“With our machines, above all it comes down to ultimate reliability,” says design engineer Lothar Hug. “When the equipment is in place at the customer, it must runs continuously without problems.” Three and four shift operations seven days a week are the norm here. The environmental conditions faced by the plastic components are naturally quite different. “On a current project from the aerospace industry, we straighten metal sheets at -112 °F. The result is that we get a lot of condensation on the machine. Another example involves special alloys, which can only be straightened once they cool off to 1,652°F,” says the design engineer.