Auxiliaries

Taiwanese auxiliary equipment supplier Shini Plastics Technologies Inc. (Taipei) has been substantially boosting its production capacity of late, having doubled the size of its operations through the course of 2009 through a $19 million investment in new production facilities. Consequently, it also plans to double sales this year.

A recycling robot that uses sensors to detect five different wavelengths of laser beam light reflected from plastic materials, and will automatically sort six different polymer types, currently is being tested in Osaka, Japan.

The photonics sensing technology has been developed by the Idec Co. (Japan) and the Photonics Advanced Research Center (PARC) at the University of Osaka. Optical and robot technologies are supplied by Mitsubishi Electric Engineering Co. (MEE).

Investing in appropriate technology for its automotive customers gave one Midwest molder a cycle-time and cost-cutting edge.

As Chinaplas opens in Shanghai this April, China will more than likely be celebrating its impending emergence as the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, expecting to have edged slightly ahead of Japan when the final 2009 GDP numbers come in.

The supplier of Pressurex film has developed another way for plastics processors to use its novel pressure-indicating film. We featured the film some months ago in this article on its potential use as a low-cost and rapid means to determine whether injection molds' parting lines are properly mated. Now the company reveals the material also is suitable for ensuring that the horn and anvil of an ultrasonic welding system are properly aligned.

If you've ever gotten exasperated listening to a white-collared CEO talk about his company, using business-school buzzwords that seem to say very little but take up plenty of space, then there is a good chance you'll find something very satisfying in watching a machine manufacturer's president, in casual dress and with his shirtsleeves rolled up, tossing bulky blobs of plastic purgings into his company's new purging recovery system and cranking it up as he explains the unit to an unseen audience.

K-Tron, a manufacturer of materials handling equipment (gravimetric and volumetric feeders, a wide range of blenders, and pneumatic conveyors) used in the plastics industry, as well as size reduction equipment used in other industries, has been acquired by Hillenbrand Inc. for $150/K-Tron share, a 32.1% premium to its closing price before the purchase was announced. Hillenbrand, the holding company for Batesville Casket Company, plans to keep K-Tron and Batesville as separate business units.

After many years in which the company has been a regular at European trade shows, and has seen its business there expand, the Lancaster, PA-based manufacturer of de-dusting equipment for materials handling in the plastics and other industries has decided to establish a subsidiary in Vogt, Germany.

Plastic auxiliary equipment manufacturer Process Control Corp. (Atlanta, GA) has upgraded the firm’s established Guardian batch blender series, which it introduced in 1999. The improvements include a top-to-bottom electrical and mechanical redesign.
 

Amid a challenging business environment in Malaysia, film processors are turning to advanced recycling solutions for in-house scrap to improve their bottom lines, according to NGR (Next Generation Recyclingmaschinen GmbH; Feldkirchen, Austria).