Industry Watch

DELPHI FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
In October, Delphi Corp. (Troy, MI) and 38 of its U.S. subsidiaries filed for business reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Reputed to be the largest automotive supplier and the second largest injection molder in the country after its Troy neighbor, Collins & Aikman Corp.—which filed for Chapter 11 in May—Delphi’s global management team will stay in place and continue to manage its 31 U.S. plants and its global businesses.
“Our global operations, both U.S. and non-U.S., will continue without interruption,” says Robert S. “Steve” Miller, Delphi’s chairman and CEO, a restructuring expert who was hired in July. Earlier this year, he reportedly had threatened to take the company into bankruptcy if he was unable to reach a restructuring agreement with GM, which spun Delphi off in 1999, and the United Auto Workers, GM’s largest union.
Delphi lost $4.8 billion in 2004 and almost $750 million in the first half of 2005, according to press reports. Like other automotive suppliers, it had difficulties coping with the high cost of steel and other raw materials, U.S. production cuts, and high labor costs, company sources report. Its filing could accelerate offshore outsourcing and unprecedented cuts in union wages and benefits throughout the U.S. automotive industry.
“We simply cannot afford to continue to be encumbered by high legacy issues and burdensome restrictions under current labor agreements that impair our ability to compete,” Miller says. “We must also realign our global product portfolio and manufacturing footprint to preserve our core businesses. This will require a substantial segment of our U.S. manufacturing operations to be divested, consolidated, or wound-down through the Chapter 11 process.” For more information, see www.delphi.com.—CK

REXAM BUYS DELTA PLASTICS
In September, a $50 million, full-service designer and molder of jars and closures, Delta Plastics (Hot Springs, AR), was purchased for about $160 million by Rexam PLC (London, UK), a consumer packaging giant with 90 plants in more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Since our first tour of Delta Plastics’ extremely clean plant in the March 1996 issue (p. 70), it now employs 350, has two plants in Hot Springs, and it designs, engineers, and manufactures molds at a technology center near Los Angeles, CA.

“Delta Plastics is a well-run operation that has posted impressive growth rates in recent years. The acquisition is perfectly inline with our strategy to grow our plastic packaging business and enhance our current product offering,” says Lars Emilson, Rexam’s chief executive. He adds that the acquisition will increase Rexam’s presence in the U.S. market and also foresees a number of “synergies” in raw materials purchasing, technology access, and additional sales as additional payoffs.—CK

BASF BANKING ON CHINA
BASF chairman Jürgen Hambrecht said at a press conference that the company is convinced China will remain the growth engine in Asia overall, and for the chemical industry in particular. The next day he officially opened the company’s first Verbund production site in China.

The site in Nanjing is owned by BASF-YPC Co., a 50-50 joint venture between BASF and Sinopec. This is the largest single investment in BASF’s 140-year history, and the company aims to achieve 10% of its global sales and earnings in China by 2010. A total of $2.9 billion has been invested in building the 220-hectare (544-acre) site, which has an annual capacity of 1.7 million tons of chemicals and polymers. BASF plans to invest another $1.2 billion by 2009. The first delivery of material from the Nanjing site was made in January 2005.

In German, Verbund means association or composite. The concept integrates and links various manufacturing plants to maximize energy efficiency and minimize the environmental impact. The Nanjing site is modeled on BASF’s HQ Verbund plant complex in Ludwigshafen, Germany.—RN

RP LEGAL UPDATE
From the litigious segment of the rapid prototyping world known as stereolithography comes this recent entry: As of mid-September, DSM Somos is suing 3D Systems in Frankfurt, Germany for patent infringement, claiming that 3D’s Bluestone material is the culprit. Until the dust settles, an injunction will keep 3D Systems from supplying any of the filled material. This does not, says DSM Somos, alter its agreement with 3D Systems to distribute Somos resins. Tangled webs are often more straightforward than business arrangements in the RP industry, it seems.—MM

A MOLDMAKERS PAVILION AT NPE 2006
U.S. and Canadian moldmakers can showcase their capabilities in a multiexhibitor pavilion in the East Hall of McCormick Place at NPE 2006 (June 19-23; Chicago, IL). Sponsored by the SPI Moldmakers Div., the American Mold Builders Assn., and the Canadian Assn. of Moldmakers, exhibition incentives include a 25% lower space fee than is charged to companies that are not SPI members. Walt Bishop, executive director of the SPI’s Moldmakers Div., says negotiations are under way to open the pavilion to Mexican moldmakers. He also says the new pavilion is an attractive opportunity for newcomers to exhibit at the big show, especially smaller moldmakers.

In addition, Bishop and his colleagues want to let you know that preregistration for NPE 2006 is off and running. The first 5000 pre-registrants can get in for free. Prospective attendees from outside the U.S. can also get a free pass, right on up until June 2006.

After the first 5000 have registered, so-called “early-bird” preregistrants pay $30 until Jan. 1, 2006. After that, right on up until two weeks prior to the show, it’ll cost $60 to get in. Onsite registration will cost U.S. and international registrants $90. Check out www.npe.org for more information on the moldmakers pavilion and on how to make your trip to Chicago more affordable and more fun.—CK

MAGIC BULLET FOR TWO-SHOT? MOLD VACUUM
Here’s a tip from Glastonbury, CT-based Northeast Mold & Plastics, a custom injection molder that serves various industries: If you want a better two-shot part, start by adding a vacuum. We don’t mean Hoover or Eureka, either.Ron Bodeau, Northeast Mold & Plastics’ VP of operations, reports that the company has solved processing issues on two-shot parts by using a mold evacuation system.

“We are becoming heavily involved in two-shot molding,” Bodeau explains. “Currently, we operate three two-shot machines and are considering a fourth rotary shuttle unit with vertical clamps for insert molding. A year ago, we experienced short shots and TPE burns on a two-shot part and tested a Mold-Vac system from CAE Services.”

The units are portable and are designed to eliminate trapped air and gas within mold cavities prior to and during molding cycles. To date, the company has been running one unit on the same production mold nonstop. Bodeau says that as a result of using the system, the mold fills more efficiently, less injection pressure is required, gas trapping and part burning have decreased, and less time is required to fill the mold. “And the blowback option allows us to blow out vent pins so it’s essentially self-cleaning,” Bodeau says.

The family-owned company employs 35 people and operates 24 hours, 51?2 days a week. Its operations include 16 injection molding machines ranging from 28-300 tons. Bodeau is responsible for customer relations, cost estimating, and purchasing capital equipment.—MM

GONE GLOBAL TOGETHER
The 2000-ton two-component Combi Duo system Engel delivered recently to worldwide automotive tier supplier Seeber-Röchling is the 100th Engel and the 50th Duo installed by Seeber in the last 13 years. Seeber managing board member Ulrich Mauss says the decision to purchase from one supplier has shortened training time and increased the proficiency of operators and maintenance personnel, and, more importantly, has minimized the time needed to start production at Seeber’s overseas expansion sites. The company has grown to 19 production locations and 3200 employees around the world, and in 2004 recorded sales of $654 million. Noting that the two privately held companies have globalized concurrently, Engel chairman Peter Neumann credits Seeber’s demanding stability and efficiency requirements with sparking many Engel product developments along the way. Seeber-Röchling’s Engel machines make underbody, engine compartment, and interior components, run at more than 90% of capacity, and have a scrap rate of less than 150 ppm.—RN

CANADIAN MOLDMAKING CONFEDERATES
It’s called the Canadian Machine, Tool, Die & Mould Federation (CMTDMF). What is it? It’s a federation formed by four separate Canadian moldmaking organizations to present a unified force in advancing the awareness, prosperity, and competitiveness of Canadian tool-, die-, and moldmakers—and addressing the major issues and opportunities they share—while at the same time allowing each association to pursue issues and programs independently as each sees fit.

Headquartered in Cambridge, ON, CMTDMF’s member organizations include the Canadian Assn. of Moldmakers (Windsor, ON), the Canadian Pattern-Modelmakers Assn. and the Canadian Tooling & Machining Assn. (both of Cambridge, ON), and the Mould Makers Council of the Canadian Plastics Industry Assn. (Mississauga, ON).

Ed Bernard of Bernard Mould Ltd. (Windsor, ON) is the current chairman. For more information you can visit www.mtdmfederation.ca, where you can find the Federation’s e-newsletter, Precisely Canadian. According to the federation, Canada is a net exporter of more than CDN$1 billion worth of tooling. That’s about US$851 million, at last count.—CK

SHORT SHOTS
Bohler-Uddeholm Corp. (Rolling Meadows, IL) has opened its 13th “Steel Store” service and support center for its tool steels, this one in Santa Fe Springs, CA.

Moldmaker and custom molder Johnson Precision Inc. (Amherst, NH) recently acquired three new high-end machining centers—two Robodrills and a Doosan S280N.

K-Tron International Inc. (Pitman, NJ) has merged its Pneumatic Conveying Group into its Feeder Group, creating the K-Tron Process Group to better serve customers of both the former groups and to improve the distribution channels for its products. The new group also will sell K-Tron’s Colormax products.

Multiject LLC (Rochester, MI), suppliers of product and tooling design expertise and project management services for multimolding applications, has inked an agreement to be the exclusive North American agent for Plasdan Group (Marinha Grande, Portugal). Plasdan builds multimolding molds, injection units, and rotary tables.
An authentic lion’s dance and a solemn ribbon cutting ceremony were highlights of the festival held at the inauguration of Netstal China Ltd.’s new 18,300-ft2 building in the free-trade zone of Shanghai. Attendees also saw the company’s Swiss-made molding machines in action, including a Netstal SynErgy 2400 running a 48-cavity closure mold, a PET-Line running preforms in 96-cavity tooling, and an all-electric, high-speed DiscJet. In addition to the demo/training area, Netstal China’s new digs house a generous stock of spares and office space.

Priamus System Technologies LLC has opened a training facility in Brunswick, OH, where it will teach its new program on how best to use its sophisticated mold cavity pressure and temperature measuring systems called P3. P3 stands for Precision PVT Processing. The program is based on three levels, each consisting of a three-day lecture and a lab course. On-request onsite training also is available.

In its 60,000-ft2 Foam Lab at its Wilmington, NC headquarters, Wilmington Machinery is working in conjunction with other prominent industry experts to evaluate the effectiveness of laminate molding as an affordable means of improving the surface finish of structural foam molded parts. If you’d like to get involved, contact Wilmington’s Rich Morgan at (910) 452-5090 or [email protected].

Front-end components supplier Zeiger Industries (Canton, OH) recently announced the addition of several new distributors, extending its reach over much of the United States, including the following: Hastilow Enterprises (Dade City, FL), Bryant Sales & Service (Newman, GA), Industrial Hydraulic Services (Shakopee, MN), Hose Line Industrial (South Williamsport, PA), and American Screw & Barrel Inc. (Gardner, MA).—CK