Only a few years ago, plastics and metals competed as materials: plastics are usually cheaper, lighter, more chemically resistant, freer to shape and electrically insulating, while metals impressed with their ductile material behaviour, electrical and thermal conductivity and high level of surface hardness. However, energy and resource efficiency, economical lightweight construction and functional integrations are optimally implemented by combining the materials. At OKE we manufacture components for structural applications in the automotive sector, for electrical engineering and electronics applications, for locking systems and medical engineering.
When it comes to metal-plastic hybrids, our Schröder and Alhorn sites, with their experience in the automotive and electrical industries, are the experts of the OKE Group. While Alhorn also supplies the electronics industry with complex connectors, Schröder is also a supplier of visible parts for medical engineering. At KKF in Goslar, we also integrate various metal components into large vehicle parts.
We are familiar with both classes of materials and have our own unit for punching. With this expertise, we support our customers right from the design stage of initial ideas and consider the entire value chain.
Together with our own toolmaking and mechanical engineering department, we develop tooling and system technologies suitable for series production, even for complex process combinations and automations.
Many of our customers benefit from our worldwide logistics. With twelve production sites in Europe, Asia, Brazil and South Africa, as well as a network of wholesalers and service points, we are there for them worldwide.
Metal-plastic hybrids are popular across industries. For example, around 60 percent of all punched metal parts are now joined directly or indirectly with plastic. And there are good reasons for this! Taking into account value-adding ideas or after a precise value-added potential analysis, intelligent metal-plastic hybrids are created from which our customers benefit:
Smaller inserts are usually automatically inserted into the injection mould and overmoulded. We often use screw sleeves, but we also use punched parts manufactured in-house as inserts.
In outsert technology, we create a larger punched metal part to which we add functional elements in injection moulding. Part of our product portfolio is then (semi-)automatically assembled into small subassemblies.
In reel-to-reel, we feed our punching strips directly from a spool to the injection mould. After the plastic elements have been added, we wind the punched strip back onto the spool. We can also integrate upstream and downstream cutting and bending processes into this process. We use this very efficient but not frequently applicable technology for large product series.
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