Alfred Rak is the new CEO and president of Bole Machinery of North America – makers of innovative & rugged injection molding machines for many industries

Alfred Rak, president and CEO of BOLE Machinery, poses with an injection molding press at K 2019.

Düsseldorf, Germany — The Chinese manufacturer of BOLE injection molding machinery has opened a U.S. headquarters in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, and hired Alfred Rak as president and CEO. Rak said BOLE Machinery Inc. began operations about a year ago in a 25,000 square-foot building. The facility has about 30 BOLE injection molding presses in stock.


“The concept is, No. 1, we have enough machines on stock for immediate supply, immediate demands. No. 2, we have the availability of parts needed, service and sales," Rak said in an interview at the K Show at the booth of Ningbo Shuangma Machinery Industry Co. Ltd., which makes BOLE-brand injection molding presses.


The company hired Rak, who has a long machinery work history in Europe and the United States, in June. Rak said a team from China had already located the U.S. headquarters in Stow. It's a good location in Ohio, a center of the plastics industry, and near the important U.S. automotive sector, he said.


BOLE Machinery has five employees, including two sales people and two service technicians, but the firm is recruiting more people in those positions, Rak said. The operation has eight exclusive sales agents, all of them east of the Mississippi River, and is looking for more to round out coverage of the country, he said.


Rak, a native of Vienna, Austria, has worked at injection press makers Battenfeld, Engel and Arburg. He was president of Kiefel Technologies Inc. in the United States and vice president of American Starlinger-Sahm Inc.


Rak said Ningo Shuangma Machinery is committed to the United States with its own headquarters facility. BOLE machines have made some other attempts to crack the U.S. market that did not work out. Franklin, Ohio-based Tech-Way Industries Inc. started a business called Tech Bole USA to sell the presses in 2014. Then, in 2016, BOLE North America was formed to distribute the machines, as a subsidiary of KD Capital Equipment LLC, a supplier of used plastics processing machinery and metalworking equipment in Scottsdale, Ariz.


One major feature of BOLE injection molding machines is a patented central clamping toggle clamp on the EKS Series hybrid injection machines and the FE Series all-electric molding machines. The clamp directs all the clamping force to the center part of the platen, while traditional toggles apply force to the four corners of the platen, which company officials said can cause deformation of the platens.


About 80 BOLE FE electric presses have been sold since they hit the market about a year-and-a-half ago, Rak said. The U.S. operation has them in stock. Customers also can select a hybrid version that uses a hydraulic unit, enclosed in the machine base for the core pull, ejector and carriage forward.


"It makes it a unique machine, because price-wise there is no difference, whether you go with the hybrid or the fully-electric — the same price," Rak said.


The company also offers the BOLE DK series of two-platen injection molding machines. Rak said the tie-bars are forged, not machined, for higher quality. The locking nuts have variable, progressive spacing of the teeth, to distribute stress evenly, giving longer life for that important component, he added.


At K 2019, all three types of BOLE machines were on display: A fully electric injection molding machine with 180 metric tons of clamping force, a 570-ton two-platen injection molding press and a 230-ton servo-hydraulic toggle machine.


Rak said BOLE Machinery is working with Penn State Erie's plastics engineering program, by participating in job fairs and discussing putting a machine plastics processing laboratory at the school in Erie, Pa.


Please read the full article from Plastics News, here. To contact BOLE Machinery for more information or to interview Alfred Rak, visit this page. You can also contact a BOLE dealer-representative for inquiries into our injection molding machines by visiting this page.

Source URL: https://www.plasticsnews.com/news/bole-opens-us-headquarters-stow-ohio

The world’s well-known brands trust BOLE

Address: 4706 Hudson Drive Stow, OH 44224

THE MANUFACTURER RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE CHANGES AND/OR IMPROVEMENTS IN DESIGNS & DIMENSIONS WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE AND WITHOUT INCURRING ANY OBLIGATION.