Posted to News on 19th Jun 2007, 19:28
ELAU - a leading supplier of packaging machines
ELAU AG reports that, having already been the leading automation technology supplier for electronic packaging machines in Germany, the company has now become the market leader in Italy as well. For CEO Dr Thomas Cord, this success represents an affirmation of ELAU's clear focus on the automation of machines for the consumer-packaged goods industries.
After securing market leadership in the German target market of packaging automation, since 2006 ELAU has been focusing its resources on expanding its market share internationally. With a higher-than-average sales growth, ELAU claims that it has been able to develop into the market leader in Italy, which, alongside Germany, is one of the major countries worldwide for producing packaging machines. The synergies with ELAU's parent company, Schneider Electric, have also exceeded expectations.
Taken together, packaging machines manufactured in Italy and Germany constitute just under 40 per cent of the global market for packaging machinery. Consequently, ELAU says that holding market leadership in both of these countries is tantamount to having European market leadership. Dr Thomas Cord says: "Europe represents an important milestone on the way to establishing our Pac-Drive automation system as the leading technology for packaging automation worldwide" - which is ELAU's next goal.
The situation in Europe as a whole is positive as well. In France and in Switzerland, ELAU's relatively new operations gained important key customers in 2006. After co-operating with partners and system integrators in the Benelux countries, the UK and Scandinavia, ELAU recently established its own subsidiaries there to achieve higher market shares.
Activities outside Europe have been expanding too. Sales have increased in North America and a number of new customers are being added. Operations in China are providing a base to support ELAU customers producing in China or exporting to China.
PacDrive technology
ELAU has consistently been developing the PacDrive system's capabilities for packaging machinery-specific requirements. The successful introduction of the robotic offering will, in 2007, be followed by PacDrive iSH Intelligent Servo Modules, a system that, according to Dr Cord, will be setting the trend for the industry. "iSH servo modules will revolutionise the world of packaging machinery. They are the key to increasing the modularity of packaging machinery, which, in turn, will fulfil users' top priorities for their packaging operations."
As early as during the 2006 PACK EXPO International show in the USA, the iSH servo modules contributed to ELAU's overwhelming success. Introduced publicly for the first time along with the robotic system, the intelligent servo modules were the buzz of the show. At the Goodman Packaging booth, the first commercially available machine equipped with the new iSH servo modules was introduced. And at the IFFA in Frankfurt, Weber Maschinenbau introduced its first iSH application to the German market.
