Video Transcript
This article is sponsored by MS Ultrasonic Technology, LLC, a company specializing in custom ultrasonic plastic welding equipment and components for diverse industries.
The 2023 Global Ultrasonic Welding Systems Market analysis by Business Research Insights found that the market is expected to grow at a 4.6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2022 and 2028, reaching a value of approximately $730 million.
One German-based company is helping North American clients equip themselves for this growing market. MS Ultrasonic Technology, LLC, the U.S. branch of MS Ultrasonic Technology Group headquartered in Spaichingen, Germany, is located in Howell, Michigan. When the ISO-certified operation opened its U.S. facility in 2008, the branch had three employees. Fifteen years later, it has 50.
Worldwide, MS Ultrasonic employs approximately 500 people. The technology-focused company specializes in custom automation equipment, manufacturing all ultrasonic plastic welding machinery and components on-site. Their MS sonxTOP ultrasonic plastic welding machines are the company’s latest equipment generation.
“It’s in our DNA to come up with a smart and efficient way of doing things,” explains Timo Steimer, company president and CEO. “We take a lot of pride in everything we do, and we work with our customers to develop innovative welding equipment solutions. Our MS sonxTOP series is designed to enhance precision, weld seam strength, reproducibility, and productivity in plastic welding operations.”
Utilizing their fully electric, patented preciSer® drive design to eliminate the need for compressed air and provide speed and force control, this equipment is applicable in clean rooms and manufacturing environments. Their paralliCer® and stabiliZer® technology allows for full contact and parallelism between a workpiece and the sonotrode, eliminating deflection.
Thomas Insights (TI): What trends are you seeing in the ultrasonic plastic welding industry, and how is MS Ultrasonic staying ahead of the curve?
Timo Steimer (TS): Historically, we’ve been focused on the automotive industry, and the automotive industry will remain our largest segment, at least for many more years. But other industries, such as medical, aerospace, consumer products, nonwovens, and packaging, have grown tremendously over the years. We see that ultrasonic technology has way more potential, and so we’re spending a significant amount of resources in research and development for new products.
TI: What sets MS Ultrasonic and your MS sonxTOP ultrasonic plastic welding machine series apart from the competition?
TS: MS Ultrasonic is a very flexible company when it comes to changing the standard. Yes, we do have our standard products, but every one of our applications is unique and presents individual challenges. We have to react to those pretty quickly, so we have to be flexible whereas others might say, “Well, this is our standard, and we don’t deviate from it.” We’re normally more easygoing.
We’re not a company that mass-produces products and then tries to sell them. It’s actually the other way around. We sell our technology and the applications, and we ask the customer, “What do you need at the end of the day?” Then together, we develop the scope of work. Customers give us a few important details, like their rough budget, cycle time, or throughput requirements, and we develop the concept together. Almost every single time, something very unique comes out of this. It’s not off-the-shelf equipment.
Also, we’re a turnkey supplier, manufacturing all the equipment, core technology, and ultrasonic components in-house. Our product line ranges from a single weldhead for an integrator all the way to highly complex and flexible automation lines. Many of our competitors purchase their components from other companies, even from us. We all suffered through very similar supply chain issues during and after COVID, but we have a lot of control because we are producing pretty much everything in-house.
Our sonxTOP machines are all servo-driven rather than pneumatic. This equipment keeps the weld surfaces extremely precise and parallel. That’s, in fact, our patented solution. Nobody else can currently achieve that. We’ve actually won several projects because the competition simply failed as their equipment wasn’t up to the task. It wasn’t precise enough, parallel enough, or quick enough. Our product was able to fulfill all those requirements.
TI: What’s something that isn’t widely known about MS Ultrasonic?
TS: Not everyone is familiar with what “ultrasonic technology” means. People normally think of an ultrasound in the doctor’s office, and it’s somewhat remotely related. However, this is not what we do. We utilize ultrasonic technology to bond and/or separate thermoplastic parts.
Also, we’re a rather small company located in a rather small town, but we have an incredible market share in several industries. That includes a significant amount of vehicles, consumer products, and other articles produced every year that incorporate parts manufactured by our equipment. So, for example, if we build a component that’s needed to manufacture a certain sportscar, every single one of those sportscars in existence on the planet has directly been touched by the equipment we created.
Not a lot of people really know this about our company and our products. So the easy answer is, we build machines. But it’s actually way, way more than that because components made with our machines are being used all over the world.
TI: What can you tell us about your U.S. facility and your operations there?
TS: We’ve been in this facility now for two years, with over 40,000 square feet of production space. The building we purchased wasn’t a manufacturing facility before. MS Ultrasonic made a large investment in customizing it to our needs. Now, it’s one of the nicest facilities we have in our group, and the company calls us the showcase facility.
We pride ourselves on being a turnkey supplier. We do pretty much everything, starting with sales, project management, and mechanical design to machine manufacturing and retrofitting equipment. If the changes aren’t too significant, we’ll do retrofits on customers’ shop floors over long weekends or shutdowns. We maintain an inventory of the common parts used in every machine to help customers quickly, as we don’t want to put anyone in the position of not being able to manufacture for weeks.
The projects we’re confronted with aren’t always crystal clear and defined. The feasibility is sometimes questionable, either because a competitor already failed or the product is so new that we simply don’t know immediately how to go about it. We have a high-tech, well-equipped feasibility lab here with two application managers. They do nothing but feasibility testing, prototyping, and measuring to make sure that our products are able to do the job right.
Also, when we install a machine, we’re not just setting it there and walking away. We go through a very detailed training process so that customers understand the machines as well as we do. MS Ultrasonic offers classroom training to familiarize people with the technology and how they can utilize it, or the training could be specific to the client’s equipment.
TI: Will you tell us about a time when MS Ultrasonic helped fulfill a customer’s equipment needs?
TS: Our company lost a large automotive project to a competitor a few years ago. However, the customer wasn’t satisfied with the equipment he bought, and he came back to us and said, “Can you help us out? This is jeopardizing the launch of a new vehicle for our customer.”
We took a look at the project and said, “All right, if we pool all our resources together and really focus on this, we can pull this off.” We retrofitted some machines and built some new equipment, and our customer was incredibly happy that we were able to help him through this difficult situation. What normally would have taken a couple of years, we were able to build and supply in nine months. It was really incredible.
To learn more about the company and its MS sonxTOP ultrasonic plastic welding machine series, contact MS Ultrasonic today.
