Tube Filling and Cartoning Machines Provider Celebrates 120 Years of Growth

IWK Verpackungstechnik has celebrated its 120th anniversary. The company has been producing and distributing tube filling and sealing machines and cartoning machines for the pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industries since 1893.

"We're a technology-driven company with a clear goal to consistently develop innovative, high-quality solutions," explained Jens Torkel, Managing Director of IWK Verpackungstechnik. "After being established 120 years ago, that's how IWK Verpackungstechnik rapidly grew into an international market leader for tube fillers and cartoning machines, a position we continually renew."

To maintain this level of commercial success, the company annually invests five percent of its sales into developing new products and improving old ones. The TFS 80-6 is a good example. With an incredible output of 510 tubes per minute, this high-speed tube filling machine has been the flagship in the company's higher output category since it was launched in 2000. Its record has only been broken by IWK Verpackungstechnik itself. The even faster TFS 80-8 line fills and seals 750 tubes per minute, making it more productive than any other machine around the globe. The TFS 80 series has been sold more than 60 times over the last decade.

The company also brought an entirely new generation of the FP tube filler series onto the market in 2011. Thanks to its modular construction, the FP machines meet customers' requests for high efficiency but low energy consumption. The machine can handle 70 to 300 tubes per minute. "In the old days, most machines were produced to do nearly everything," explained Axel Augenstein, Vice President Sales. " With the new filling series, customers can pick and choose and therefore they only pay for what they really need. If their needs change, they are able to flexibly upgrade and refit the machines.

In the cartoning machine segment, IWK Verpackungstechnik offers the cycled, continuous motion machines, the SI and SC series, in the lower, middle and higher output ranges. These modular machines can handle every application in the pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industries. The SC 6 series is specially designed to handle the highest output hair cosmetics applications, even those with extremely complex requirements. 

Another strong pillar of the company is the service business. The service centres are spread around the world and, with their own design, sales, assembly and warehouses, they generate about 40% of the total sales at IWK Verpackungstechnik. "This makes us the international market leaders in this segment," explained Siegbert Evin, Vice President Service. "The main factors contributing to this success are our good personal relationship with the customers, our rapid reaction time and our extremely reliable delivery."

Torkel defined the company's goals: "To remain a top player in the global economy, we continue to emphasise international growth. At the moment, this is particularly true of the rapidly growing markets in Southeast Asia, China and India." For example, IWK Verpackungstechnik operates its own production site in Thailand, where it manufactures more than 80 machines per year with 80 employees. Our goal there is to expand in the lower and middle output categories. To accomplish this, the company has already added a new development to its product portfolio: the VI 5 vertical cartoning machine for the low output category. Starting immediately, the VI 5 is being produced at the Thai plant and sold worldwide.

In September IWK Verpackungstechnik has been sold to the Canadian company ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. “Within its portfolio, ATS can maintain the steady growth course IWK has been on”, summed up Torkel. "Thanks to our international footprint and steady pipeline of new developments, we are very well prepared for the future. Innovation has been our driver of development for the last 120 years and it will remain so for the next 120!"

IWK Verpackungstechnik GmbH, +49 7244 968 0, info-pharmapackaging@oystar-group.com, www.oystar-group.com/brands/oystar-iwk.