History of UBE Machinery's Injection Molding Machine

The 1960s was a time of high growth in Japan, with the Tokyo Olympics held in 1964, and the world was entering the plastics age. Ube Industries made a full-scale entry into the petrochemical field, building plants in Japan to produce polyethylene and polypropylene resins and establishing Ube Saikon Co., Ltd. (now Techno UMG Co., Ltd.) in the United States to produce ABS resin as a joint venture with a subsidiary of U.S. auto parts manufacturer BorgWarner, Inc. Ube entered the petrochemical field in earnest. This was the heyday of consumer electronics, and many injection molding machines were being used to produce their parts.
In 1967, Ube Industries completed its first injection molding machine through joint research and development by the resin research laboratory and other in-house related divisions, and entered the industry by exhibiting the machine at the 2nd Japan Plastics Trade Fair. Ube Industries then developed a machine in a technical tie-up with BorgWarner of the U.S., the parent company of Ube Saikon's joint venture partner, and began selling injection molding machines in conjunction with ABS resin sales, winning orders from the domestic automotive industry and other customers.
This marked the beginning of UBE Machinery's injection molding business.

Ube Industries, which was not well known as an injection molding machine manufacturer, borrowed the global name brand of U.S.-based BorgWarner and won orders mainly from the domestic automotive industry. However, the BW series, a machine developed in technical cooperation with BorgWarner, had several problems that needed to be improved, and in order to regain the trust of our customers, we desperately made a number of improvements to the machine on our own. First, to solve the problem of the direct clamping type mold clamping device of the BW series, we adopted a toggle type mold clamping device, which had a proven track record in large die casting machines, and developed the world's first toggle type large injection molding machine, the "BWT series". In 1976, we further improved the malfunction of the injection device and independently developed and delivered the "UBEMAX Series," a versatile inline screw type that meets the needs of customers.
Having overcome this difficult situation by embarking on a path of independent development, we took advantage of the shift from polyurethane resin to polypropylene resin as a material for automotive bumpers and expanded sales of large-size injection molding machines to the automotive industry. This secured Ube Industries' position in the injection molding machine industry.

Around 1973, when the oil crisis hit, Japan's rapid economic growth ended. With no prospect of expanding demand in the Japanese market and a decrease in the number of machines being added to the plants in Japan, we embarked on an expansion into the huge U.S. market.
Japanese automakers, which were inferior to the U.S. Big Three in terms of management and technology in the early 1960s, desperately worked on improvement activities such as streamlining and labor saving, and caught up with and surpassed the U.S. automakers in about 10 years. By gritting its teeth to meet these strict demands of the Japanese automakers, our machines also accumulated improvements, enabling it to overtake the machines of U.S. manufacturers and enter the U.S. market.
In the 1980s, following presses and die-casting machines, we received large orders for injection molding machines from two of the "Big Three" U.S. automakers, Ford and GM, which were the result of UBE Machinery's highly regarded technology, including a "single setup" machine that could change molds in five minutes. In 1984, UBE opened a service center in Ann Arbor, near Detroit, the home of the Big Three. UBE's customer-oriented approach to service was further recognized and continued orders were received, laying the foundation for UBE Machinery's North American business today.

As the Japanese economy has stabilized after two oil shocks and trade friction between Japan and the U.S., and people's lives have become more affluent, a wide variety of plastic products are now used in many industries, including automobiles, home appliances, OA communication equipment, housing equipment, and industrial materials.
In order to increase sales of medium- and large-sized injection molding machines, which are our forte, we took on the challenge of developing new models to accommodate the increasingly diverse and large-sized applications for plastic molded products, and launched a series of advanced injection molding machines that were multifunctional, high-cycle, energy-saving, and space-saving.
This was the time when UBE Machinery's current strength of "large injection molding machines that meet customers' high value-added needs" took shape.

After overcoming the oil crisis, the world had shifted to energy-efficient industries and energy-conscious lifestyles, and the 21st century, the century of the environment, had called for global environmental protection efforts on all fronts. The plastic molding and processing industry was no exception to this trend, and there was an urgent need for energy-saving and environmental load reduction measures through the improvement of molding machines and molding technologies.
Against this backdrop, the injection molding machine industry in Japan had been shifting from conventional hydraulic-driven machines to "electric-driven machines", which offered energy savings, low noise, cleanliness, and other environmental benefits, as well as improved productivity through high-cycle molding and precision molding with high repetition accuracy. In response to the needs of products such as cell phones, notebook PCs, optical discs, and medical-related products, which required particularly strict dimensional accuracy and optical characteristics, the development of electrically-driven small injection molding machines took the lead.
In this environment, we were quick to take advantage of its technological expertise accumulated through the development of large-sized injection molding machines to develop electric-driven large-sized injection molding machines and molding processes that take advantage of the superior characteristics of electric machines.
In addition, we began approaching emerging markets such as China and Southeast Asia, where demand for large injection molding machines was increasing, particularly in the consumer electronics and automotive industries, and promoted manufacturing and sales alliances with major Chinese injection molding machine manufacturers.
At the turn of the 21st century, UBE Machinery established its brand as "the world's leading manufacturer of large-sized injection molding machines with technological prowess".

While the injection molding machine market was growing steadily in North America, China, Southeast Asia, India, and other regions, we could not expect growth in Japan and needed to aggressively expand overseas. In the late 2000s, competing manufacturers in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. began steadily opening bases around the world.
In 2015, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries(MHI), a long-time rival in the injection molding machine market for large-size machines, approached Ube Steel Corporation, a UBE Machinery Group company, about collaboration in the manufacture of large-size castings.This was the catalyst for the two companies to consider a tie-up.
In the past, the two companies were often competitors in the large injection molding machine businesses, and there was a sense of tension between them, not knowing when the other would get a foothold, but as we shared the same sense of crisis and discussed the possibility of an alliance, they became more convinced than ever that they could build a win-win relationship.
Although both companies were engaged in the same large-sized machine business, "Ube, with its all-electric toggle machines strong in North America," and "Mitsubishi, with its hydraulic and electric 2-platen machines strong in Asia," had different core markets and different models, and the two companies had sufficient synergy and complementary relationship.
In 2017, we acquired MHI's injection molding machine subsidiary and integrated its operations under the UBE Machinery Group, and in 2020, we merged that subsidiary into our company to achieve full integration and open a new plant, Nagoya Machinery Works, marking the start of a new structure for our injection molding machine business.
UBE Machinery has taken the first step toward becoming a machine manufacturer that can compete globally in our main battlefield of large injection molding machines.