PEMÜ is one of the oldest plastic processing companies in Hungary, it was founded in 1959, which makes it only one year younger than Chen Hsong. Back then it was a government owned company and had multiple locations all over the country. In the 90’s it was restructured, the external locations were sold, and the still existing factory in Solymár was bought by current management through a management buyout arrangement. This started the process of centralization that resulted in today’s fast pace growth of PEMÜ.
In 1995 PEMÜ gained the ISO standard, thus opening the road towards becoming a supplier in the automotive industry. From the establishment of Suzuki plant in Hungary, PEMÜ started to produce for Suzuki, which grew up to be one of the number one customers of PEMÜ. About 57% of its products are for the automotive industry, overwhelmingly for Suzuki, but it also produces for brands such as Mercedes and Porsche. Approximately 17% of the injection molding products is for other customers from various industries, like household and electrics manufacturers, and 26% are products that are directly sold, including many own-branded products, developed by PEMÜ.
After the financial tsunami in 2008 and the prolonged weakness in the Eurozone, PEMÜ started to work out a new reorganization strategy. Until then they only had machines and auxiliaries from European manufacturers. Its initial idea was to buy used European injection molding machines to replace the high-valued European machines. Thege-Plastic took this opportunity to introduce Chen Hsong, with its long history of experiences in the industry and solid technical know-how, to offer the best cost-effective machines to PEMÜ.
The first pack of 6 machines was delivered in 2010, featuring the very successful B&R controller, with a standard proportional hydraulic system. The machines were: an MJ35, an MJ55, a JM98-Ai, a JM178-Ai, a JM408 and a JM650. The positive feedbacks came in very fast, as the machines had lower power consumption than the existing old machines, even without servo-hydraulics. Tests and measurements were made continuously and it quickly turned out that the repeatability of the machines are as good as any high price competitor’s. The automotive companies accepted the products (thus the machines) and were very happy about the decrease of scraps/reclamations. From the production side, the machines have proven themselves, and the market accepted Chen Hsong machine within a short period of time.
At the start, PEMÜ did have concerns regarding the stability and reliability of the Chen Hsong machines as PEMÜ never used any machines other than European brand. However, we had successfully convinced PEMÜ by sharing many other successful stories of Chen Hsong customers supported by its strong technical know-how and its long experience in the industry, beside the fact that Chen Hsong is one of the world’s biggest injection molding manufacturers, selling more than 10 thousand machines worldwide per year. Anyhow time did approve our promises and the machines installed in 2010 are still up and running, with some of these machines running over 25.000 production hours up to the moment of the writing of this story.
At the beginning, we do have issues with the machines as we were also new to Chen Hsong Machine, especially with the EU/CE standard. But with the listening ears of Chen Hsong management and the great support of the engineers (and our technicians) all issues were solved quickly with no open issues were left at any time!
Thanks to all of this, PEMÜ dedicated their strategy for injection molding with Chen Hsong machines. Thus the second pack of machines were delivered in 2012, a JM800-SVP/2 and a JM2600. These were the first servo and the first large machines, both of them with a 6-axis robot, a complete production cell, ready for automation. The servo machine was in fact jaw dropping! The low noise level was something that the employees were not used to especially when they were being put next to the aged hydraulic systems of the 20-30-year-old machines. Furthermore, the much lower (than the first 6 CH IMMs) power consumption combined with the lower cooling water requirement was topped with the outstandingly accurate production resulting from the preciseness of the servo motors. From then on all machines delivered to Hungary were equipped with a servo hydraulic system, putting us ahead of the competition, not because it was not available from them at the time, but because we made it standard on our machines! (And the competitors are still offering it as a high priced option…)
In 2013 we delivered an EM120-SVP/2 and an EM180-SVP/2. In early 2014 a JM1200-SVP/2 was set up for production, and next year the order came for a second JM1200-SVP/2 and an EM400-SVP/2, and for the first two-platen machine, the SM1900-SVP/2 with Beckhoff controller. This machine was installed in spring 2016. The feedbacks are very good, the controller is state of the art, and the machine is much smaller in regards of footprint. It is clear that this machine series is made for the worldwide market, and Chen Hsong is passing over the mainstream market to become an innovative figure for both the customers and the competitors!
Nowadays PEMÜ is clearly on a growing path. This was stated in their 2014-2019 company strategy, which focuses on advancing, after the previous reorganization.
PEMÜ is very grateful to be the long term partner of Chen Hsong and looks forward for more stories to share in the near future.
