Photo by Michael A. Marcotte Michael Fink, vice president of sales and business development at z-moulds.

For Z-moulds, success is literally simple.

The Dornbirn, Austria-based company keeps its far-flung customers in mind when developing equipment used around the world.

“We have a different approach in doing moulds,” said Michael Fink, vice president of sales and business development at Z-moulds at the recent Plastics Caps & Closures 2016 conference in Chicago.

“Our approach always is to give the end user, and this is typically a converter, the most efficient system that is easy to understand and easy to operate. Because only if it is easy to operate and it doesn’t need a lot of maintenance, then you can earn money just running the mold.”

The whole less-is-more approach.

“When you think about the converter, the mould should be as easy as can be,” Fink said at the conference organised by PNE's sister publication Plastics News.

That means continuing to examine a project until there “there is nothing more to take away.”

This push toward simplicity drives the company and its engineers from the very beginning, Fink said. “What else can we take away from this solution to make it more easier? So our principle is always something is finished when there is nothing more to take away and the requirements are fulfilled.”

The company, which is currently constructing a new building in its home town of Dornbirn thanks to continued growth, takes its inspiration from a line in “The Little Prince,” the famous book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Fink said: “It seems that perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.”

Keeping it simple allows converters the opportunity to not to worry so much about the operation of the mold and concentrate more on the sale of more closures, he said.

Driving toward simplicity takes away costs and complexity while making life easier for converters, he told the crowd.

“Something is finished when there is nothing more to take way,” Fink said. “It is simple.”

Plastics News Europe's Caps & Closures Conference takes place on 9-10 November 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.