In the run-up to K ´98 (22 to 29 October in Düsseldorf), Nextrom SA (Route du Bois 37, CH-1024 Ecublens-Lausanne) heralded “a new era in extrusion technology” with a series of big advertisements in the specialist press. The name Nextrom does not stand for a complete newcomer to the European plastics machinery sector but is simply the new name for a proven extruder manufacturer: at the start of April 1998, the former Nokia Maillefer SA agreed to change its name to Nextrom. The decision was made after a series of acquisitions of different companies in the sector. These included the purchase of the Italian extruder producer Dolci Extrusion S.p.A. (I-20095 Cusano Milanino) together with other, less well-known companies, such as Ceeco, Syncro and FME. The “N” at the start of the new company name stands for Nokia, and only a small “m” at the end of the name recalls the traditional brand of Maillefer.

Anyone who finally found the Nextrom stand in Hall 15 at the “K” fair in Düsseldorf, however, bore witness to a true revolution in extrusion technology, which Nextrom itself was celebrating as the “most significant invention in plastics processing for decades”. Representatives of the international specialist press had been given the opportunity to see this “technical breakthrough in plastics extrusion” at the Nextrom development plant in Ecublens on Lake Geneva at the end of September already.

What was presented there under the name “Conex” was more than just an unusual design of extruder. The Swiss extruder-builders showed journalists a completely new production system for the extrusion of mono and multilayer films. After five years´ development work and investments of more than USD 10m, this innovative concept was created in cooperation with the Technical Research Centre of Finland, the Scandinavian plastic pipe producers, Uponor (FIN-02110 Espoo) and the cable company, NK Cables, formerly Nokia Cables. The outcome is unusual at the very least:

While conventional plant configurations for composite film are made up of a number of different individual extruders, the so-called “Conex” extruder comprises a number of individual screw elements, which are embedded in so-called stators and output the different layers virtually synchronously thanks to a complex design configuration. According to Nextrom, the advantages of this principle are its low space requirements, reduced start-up time, faster cleaning and lower energy requirements. Above all, however, “Conex” is also opening up the lucrative markets of flat film and blown film extrusion to the Swiss extruder suppliers, who previously concentrated on cable and pipe extrusion and the corresponding plant. Since K ´98 at the latest, therefore, Nextrom has emerged as a new all-round supplier in the field of extrusion technology.