„Milliken’s booth was a major hit at K 2019, with thousands of visitors from across the globe drawn to our circular economy solutions. Our team demonstrated the various ways in which our advanced plastics additives and colorants are helping to make the reuse and recycling of plastics possible. A particular highlight was our joint press conference with PureCycle Technologies, where our partnership on closed-loop recycling attracted strong international media attention. We are already looking forward to K 2022. Veerle De Wolf, Marketing Communication Manager EMEA, Milliken
“We are very satisfied with the outcome of the trade fair. We had surprisingly many visitors from a great number of countries. Alongside Germany, Austria, Turkey, India, Poland, Italy, France and Brazil were particularly well represented. At the Wittmann Battenfeld stand in Hall 15 our process engineering and HiQ technologies as well as our developments in digitalisation met with particular interest. Also attracting special attention was our application in Circular Economy with Zeroplast where we demonstrate the possibility to injection mould all types of materials, even completely bio-based materials. At the WITTMANN stand in Hall 10 the new robotics developments went down especially well, above all the new WX138, and the WLAN Teachbox. We also observed increased interest in granulators. We succeeded in closing a number of concrete deals, which is not unusual especially for the K fair, and therefore also expect follow-up orders.” Michael Wittmann, Wittmann Group General Manager
“ARLANXEO was highly satisfied overall with both the visitor and customer response at K 2019. The focal theme of ARLANXEO’s trade fair appearance were products and developments for the mobility of the future with a focus on new rubber solutions for tyres, energy storage as well as a wide variety of other automotive applications. These themes meet with definite interest since such trends as electrification or autonomous driving will change transport fundamentally in the next decade and we are called upon to jointly come up with answers for more sustainable, comfortable and safe mobility in the future.”Stefan Rittmann, Executive Vice President Strategy & Business Development as well as Managing Director of ARLANXEO Deutschland GmbH
“To us K in Düsseldorf is one of the world’s most important trade fairs for all things plastics. Under the heading ‘Quality Works – Energizing the Future’ we have presented high-quality solutions for the plastics and rubber industry at our very busy trade fair stand. On approximately 700 square metres the themes New Mobility, Urbanisation and Digitalisation were centrestage here. K makes an important contribution to the dialogue with our customers and interested visitors. Not only our exhibits but also our expert lectures at the stand were very popular and in high demand. Here AI (Artificial Intelligence) was of particular interest for shortening developing times. Our verdict: K 2019 has proved a resounding success for LANXESS once again.” Udo Erbstößer, Project Manager for K 2019 at LANXESS
“K2019 has set an exclamation mark: the sector is in motion! The leading global trade fair with its highly international visitor profile again provided BASF with a perfect platform. From automotive through packaging to consumer goods – we registered a broad interest across all application industries. Proving particular attractions for visitors and experts alike were our cooperation projects with customers such as our concept motorhome VisionVenture, and digitalisation and sustainability projects such as ChemCycling.” Dr. Guiscard Glück, Vice President Product Development & Creation Center, BASF Performance Materials
“Our trade fair stand was extremely well attended from day one. Our customers came from Peru to Japan, from the USA to Indonesia and our currently most important markets China and India were very well represented with numerous visitors. We were especially delighted to note that our guests at the stand were interested not only in the omnipresent recycling theme but also showed avid interest in our other sustainability themes such as energy and CO2-savings or the efficient use of raw materials.” Karlheinz Weinmann, Head of Corporate Communications at Brückner Maschinenbau
“Our sector-specific focus has met with a very positive response among our customers. We have demonstrated our core packaging expertise very well by means of two interesting exhibits. In the medical technology segment we showcased an interesting pipette exhibit. And our automotive segment has also clearly positioned itself with two exhibits: in the LSR field with our partnership with Nexus and with our attractive IMD part, which we demonstrated with our new Intelect 500. Usually, our expectations about concluding business deals at K is of rather secondary importance. But things were very different at this K edition since the entire industry is waiting for a signal about how the economic situation will develop further. To our great surprise, the business contracted here this time even exceeded last K’s results three years ago. This shows both the success of our strategy and the growing willingness to invest at present. Post-show business is set to develop even more positively than business during the trade fair itself. Our project pipeline has markedly improved with K 2019.” Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH
“K always occupies a special place in our strategic exhibition considerations: our long preparatory work has really produced outstanding results. And the mood was clearly better than could have been expected given the economic climate. On some days we were almost overrun. The combination of digitalisation themes with the arburgXworld and the sustainability efforts we are undertaking with our arburgGREENworld works ever so well.” Dr. Christoph Schumacher, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications, Arburg GmbH + Co KG
“This time around K became the leading trade fair for the circular economy and plastics recycling. The trade audience took an avid interest in our technological innovations for the highest possible process and regranulate qualities. This already became clear on the first few trade fairs days when looking at the crowds of visitors at EREMA’s exhibition stands and the sales deals concluded. We also received plenty of positive feedback for our Circonomic Centre on the outdoor premises. In cooperation with partners from the entire plastics value chain we have managed to provide strong impulses here with a view to rolling out new circularity projects even faster in future.” Manfred Hackl, CEO EREMA Group
“This year’s K has fulfilled all of our expectations. We are very happy with the quality of conversations we had. On top of that, we sensed a marked demand in Europe, Asia and the USA for the themes we cover and the products we offer including recycling, Industry 4.0 and, of course, our new and further developments in twin-screw extruders, dosing systems and bulk materials handling. These developments all contribute to boosting the efficiency of our customers’ manufacturing processes.” Bettina König, Director Global Marketing Communications, Coperion
“The K trade fair has convincingly demonstrated that sustainability has now also reached the top of the agenda in the plastics industry. There is more to this than just recycling – efficient and sustainable use of resources is also in great demand. Our research study on a new bio-polymer raw material based on apple pomace met with particular interest as it is suitable for versatile applications and can be used for making barrier plastics.” Dr. Stefan Hanstein, Department Biogenic Systems, Fraunhofer IWKS
K 2019 has by far exceeded our ambitious expectations, already in the first days, the visitor interest was enormous. Five days after the start of the show, the number of customer visits had already exceeded the number we had at the end of the show in 2016. There were many positive, technical discussions with a strong focus on process optimization, quality and efficiency increase as well as on sustainability – all topics, which are realized by the use of our measuring and testing systems. Special attention was paid to our new measuring system, which allows for the first time for a 100 % measurement of the pipe directly after and through the pipe head. The percentage of international visitors was quite high, especially from China and India. Overall, we draw a very positive result about our participation in the show, which has demonstrated that there are many strong investment plans. We have experienced the K as a very forward, future-oriented show. “ Herr Harry Prunk, Vorstand SIKORA AG
“We are extremely satisfied with K2019. We have met a great number of existing and potential new partners – and this from all over the world and the most varied application areas such as automotive or additive manufacturing. Our innovations such as the latest generation of polyamide elastomers PEBA and the conductive and low extractable fuel lines aroused great interest. There was also a substantially stronger interest taken in our bio-based VESTAMID Terra than 3 years ago. We have been able to launch concrete projects for various markets.” Dr. Ralf Duessel, Senior Vice President & General Manager High Performance Polymers, Evonik
“At the joint Fraunhofer pavilion 11 institutes showcased innovative, sustainable and efficient solutions and developments for converting plastics. A great number of our visitors – especially from Germany, Italy, China and India – voiced a demand for recycling, bio-based plastics, resource efficiency and circular economy, and for the up-cycling of polyethylentherephthalate (LBF). This means that the trade fair and our exhibits responded very well to the trends also of relevance in society.” Prof. Dr. Christian Oehr, Deputy Head of the Institute, Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB
“At the joint Fraunhofer pavilion 11 institutes showcased innovative, sustainable and efficient solutions and developments for converting plastics. A great number of our visitors – especially from Germany, Italy, China and India – voiced a demand for recycling, bio-based plastics, resource efficiency and circular economy, and for the up-cycling of polyethylentherephthalate (LBF). This means that the trade fair and our exhibits responded very well to the trends also of relevance in society.” Prof. Dr. Christian Oehr, Deputy Head of the Institute, Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB
“Saving resources through sustainable production, recycling and quick colour changes were our central themes at the K trade fair and will be beyond. We are pleased with the positive response across the board and the avid interest taken in our sustainable demo bottle of foamed PCR and bio-based polyethylene, to name bit two. With this project we were able to prove credibly that we are not only paying lip services when it comes to sustainability.” Christian Kirchbaumer Head of Marketing Communications, Kautex Group
“The K experienced a great crowd of visitors, which was not a matter of course this year. Our expectations were exceeded, although it can be seen that the proportion of visitors from the automotive industry is lower than three years ago. It is certainly too early to draw a conclusion before evaluating the visit reports. What we can certainly say, however, is that interest in innovative processing technologies that lead to greater efficiency, productivity and sustainability remains high. The focus continues to be on digitisation. It is an important trailblazer for the recycling industry, as K 2019 made clear.”
Dr. Stefan Engleder, CEO, ENGEL Group
„This year‘s K show again was a great success for us. Our focus areas were well received and included a wide array of innovations such as electroactive silicone laminates, ACEO®’s novel 3D printing technology, new additives for thermoplastic materials and biopolymers and novel haptic and fire resistant silicone rubber grades. A crowd puller was our low-volatile liquid silicone rubbers including live injection molding at the booth. Our contact sheets are not yet fully evaluated, but they already show a large number of high potential leads. Thus, the K trade fair once more has lived up to its reputation of being the world’s largest trade fair for plastics and rubber.” Christian Gimber, Vice President Business Unit Engineering Silicones, Wacker Silicones
