Well-known international brands manufacture refrigeration appliances on KraussMaffei Italiana systems
- Fully automated production lines for processing
of PUR - Provision of mold carriers, circulation systems and presses
- Complete project scope from a single source – wet and dry side
Italy and ice cream – they belong together. So it’s no wonder that 30 KraussMaffei employees in Abbiategrasso, Italy, work on systems for freezers, white goods and insulation technology. The basic technology is polyurethane foaming – but KraussMaffei Italiana (KMI) offers much more. The company produces turnkey, customized production facilities for polyurethane components for many different applications: from refrigerator housings and doors, cold rooms and refrigerated counters to sandwich panels with PUR cores for the construction industry and refrigerated trucks.
KMI’s end products can be found wherever items with a PUR insulation layer between two walls (made of metal or plastic) are required. The main areas of application are freezers and refrigerators for food retail or private use, cold rooms, hot water generators and tanks, as well as front doors, roof and wall panels. KMI’s customers include the world’s largest manufacturers in the household appliance sector.
“Dry side” plus automation
The subsidiary was founded in 2002 with Gabriele Amodeo as the first employee at the time: “Italy is traditionally strong in the production of white goods, so it makes sense for us to concentrate on ‘specialties’ here, while our colleagues in Munich look after the automotive sector.” In terms of PUR processing, the team in Milan dedicates its 1,800 square meters of production space to the “dry side” of production. This refers to the shaping part within the production plant plus automation. The “wet side”, i.e. dosing machines, mixing heads and supply technology, is supplied from Munich.
Cooling housings of all kinds are produced in two- or four-column mold carriers, so-called fixtures. These systems require a very robust construction to withstand the high pressure of the rapidly expanding polyurethane foam. Precisely aligned panels ensure dimensional accuracy and perfect optical quality.
Depending on the number of pieces required for the end product, KMI’s engineering team develops complete production lines with one or more fixtures. The focus is on speed, precision, durability, short cycle times, ease of maintenance and fully automated operation. The geometry of the tool carriers can be adjusted in less than a minute and cores can be changed just as quickly.
Recirculation systems for doors
For the production of doors, KMI offers drum-shaped units with up to eight stations, whereby one station is always used for loading/unloading and inserting the PUR, while the others map the reaction time. The parts are removed fully automatically.
However, the trend in door production is towards so-called circulation systems, which enable a particularly high output. Here, the mold carriers are arranged in a row and the doors pass through an oven section after foaming, within which the chemical reaction takes place in a cycle time-neutral manner.
Development of complete production lines
The spatial dimensions of the systems from Abbiategrasso are impressive: for the commercial refrigeration sector, there are mold carriers up to eight meters long and 2.4 meters wide, while for high-volume household appliance products, many fixtures work side by side. As well-insulated side walls are suitable for many applications (such as refrigerated truck bodies), KMI offers systems for the discontinuous production of panels up to 17 meters long and with a foam thickness of ten to 250 millimeters. Other common areas of application for the KMI repertoire are hot water tanks and even front doors. Concepts with six tool carriers have already been realized here.
For Airton Oliveira (Sales Manager KMI), the most important thing is advising the customer: “We have so much experience that we can tailor the production concept precisely to their needs, both for small and large-scale production.”
Everything from a single source
A major advantage for the customer is that the entire production line is supplied from a single source. KMI supplies all the units for the wet and dry sections of the system to ensure a consistently high-quality process chain. Everything fits together seamlessly – from premixing stations, mixing and dosing technology and mixing heads to the mold carrier, foaming tool, tool changing system and automation. Jens Kompe (Director Sales RPM) adds: “This gives the customer the certainty that everything is perfectly coordinated. Our products are technically mature and have been tried and tested on the market for a long time.”
The experts at KraussMaffei Italiana will therefore continue to provide sufficient cooling in hot summers.
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