nearly every branded computer company in the world, including Apple and Dell.
Company officials at Foxnum Technology Co. Ltd., the Foxconn subsidiary that’s producing the machines, said they’re rolling out the new presses at a measured pace at a single factory in the industrial city of Taichung in central Taiwan. In fact, their target for injection molding machinery sales next year is only $6 million, a miniscule amount in the plastic injection machinery sector and would be ignored except for the link to their well-known parent company.
The Foxnum subsidiary employs about 150 people in Taichung, with only about 20 actually making molding machines.
In addition, Foxnum said it’s made about 500 hydraulic machines for Foxconn, buying hydraulic presses from another machinery maker and adding Foxnum controllers.
Even so, the subsidiary says it has no plans to producedand sell hydraulics because “all-electrics are the future trend.”
Foxnum officials said they started making their own all-electric plastic injection molding machines in 2009 because Foxconn was worried about not being able to secure new injection molding machines fast enough when new orders came in. They pointed out that end customers like Nokia and Apple typically need very quick delivery times and waiting 2-3 months for new equipment was not an option.