Arburg unveils plans for North America.

arburg, Inc., Berlin, Conn., the new North American direct sales/service organization of Arburg Maschinefabrik, is establishing a series of Injection Molding Technology Centers (IMTCs) that will replicate the capabilities of its German sister company. These will include assistance in tool design, processing techniques, and solving molding problems--capabilities not previously available from the former Polymer Machinery Corp., which had represented Arburg here for decades.

The first IMTC will be established in Berlin by the end of the year. It will be a prototype for the main U.S. IMTC, to be established at a site being prepared just outside Alexandria, Va., for occupancy within a year and a half. Sometime in the next two years, this will become Arburg, Inc.'s headquarters, and a new site will be found for the New England center.

Later on, additional IMTCs will be established at Arburg's sales offices in Schaumburg, Ill., and Westiminster, Calif., though moves to new quarters are also planned for those facilities in the next year or so.

Meanwhile, Arburg is already in the process of doubling its field service force and expanding its new machine and spare-parts inventories. The expanded technical staff will give Arburg, Inc. the muscle it needs to market more actively in North America some of the more sophisticated automation capabilities available in Germany. It also plans to introduce a "C" line of Arburg machines here next year. These machines are so new to North America that Arburg officials declined to discuss them for the moment.

Arburg, Inc. is headed by Hans E. Gompf, president, an export specialist from Germany who is moving to the U.S. to act as full-time CEO here. On his team are exec. v.p. Lawrence R. Bauer, who is returning to the injection machinery business after a two-year hiatus. He was formerly in top management of Reed-Prentice and then v.p. of Polymer Machinery until the end of 1989. Bruce H. Bowman, v.p. of sales and service for Arburg, Inc., was involved in sales of Arburg machines for Polymer Machinery for the past eight years.

Incidentally, though Polymer Machiner no longer exists, Polymer Systems Inc., headed by Joseph Holthoff, continues to build and sell granulators at the same address in Berlin, Conn.