#116 Langzauner 100 year celebration at JEC World 2024
30.03.2024 14 min Staffel 5 Episode 73
Zusammenfassung & Show Notes
The interview with Alexander Wiesner took place at their celebration event for Langzauner GmbH's 100th anniversary, where we discussed the company's history, current projects, and future innovations in the composites industry.
Watch the full interview now, because it also covered Langzauner's presence at JEC World 2024 and their expectations from the event.
Particularly, the insights into record braking presses that feed RTM and other infusion technologies with overly large components, exceeding even 10 metres are simply mindblowing.
It was also a great opportunity to talk with the project management team. Bernhard Hauer explained the particularities of the composites industry when it comes to designing parts.
The interview provided insights into Langzauner GmbH's achievements over the past 100 years, their current projects, and their plans for future events like the JEC World 2025 and JEC Forum DACH 2024.
Thank you Thomas Witzmann, MBA,CEO and the leadership team for having Composites Lounge and DER Social CEO being part of your celebration party. May the rocket fuel another 100 years.
Do you have innovative composites processes established? Which ones? Let us know in the comments!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ilkayoezkisaoglu-dersocialceo_composites360ontour-activity-7179489051652079616-LUUX/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
Watch the full interview now, because it also covered Langzauner's presence at JEC World 2024 and their expectations from the event.
Particularly, the insights into record braking presses that feed RTM and other infusion technologies with overly large components, exceeding even 10 metres are simply mindblowing.
It was also a great opportunity to talk with the project management team. Bernhard Hauer explained the particularities of the composites industry when it comes to designing parts.
The interview provided insights into Langzauner GmbH's achievements over the past 100 years, their current projects, and their plans for future events like the JEC World 2025 and JEC Forum DACH 2024.
Thank you Thomas Witzmann, MBA,CEO and the leadership team for having Composites Lounge and DER Social CEO being part of your celebration party. May the rocket fuel another 100 years.
Do you have innovative composites processes established? Which ones? Let us know in the comments!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ilkayoezkisaoglu-dersocialceo_composites360ontour-activity-7179489051652079616-LUUX/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
Transkript
So wonderful, good afternoon,
dear LinkedIn community
and Composites Lounge members.
We are going strong
on composite 360 on tour.
And now I have with me Alexander Wiesner
from Austria. Thank you Alexander,
for being part of my show.
Hi Ilkay, hello community.
Nice to have you here at our booth.
So you have met Alexander
before on our LinkedIn live JEC World
warm up sessions. And today, of course,
we want to talk
about the presses here on the side.
And we have a big announcement
because Langzauner
has a celebration today.
So what do you celebrate?
100 years Langzauner.
So we were born in 1924
and it's a big party
here with our community, our customers.
So it's very impressive history.
We've talked about the history
of Langzauner before.
Go back into the LinkedIn live,
where he was explaining us
that Langzauner started
with the press industry,
the wood industry,
and now we are on composites.
So what have been
the groundbreaking milestones
in that long history, Alexander.
I'd like to summarize it
a bit in a nutshell.
So it started in 1924.
It was a very, very simple organization
during that time. So the first thing was
we had the contact
with the wood and wood industry
was the major driver,
and that brought us in the 60s
to a sandwich construction.
It was a request in the ski industry
to combine materials.
And so the ski industry
was one of the first touch points
actually with composites.
And so later on it was
the aerospace industry coming,
the automotive industry,
as we can see here, some examples.
And that was the groundbreaking
actually event
for us to develop our presses
according to the needs.
So today we are very, very innovative
and have very good solutions
in respect to accuracy
and respect to energy efficiency.
And this is what the market is,
is asking, especially in these days.
-Great story, great history, Alexander.
But now we are at the JEC.
How how do you find JEC this year, 2024?
It's pretty much a success story again.
So last year was very much crowded.
We had very good discussions and meetings.
So in this year
it seems there are still crowded areas
and the quality of discussions
still improved.
That's my impression.
So we are happy to discuss
about automotive industry,
about aerospace industry.
And we have also lots of examples
at our booth and products.
-And that's actually my next
and follow up question to you:
what exactly
are you showing here on your booth?
I mean, it's difficult, of course,
to put a press here.
I saw your press at CTC in Stade
(Germany) that has 1500 tons of force.
It's incredible.
I need to repeat that 1500 tons of force.
But the parts they are pressing are,
of course, overly large.
They can be up to two meters or even more.
Even more. So
there is basically no limits.
So we are currently discussing parts
ten meters long.
So you can cannot show a machine
a press here. But what can you show?
We can show at least some reasonable sizes
of products and applications.
And for automotive
we have one of the nice parts here.
It's a front cover
of a Porsche GT3 Weißach package
with the optical features very,
very intense carbon look, high quality.
It's an RTM process
behind built on our presses
at one of our major customers.
-So Porsche as a brand, of course,
very fascinating.
But I guess without diminishing
the complexity of automotive parts,
I think you have that under control,
but has there been times where you say
this was really a challenging part,
something very challenging?
I mean, extremely challenging.
Basically, you're right,
so challenging is nearly everything to us,
because our slogan is "your challenge
is our project"
and challenging
means in terms of timelines.
Sometimes, yes,
we are capable to control that,
but also from technical side requirements,
building setup.
And one of the project
most challenging to us
was for sure the, press delivery
to the Institute, IWV
in Leibnitz Institute in Kaiserslautern
(Germany), because it was a specified
a press with a very high level
of requirements
beyond state of the art, I would say,
and very limited space.
And this was the 2600 ton press
that we developed
and built for the IVW Leibniz Institute
in Kaiserslautern,
in combination
with an infrared heating oven
for thermoplastics
working at 2600 ton press
three by two meter capable to
do GMT, LFT, SMC, RTM multifunctional.
And finally we packed, Iwould say,
it's the highest density
of technology, I would say,
compared to the room available.
One of the nice products,
and samples we did,
it's like a functionalized
thermoplastic material,
which is an organosheet
that we heat up in the infrared oven.
So there's the organosheet.
But it's bended
or is it just because it's on the wall?
-It's on the wall.
So it's flat actually.
We heat it up at the infrared oven,
and then we quickly transfer it
to the press position.
And in less than five seconds
we have applied the full pressure.
And the nice thing here is in addition
with the injection unit,
we are able in a one shot cycle
to functionalized the organosheets.
So the orange what you see
it's a polymer that we inject.
And with this technology
it's very future promising
we would be able
and we'll be able to optimize
the mechanical behaviors
compared to the weight.
So that means rips and stiffness increase
and reinforcements are possible.
We changed the location,
dear LinkedIn community.
As you can see, I said, I want to be
inside the team of Langzauner
and we will speak
to the Langzauner team in a moment.
But before we do that,
my last question to you
is which projects and applications
are the recent ones, Alexander,
that you have right now in the hot press?
-Yeah, actually on the press side,
it's very impressive.
It's a 2600 tonne press
with a part size of ten by three meter.
That means very,
very large aerospace parts.
-Wasn't that a secret?
It was a secret.
But now it's out actually.
Today, dear Community, Composites Lounge
and #Composite360ontour.
We are getting all the secrets out,
because we had yesterday already,
some secrets revealed.
Today is another one.
It will be on the press today.
So ten meter?
Ten meter, the part.
So the press is even bigger.
It's a 10.5 by 3.5m platen size
with the 2600 tonne pressing force.
And it's an RTM application
for the aerospace industry.
It's a part of a public funding
to increase the competitiveness of the UK.
And it's a consortium actually
with the University of Sheffield,
the AMRC Institute,
and we were awarded with the contract
to develop that press
with some special functions
in terms of parallelism.
And that's currently
the latest innovation we are driving.
We're looking forward
to bring that on the street.
-The last time we spoke you mentioned
that press is
one of your core capabilities,
but you have also, of course
the automatization
and the other supporting processes.
Is in this one,
you are only doing the press
and the UK brings the other skills?
This in that case, the split package
we take care
about the press and automation
will come in a separate package
with some robot application and so on.
But this brings me
to the second innovation.
We drive also in terms of thermoplastics,
especially in the automotive industry,
when we talk about battery housings,
battery protection plates
to protect the batteries against impact.
So whatever. So it comes a lot
in this direction of GMT, LFDT.
And this means not only the press,
but a fully integrated automated line
with cycle times of 60 to 70seconds.
-So dear community by the way,
this is the Austrian flag.
Don't mix it with Australia.
Is that true that some people
mistakenly fly to Austria
instead of Australia?
-I've never met that guy.
Maybe a kangaroo or something like that.
-So community,
now we are here
with the team of Langzauner.
Maybe Alexander, if you just run through
all these three gentlemen, just quickly.
My name is Bernhard. I am responsible
for project management in our company
and we are here at the booth
with a big team.
Waiting for the people to come.
And we are very happy.
There's a lot of people are passing by
and visiting us on our booth
and are very interested
in our technologies, projects and so on.
Stephan is in the project team as well.
So we are a group of three guys managing,
all the Langzauner projects.
So from the first short handover
from the sales team,
we take over and provide a good service
to the until the after sales take over.
And there is another Stephan
in this round.
Andthe second Stephane is responsible
for the production.
So he is the production manager,
making sure
everything is done on time and on quality.
Very good. So project management,
as I said, Bernhard is one of the very,
very key tasks in composites development,
because composites means
if we go to the OEM,
we have the draft,
the prototype, the APQP cycle.
So we have to do the whole cycle
is are you overlooking the whole cycle
from the beginning to the SOP?
Yes, exactly.
That's what we are covering.
And it's very important
to understand the process requirements.
Every customer has unique demands
on quality and technology cycle time.
And within the project
we are optimizing processes
and cycle times as I said,
and with our experience
and the open minded as we are,
we're able to even develop
a project further during the lifetime.
We are at the JEC World here, Bernhard,
what's your expectation
out of the JEC world 2024?
-We expect new customers
and it's very important
for us to maintain the community,
to make sure we have a lot of customers.
We want to make sure
it's not an one time meeting
or an one time project.
It's frequently
there's more demands coming on.
And we want to make sure
that our existing customers
are well deserved during that time.
And we are very happy to welcome new ones.
And it's always interesting
and nice seeing new people
and getting introduced to our technology,
where we are coming from
and how we are reacting.
We are the expectation
is to get our community bigger.
And that's, I think the best possibility
is the JEC in Paris.
-And "community" is the right word.
Please hand over the microphone
back to Alexander.
Alexander, we met at Salzburg
(Austria) last time in your home country.
This year it will be in Stuttgart.
Will you be also displaying
at JEC forum in Stuttgart?
-Absolutely. I would say JEC is a very,
very essential format for us
and also the JEC Forum DACH.
Very interesting. Looking forward
to meet you there, absolutely.
I will be there for sure again.
So community, now it's the time
to finish our Langzauner interview.
Alexander has prepared something for me
and for us. What is it?
-It's a 100 year celebration beer.
Okay, by the way it is coming
to the close of work.
So shall we say Prost?
Cheers and good health for your 100 years.
Ex?
Rocket fuel.
-It's a rocket fuel.
Community, it's called rocket fuel.
How appropriate!
Thank you, gentlemen so much.
Thank you, Alexander.
Thank you for the meeting.
I wish you a great show
the rest of the show and much success.
See you again.
Thank you. See you.
-Again.
Bye bye, Community.