See Us At
CFIA Rennes 11th - 13th March 2008 Rennes http://www.cfiaexpo.com/
Interpack 2008 24th - 30th April 2008 Dusseldorf Germany http://www.interpack.com/
Propak Asia 11th - 14th June 2008 BITEC Bangkok http://www.propakasia.com/
Propak China 9th -11th July 2008 SNIEC Shanghai http://www.propakchina.net
FoodPro 2008 20th - 23rd July 2008 Sydney Exhibition & Convention Centre Australia http://www.foodproexh.com
Powtech 2008 30th September - 2nd October 2008 Nürnberg Germany http://www.powtech.de/
PPMA Show 30th September - 2nd October 2008 NEC http://www.ppmashow.co.uk/
ProcessTeknik 7th - 9th October 2008 The Swedish Exhibition Centre Gottenburg http://nemonet.swefair.se
Expoquimia 20th - 24th October 2008 Gran Via Exhibition Centre Barcelona http://www.expoquimia.com/
Foodtech/Packtech, 2008 21st - 23rd October 2008 ASB Showgrounds Auckland http://www.foodtechpacktech.co.nz/
Pack Expo, 2008 9th - 13th November 2008 McCormick Place Chicargo http://my.packexpo.com/
Emballage, 2008 17th - 21st November 2008 Paris-Nord Villpinte France http://en.emballageweb.com/
IPB Exhibition, 2008 9th - 10th December 2008 Shanghai Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center http://www.ipbexpo.com/
Contact Us
UK Matcon Group Ltd. Tel: (+44) 1608 651 666 Fax: (+44) 1608 651 635 Click to email
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Germany Matcon GmbH Tel: +49 7621 970 610 Fax: +49 7621 970 609 Click to email
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Australia Matcon Pacific PTY Ltd. Tel: +61 2 9892 4822 Fax: +61 2 9892 4844 Click to email
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Spain Matcon Iberica Tel: (+34) 93 654 96 39 Fax: (+34) 93 654 96 04 Click to email
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Charles Lee Managing Director
As 2007 draws to a close and 2008 just around the corner we thought it would be a good time to issue another Matconnected newsletter providing a brief review of the year and looking forward to 2008.
2007 has been exceptionally busy for our customers, driven predominantly by the need to implement “lean” manufacturing in order to meet market demand, while remaining competitive. Some of the key issues they face are increasing product variation and associated rapid product changeovers, the need to reduce inventories (raw materials, finished goods and WIP), right-sized batch manufacture, avoidance of cross-contamination – all of which point towards IBC based production. We present below a few very interesting case-studies which illustrate this clearly. In order to better serve our customers Matcon has undertaken several “lean” conference / workshops recently which have been extremely well attended and appreciated.
During the year the Matcon organisation saw some very positive developments with the addition of Hans Pettersson to the Board, the opening of new offices in China and Spain and the appointment of new agents in
Taiwan, Korea, Australia, Turkey and Brazil. These changes greatly enhance our business plan, global presence and ability to understand and meet our customer needs.
As always the Team at Matcon is driving to develop and improve our technology. Particular focus has been given this year to accurate powder dosing, IBC mixing (including high shear and even liquid addition) and direct packing – all of which are key weapons in the “lean” battle.
With all the action in our business it’s nice to see that many of the Team members keep themselves very busy in their “spare time” also. Believe it or not life outside Matcon can be pretty interesting too as you will see from some of the articles below.
On a personal note I was honoured to be elected to the Board of PPMA – the UK’s Process and Packaging Machinery Association. Matcon has been a member of the association for many years and are very well aware of the importance of being part of an active and forward looking trade association. I very much look forward to this new challenge which complements so well our work here at Matcon.
We would like to thank you all for your continued fantastic support and wish you a peaceful and happy holiday and a prosperous and safe New Year.
Charles Lee
Charles Lee presenting at the Appetite for Engineering Conference
Matcon ran a number of in-house “lean powders handling” workshops during the year for customers from a wide range of industries. The healthy mixture of basic lean theory and practical “real-world” discussions as well as equipment demonstrations by Matcon and several other leading equipment vendors was highly appreciated by those who attended. We intend to repeat these workshops during 2008. Matcon was also active in spreading the “lean powder processing” message in other forums, such as “Appetite for Engineering” conference focused on automation in the food industry.
Matcon now in China
Ming Zhao General Manager - Matcon China
Matcon is delighted to announce the appointment in September of Mr Ming Zhao as our General Manager in China. Ming is an experienced engineer with a strong customer focused background in packaging systems. From Matcon's new office in Shanghai Ming will manage Matcon’s business development in China, working with existing and new customers, sales and service agents in addition to suppliers and partners. Ming may be contacted at mzhao@matcon.cn and full details of Matcon China offices may be found at www.matcon.cn.
Matcon is also delighted to announce the appointment of Kunshan Cenglary Engineering and Trading as our exclusive Agent in China for the Food and Plastics industries. Cenglary have excellent experience in system design and automation and a strong commitment to customer service and are highly skilled in installation, commissioning and maintenance. Their partnership with Matcon will ensure that our customers receive the best possible long term support. Enquiries regarding Matcon will be handled by Mr Ray Zhai, (Sales Manager). Ray may be contacted at (zl@morglory.com.tw) and further details on Cenglary can be found at www.morglory.com.tw.
Left: Ron Lee - President Cenglary Right: Ray Zhai - Sales Manager
Jordi Castells General Manager - Matcon Iberica
Matcon is delighted to welcome Jordi Castells to the team as General Manager of the newly established Matcon Iberica, based in Barcelona. Jordi is already very familiar with Matcon and our customers in Spain as he was previously our agent in that region working under his own company “Gravipes”. Jordi is now working 100% for Matcon and may be contacted by email on jcastells@matcon.es. Jordi will be assisted by Olga Jimenez in supporting this extremely vibrant market.
China Engineering and Mercantile Company Ltd (CEMCL) was recently appointed our exclusive agent in Taiwan for the Pharmaceutical and Food Industry. Together with this long established and very well respected company Matcon is looking forward to providing top quality solutions to the very dynamic Taiwanese market.
James Lee - CEMCL President Barrie Mills - Business Development Manager
J.W. Kim - Sales Director
2007 saw the completion of the world-class metal powder plant in the USA. The plant operates around lean manufacturing principles and includes the latest automated manufacturing technology and management information systems. Matcon supplied a FlexiBatch system, which automatically formulates production batches from a wide variety of metal powder raw ingredients. Individual ingredients are dosed to within 100 gram accuracy. As many of the materials are potentially hazardous to health, cleanliness and dust control were of paramount importance and this plant is regularly monitored and proven to be one of the cleanest in the metal powder world. It is
Matcon's FlexiBatch Formulation System
also incredibly efficient with only one person managing the entire formulation process.
Matcon has recently been awarded a substantial contract for the supply of the Materials Handling System for Kotra Pharma's new Solid Dosage manufacturing facility due to be completed during the 3rd quarter of 2008.
Kotra Pharma (M) Sdn. Bhd. is located in Melaka, Malaysia and has 172 products registered with the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau covering various dosage forms, such as sterile gels, liquids and powders in vials. >>Read more...
Click on image to view diagram
Direct Bag Filling via Quadro "Sifter"
Matcon now offers a system for packing powders into bags, sacks or drums directly from IBCs, without using any secondary packing equipment. The “Powder-Packer” system includes the revolutionary “VariStroke” technology with cone valve discharge and self-learning software, enabling it to handle just about any kind of powder, however free-flowing or cohesive. It also has a sack gripper (or drum support) system, complete with high-speed shut off gate and integral dust extraction.
Everything is directly “in-line” and simple to clean. The system is suitable for “Business to Business” applications where efficiency,
Direct Bag Filling via Russell Finex "Compact Sieve"
simplicity, lean and clean are the driving factors, rather than high throughput.
Operating speeds and accuracies vary depending on the pack size and material characteristics but typically a 25kg sack will be filled between 30 to 90 seconds at accuracy between 50 and 200 grams.
We have recently integrated “in-line” sieving / sifting with the PowderPacker. Depending on the application we may use the Russell-Finex “Compact Sieve” or the Quadro “Sifter” (see photos above). Full scale demonstration and testing facilities are incorporated within our UK test laboratory.
In the niche market of Lean Powder Solutions, Matcon is truly an international player. Our customers, suppliers, partners and staff are spread through every continent.
In almost every instance businesses and individuals are dynamically linked in real-time through the combined media of E-mail, Internet, Skype and many others, too numerous to remember – irrespective of
whether they are at home, in the office or on the move – day or night. For many years Matcon has invested wisely to keep abreast (even sometimes ahead) of information technology advances through a combination of sophisticated hardware, software and highly skilled specialists help us to keep in contact with our World. We are very proud to have developed some very slick business management systems which help us to communicate well and manage our operations in a “lean” way.
But no amount of technology will replace meeting people face to face and the Matcon team travel extensively to support our many customers and partners around the world. In addition to project and service visits to individual customers, we also try to reach out to customers at various trade shows. You can see a full schedule of our planned trade shows for the coming year on our website by clicking on 2008 Marketing Schedule .
Hans Pettersson - New Board Director
We are delighted to announce that Hans Pettersson has been appointed to the Board of Matcon Group as Director of Lean Solutions.
Hans has been with Matcon since 1994 and is one of our most experienced application specialists. Over the years he has worked for us in UK, USA & Sweden and travels extensively around the world working closely with customers, suppliers and industry partners to design the optimum lean solids handling solutions. His direct, detailed and practical approach and wide experience of process systems gets to the key issues quickly and is much appreciated by all those that work with him.
This Board appointment is a reflection of the extremely valuable contribution Hans makes to the Company. It is also an indication of the importance that Matcon and our customers place on achieving Lean Solutions.
Hans Pettersson Director of Lean Solutions & Sales Manager for Europe
In true lean fashion, Hans will embrace his new role as a Director in parallel with continuing his position of Sales Manager for Europe.
We offer our congratulations to Hans on his appointment and extend a warm welcome to him from his Board colleagues.
Matcon engineer Michael Westlake represented the United Kingdom at the 2007 WorldSkills finals during November. This event which is held every 2 years is the educational equivalent of the Olympics and features the best trainees from fifty countries in four gruelling days of competition. The UK team came 11th.
Michael competed in the Mechanical Engineering CADD section of the event. To secure his place in the 22-strong finals
team Michael had to beat all comers in the UK and show a continual improvement in his technical skills. He took a year of additional training and coaching as well as working towards his HNC qualifications. Michael’s HNC will be finished in June 2008 but that’s not the end of the story. He has been asked to help train the 2011 UK team.
Michael commented “It was a once in a lifetime experience and the training and support I’ve had from Matcon has been brilliant. I couldn’t have taken part without the experience I’ve had in the design team here. I was pitched against the best in the world and Matcon gave me the chance to work on cutting edge technology in a world class environment.”
Well done to Michael from all your colleagues and friends at Matcon!!