First Look: Industry News & Analysis 21763

Bemis cleans up at APP awards; external gas-assist arrives in U.S.

Bemis Contract Group (Sheboygan, WI) tallied four out of 12 awards at the Alliance of Plastics Processors New Product Design Competition (April 1-3; Memphis, TN), for two very different parts—a dryer door with integrated plastic window and a tractor hood utilizing 33%-40% secondary market resin placed in its core via coinjection.

Besides Bemis, which won honors in the transportation category for the John Deere 7000 Series engine enclosure, tied with the Minco Group in the appliance category, and won the conference award and IDSA award for its dryer-door window, Composite Products Inc. (Winona, MN) won in automotive for its Chevrolet brush grille; Innovative Injection Technologies (West Des Moines, IA) was honored for its grip seat base for a Kawasaki personal water craft; and Mack Molding was recognized for its integrated air-conditioning top cap for Trane, which replaced a multipart component.

External gas assist, where gas is spread across the core side of a part to improve exterior surface, hide sinks and other surface marring from structural ribs, and lower the tonnage needed for molding, was applied by a North American company in the competition for the first time. Mack used it for a Triton Cobia ATM housing and an airplane video bezel. Gary Vande Berg, Bemis director of engineering, said his company is also investigating the technology, currently molding a part that formerly required a 2200-ton press on a 1500-ton press. Vande Berg speculated the technology could be useful in the company’s work for John Deere, or any flat parts, large or small, that require good surface aesthetics with lots of backside detail. Cinpres holds exclusive rights for the technology in North America, after purchasing a license from Asahi Chemical of Japan.

In Brief

Sumitomo buys Neopreg

Sumitomo Bakelite (Gent, Belgium), the world’s largest supplier of phenolic molding compounds, which in 2005 acquired the Vyncolit group, has now acquired Neopreg AG, a Swiss compounder of long fiber thermoset reinforced composites marketed under the trade names Kinel and Neonite.

New Russia facility

Additives supplier Gabriel-Chemie (Gumpoldskirchen, Austria) last month brought online a new facility near Moscow with 400-tonne/yr capacity of color and additive masterbatches. Management plans to expand production capacity up to 1000 tonnes/yr within the next two years.

Lati sells U.S. facility

Italian thermoplastic compounder Lati sold its PA and PBT compounding facility in Summerville, SC, and now will focus its U.S. sales on imported compounds with matrices of PEEK, PPS, PES and other high-end thermoplastics.

ColorMatrix acquisitions

ColorMatrix (Cleveland, OH) acquired Colorant-Chromatics Group (Cham, Switzerland), a supplier of fluoropolymer color concentrates and of fluoropolymer and other plastic compounds. ColorMatrix, the world’s largest supplier of liquid color and additive concentrates for thermoplastics, also recently acquired Argentine colorant supplier DosiColor (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Chemtura restructures

An organizational shake-up at additives supplier Chemtura (Middlebury, CT) will lead to about a 10% reduction in the 6000-employee workforce, and also brings a new structure with four divisions replacing six. Robert Wood, chairman and CEO, described the new organization as more industry focused.

Reorganization for K-M, Berstorff, and Demag

In a bid to simplify its own internal reporting and expand its sales of extruders, the mpm group, the Munich, Germany-holding company for processing machinery manufacturers Berstorff, Demag Plastics Group (DPG), Krauss-Maffei and Netstal, is making substantial organizational changes that will include merging Berstorff and the holding company into Krauss-Maffei, naming Netstal a Krauss-Maffei subsidiary, and see owner Madison Capital Partners (Chicago) manage DPG as a separate business. Madison acquired mpm last summer.

Berstorff is best known as a manufacturer of compounding extruders and sheet and rubber extrusion lines; Krauss-Maffei’s extruders primarily are for pipe and profile extrusion, with only little overlap in the firms’ portfolio. Jörg Hettmann, spokesman for mpm, says the move is “essentially no change” for Swiss injection molding machine maker Netstal. Brand names from all of the firms remain, as do their separate manufacturing facilities. DPG officials said the move was necessary due to the frequent overlap in product range, and subsequent fight for the same customers, between it, Krauss-Maffei and Netstal.

EDI opens in China

Flat-die manufacturer Extrusion Dies Industries LLC (Chippewa Falls, WI) has opened a wholly-owned subsidiary in Shanghai to provide technical support, rework service, and spare parts for flat extrusion and coating dies built by EDI in the U.S. EDI plans to formally introduce the new company this month at Chinaplas (Stand 1D-605).

Jason Yin, a native of China with engineering experience in China and North America, is GM of the new operation, supervising an initial staff of ten manufacturing and technical service specialists at a 1000 sq. m facility at Songjiang, about 25 km from downtown Shanghai. He has already worked for EDI for two years as a consultant and as coordinator of the project to establish EDI China.

EDI China will provide sales support for EDI’s agent in China, Kodama Chemical Industry Co. Ltd. “EDI China will provide local access to technical service and rework service for users of the hundreds of EDI dies operating in the region, and will ensure new customers that our full support is readily available at startup and long after the sale,” said Thomas Callahan, EDI’s president and CEO, who added China is “the world’s fastest-growing market for flat dies.”

Arburg fine with its figures

During its annual Technology Days event held March 22-24, which brought some 3470 processors from 41 countries to its headquarters, executives at injection molding machinery manufacturer Arburg (Lossburg, Germany) said they were pleased with the firm’s most recent results. Michael Hehl, spokesperson for Arburg’s board of directors, said that although final consolidated figures were not yet available, it seemed likely Arburg in 2006 surpassed its previous best year for revenues, the ?356 million in 2000. The firm’s Golden Edition machines, outfitted with limited options but shipped within 3-4 weeks, proved golden for the firm, accounting for 25% of orders, while orders for Alldrive-brand full electric machinery rose from 8% to 10%. The firm is building a new 10,000 sq meter customer center in Lossburg to house its entire machine range for demonstrations.

Based on Euromap figures for machine sales among European-based injection molding machine manufacturers, Hehl said Arburg’s share of orders in Europe was 33% of all machines, and 37% of orders for machines sized under 400 tonnes’ clamp force. In Germany it controlled 54% of orders in the under-400 tonne range. The firm has extended its range to include higher tonnage machines in the last years, to include its largest machine, the Allrounder 920S with 500 tonnes of clamp force, commercialized last year. Helmut Heinson, sales director at Arburg, said that with the established range of larger machines, the firm intends to “very aggressively pursue this business.”

Quantum Leap for thermoplastics in semiconductor packaging

Injection molder Quantum Leap Packaging Inc. (QLP; Wilmington, MA), a supplier of air cavity packages for semiconductor assembly, says its new HermeTech product is the industry''s first hermetic plastic package that meets JEDEC (semiconductor engineering standardization body) standards. QLP is molding plastic air cavity QFNs (Quad Flat pack No lead –a type of leadless leadframe package) that maintain hermetic leak rates of less than 5x10-8 atm cc/sec He, and pass full U.S. Mil Spec reliability tests. QLP processes a custom grade of liquid crystal polymer.

Semiconductor packaging-also known as encapsulation-could become a huge market for injection molders (September 2005 MPW, pg.50-52). Encapsulation protects semiconductors and serves as the bridge between electrical devices and a product''s printed circuit board (PCB). Every semiconductor needs protection in the form of encapsulation—the chips are embedded in the encapsulating material. To now the low viscosity at low temperatures offered by epoxies has made them the material of choice for use in the transfer molding process, the typical process used for encapsulating semiconductors.

Kautex with new owner, and solid order

With backing from private equity firm Steadfast Capital (Frankfurt, Germany), extrusion blowmolding machine manufacturer Kautex Maschinenbau’s management has bought back the firm from private equity firm Adcuram GmbH (Munich). Formerly part of the SIG group, Kautex was purchased by Adcuram in 2004. The private equity assisted management buyout consisted of five members of Kautex’s executive group. The company said in a statement that the addition of capital would held Kautex expand its global market position.

In October 2006, Adcuram purchased the Battenfeld injection molding machinery business of German industrial conglomerate SMS; it still owns that business.

In related new, Kautex shipped 15 KCC blowmolding units and 45 blow molds to Saudi Arabia for installation in the new Higher Institute for Plastics Fabrication (HIPF) vocational training center, a joint project between Saudi Arabia and Japan. The HIPF officially opens in September and offers training opportunities for about 600 Saudi students and trainees in all fields of plastics processing. In total the Institute will be equipped with 70 plastics processing machines.

Soliant doubles lamination capacity

Soliant LLC, a supplier of thermoplastic films and coatings that have been used to replace paint in automotive and other industries, doubled the lamination capacity of its Lancaster, SC facility to meet growing interest in its products. John Cupstid, Soliant’s sales and marketing director, made the announcement during the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE; Brookfield, CT) Global Plastics Environmental Conference (GPEC; March 6-7, Orlando). Cupstid and Soliant were on hand at last year’s GPEC event to receive an award for the company’s product (for an initial report on Soliant’s paint film technology, see March 2005 MPW, Market Update).

“Our business has seen tremendous growth in all of our laminate product lines including those used as a replacement for paint, metal, and chrome finishes,” Cupstid said. Of particular interest is the chrome product, which is finding interest in the heavy-truck market as a means to replicate chrome bumpers, especially since OSHA modified the standards for hexavalent chromium.

The laminator, which began production in March, is located in a Class 10,000 clean room and applies proprietary Soliant technology.

Florian named AMBA’s top moldmaker

Jim Florian, president of QME Inc. (Quality Mold & Engineering; Baroda, MI), was honored as the 2007 Mold Builder of the Year by the American Mold Builders Assn. (AMBA) during its recent annual convention. This is the fifth year that the AMBA has presented this award. Last year’s recipient, Roger Klouda, presented the award.

Florian started QME Inc. in 1979 as a two-man shop with less than 3000 ft². Today, his company offers complete mold design and complex, tight-tolerance molds up to 20,000 lb, with 40 full-time employees in a 30,000-ft² facility. He credits his success in large part to keeping up with all the latest technology, and has a designated research team just for that purpose.

Apollo combines Berry and Covalence

Adding film products to its injection molded, extruded, and thermoformed bottles, containers, tubes, and closures, Berry Plastics Group Inc. (Evansville, IN) has agreed to a stock-for-stock merger with Covalence Specialty Materials Corp. (Bedminster, NJ). Ira Boots, chairman and CEO of Berry, remains in that position for the combined company, which will still be called Berry Plastics, and Kip Smith, CEO of Covalence, manages that business.

Covalence, which is made up of the former assets of Tyco International’s plastics and adhesives group, was purchased by private equity fund Apollo Management V LP for $975 million in 2006. Berry, also majority owned by Apollo, was acquired last year by Apollo for $2.25 billion.

Key products from Covalence Plastics include trash bags, drop cloths, sheeting, and agricultural, stretch, and shrink films.

Fu Chun Shin pursuing high-end molders

Injection molding machine manufacturer Fu Chun Shin (FCS; Tainan, Taiwan) has worked with Japan’s RKC Instrument Inc. to develop a new control for molding machinery for FCS’s hybrid (hydraulic/electric) AF series of injection molding machine. FCS, RKC and Tai Yu, RKC’s Taiwanese agent, signed a strategic alignment contract recently whereby FCS will this year adopt the newly developed controller for its AF series. According the machine OEM, the new controls should help it market its machines for higher-end molding applications.

FCS has manufacturing facilities in China at Ningbo and Dongguan. With the new controls, the firm hopes to attract processors willing to look beyond low price.

At last year’s Taipeiplas show, FCS was one of six injection machine suppliers announcing its involvement in a Taiwanese government-funded effort to develop all-electric machines based wholly on local components and technology.

Ube with China JV for large molding machine manufacture

Ube Machinery Corp. (Ube, Japan) and Cosmos Machinery Ltd. (Wuxi, China) will establish a 50:50 joint venture, Wuxi Ube-Cosmos Machinery Ltd., for production of injection molding machines in China. Ube and Cosmos have maintained a business relationship since 2002 through Ube’s licensing of technology to manufacture its ST (hydraulic toggle, 1450-7000 tons clamp force) and PZIII (hydraulic toggle, 350-1000 tons) series injection molding machines at Cosmos subsidiary Wuxi Grand Tech Machinery Group.

Demand for large injection molding machines is growing in China along with the development of the country’s automobile industry. The new joint venture will initially operate out of Wuxi Grand’s existing plant, and then be moved to a new custom-built factory in Wuxi in 2008. Production starts this month with capacity of 30 machines per year.

Yuzuru Yamamoto, president of Ube Machinery, said the venture initially will focus on sales in China, but eventually could export globally.

K-Tron completes Chinese acquisition

Auxiliaries machinery manufacturer K-Tron International Inc. (Pitman, NJ) has completed its acquisition of Wuxi Chenghauo Machinery Co. Ltd. Assets. K-Tron will now create a wholly foreign-owned enterprise called K-Tron Colormax Machinery Co. Ltd. The total cost for the deal spread over five years will come to approximately $3.5 million. The business will locate in the Luoshe Key Open Industrial Park, Wuxi city, in the Huishan district of the Jiangsu province, approximately 60 miles west of Shanghai. The business will start with 65 employees designing, manufacturing, marketing, and servicing volumetric and gravimetric single- and twin-screw feeders and controls, vibratory trays, pelletizers, and pneumatic screen changers for plastics compounding and injection molding. K-Tron has had a presence in China going back to 1996 when it opened a sales office in Shanghai. In addition to the new Chinese operation, K-Tron has manufacturing in the U.S., Switzerland, and the U.K. Late last year it acquired conveying and bulk-handling equipment supplier Premier Pneumatics Inc. (Salina, KS).

Moldflow expands product and customer base

Moldflow Corp. (Framingham, MA) has found four Japanese buyers for its Moldflow Plastics Insight (MPI) computer aided engineering software for process prediction. Fan and motor manufacturer Nidec Corp.; connector maker Tsuda Kagaku Gousei Co.; medical device producer Asahi Polyslider Co. Ltd.; and electronic appliance firm Yoshida Technoworks Co. Ltd. all purchased the MPI suite.

The company also announced the release of its Moldflow Plastics Advisers (MPA) 8.0 product, which features 3D analysis capability, a redesigned interface, and improved communication capabilities. On the company’s Better Injection Molding Technology tour, which had seven stops across the U.S., Moldflow announced several recent and pending product releases, including MPI 6.1 and Moldflow Communicator 1.1, and MPA 8.0. The new Moldflow Structural Alliance (MSA) structural analysis product is also due in the second quarter.

[ On the record ]

“It’s easier to organize money than people.” Thomas Anderegg, CEO at Swiss beverage bottle closure molder Corvaglia, on the difficulty of finding good workers.

“Before we even talk about selling American products into [China], if you don’t have a plan to protect the IPR (intellectual property rights) of your company and your product, you not only shouldn’t be here, you should still be building a wall around yourself in the States because people are going to have access to your product whether you come here or not. The minute you start selling your product in China, you can expect someone to start copying it.” Barry Friedman, senior commercial officer, U.S. Commercial Service, Beijing.

“There is a global dynamic at play, and if we’re not careful, we’re going to end up with very few resin producers in this country, and like China, we’ll need recycled materials. As a country we have to embrace recycling as an ethic.” Michael Schedler, NAPCOR technology director, on the importance of recycling, especially with booming resin production outside the U.S.

“It’s very important to break through the clutter.” Jürgen Bluhm, managing director of market research firm ProFakt, on the importance on innovative packaging.