“Your Profile Our Business 50 Years” and as long as the film extrusion exists!
50 years of KÜNDIG CONTROL SYSTEMS – a success story: Kündig Control Systems (KCS) is a division of the family-owned company Hch. Kündig & Cie. AG (HKC) specializing in thin plastic film measuring and control devices. Since its inception in 1972, the KCS team has steadily climbed its way to being the world leader in the blown film industry.
It was during the 1971 International Textile Machinery Exhibition (ITMA) in Paris, that it became apparent that the golden years of Switzerland’s powerful textile industry would soon be over. Textile machinery was the parent company’s core business and the exhibition validated a HKC decision to search for an additional business avenue, a business avenue needed to ensure the company’s future.
Earlier in 1970, HKC hired a technical salesman and entrusted him with the task of setting up a trading department for machines and equipment outside of HKC’s traditional clientele. Instead of textiles, the focus shifted to include thin plastic films. It proved to be the right decision, even though, in retrospect, it was a very ambitious and demanding choice.
The new KCS division got its first opportunity to solve a plastics industry problem during a spontaneous visit to the former Vinora company located in Rapperswil- Jona, Switzerland. Vinora needed a new width control device for blown film extrusion lines to replace the unsuitable devices then available from the Meiners company.
KCS decided this was a challenge they would tackle with the added assistance from a young electrical engineer. The first width control device was sold in 1972, thus establishing KCS’s foundation for the new division, which is celebrating its anniversary today. KCS exhibited for the first time at K 1979 in Dusseldorf.
The interest in width controls and now, film thickness gauges, was significant. Since KCS did not want to develop and manufacture thickness gauges internally, they made a cooperation agreement with the Winzen company of Minneapolis, Minnesota USA. As time went on, the quality requirements of Europe’s film industry began to exceed the capabilities of the sensors
procured from the USA. Therefore, the next new challenge was the KCS’s decision to develop their own capacitive thickness gauge. In 1987, the now infamous
K-100 film thickness gauge was fully developed and shortly thereafter was sold to all major blown film line manufacturers and end users in Europe and North America. Today, the high quality KCS measurement and control devices of older and newer generations have been in use for years on all continents and their functional efficiency is guaranteed by an efficient customer service department.
Since these beginnings, KCS has continued to develop performance improvements in all its products, testing new scientific findings and developing new technologies. KCS’s guiding principal is to offer the world’s most innovative measuring and control equipment for the production of very thin, high quality plastic films – which reduce raw material usage. Clearly, an investment in equipment from KCS is clearly both an economic and ecological decision.
At this year’s K show, as a world premiere, KCS presents the 9th generation of width measurement and control.
For the first time, the FE-9 width measurement uses a new, innovative technology for even more precise foil edge detection. Detailed explanations of this technology are available at booth C51 in Hall 10. As with its predecessor, the FE-9 width measurement system consists of two half-beams in three different sizes, which can be connected to each other at different positions. With only a few different modules, this system enables width measurement of film webs between 10 and over 4000 millimeters. [Picture FE-9]
The CUFE-9 operator console, which is also new, combines 50 years of experience in width control technology with state-of-the-art technology. If the CUFE-9 is integrated into the company network, the system can be completely controlled remotely via a web browser. In addition, width measuring instruments from the 6th generation introduced in 1985 can be connected to the CUFE-9.
The online film thickness gauge K-XRAY Rotomat KT 3G based on X-ray technology, which was introduced at the last K trade show, is now an established device on the global market. On several occasions, thickness gauges based on a gamma solid-state radiator have also been replaced by a K-XRAY sensor. As a result, thin foils can be measured much more precisely, which, in combination with profile control, leads to decisively tighter cross-profile tolerances. If you are interested, please send a conversion request to sales@gauge.ch or visit booth C51 in hall 10.
By no means will the 50-year-old KCS now rest on its laurels. The development pipeline is full to bursting and highly motivated, hard-working employees of the KCS specialist department are doing their best to ensure that new, high-precision, innovative measuring and control devices with the best price-performance ratio will soon be launched on the world market.
Finally, a huge thank you to our worldwide customers for their good cooperation and their loyal partnership over many years. Without their investments in measuring and control equipment from KCS, this success story could never have been written. “Your Profile Our Business 50 Years” and as long as the film extrusion exists!
For more information:
www.gauge.ch
sales@gauge.ch