Polymer Film & Bag has increased its extrusion capacity and new technology to make its processing business more efficient two years ago. #processorsedge
Polymer Packaging established the Polymer Film and Bag (PF&B) division only three years ago, provided that the integration of the film extrusion business gave rise to the demand for fast, flexible and customer-centric high-end film processors. The premise seems reasonable; in about two years, PF&B has developed into a film processing company, operating 50 million pounds of capacity in a 100,000 square foot factory in Massion, Ohio, which is also its polymer packaging plant The location of the sister company.
Since opening at the end of 2019, PF&B has installed five blown film production lines from Windmoeller & Hoelscher-a combination of three Varex production lines and two Optimex systems. All of these run three-layer films for retail and institutional food and beverages, agriculture/turf and gardens, and general applications. PF&B expects that by the end of the year, the production capacity of its third Optimex production line will reach 50 million pounds.
From the beginning, PF&B has used technology designed to make its operations as efficient as possible. For example, its first Varex production line is W&H's Varex 2 system, which is equipped with the supplier's Turboclean technology, which is said to reduce the time between a complete job and format conversion from 30 minutes to approximately 12 minutes. The most recently installed production line is a 2800mm Varex II equipped with W&H's Turbostart automatic production line start and stop system.
Turbostart is a new type of automation system for starting, stopping and restarting blown film production lines, which simplifies the processes required for daily production. Turbostart was launched at the K 2019 exhibition in Düsseldorf and was displayed three times a day on a production-scale five-layer blown film production line. This technology can be used not only for new production lines, but also for retrofitting.
From left to right, in front of their latest W&H series is Eric Howard, div from Polymer Film & Bag. President; Larry Lanham, owner/CEO; Mike Pearce, vice president of operations; and group president Chris Thomazin. (Photo: polymer film and bag)
With Turbostart, the entire startup process can now be executed by pressing a few buttons on the W&H Procontrol terminal, instead of skipping several different screens and manually adjusting various settings when the machine starts. This is possible because Turbostart can automatically accelerate and move all machine components to a state ready for production.
When it is necessary to stop the production line-such as changing the screen or cleaning the die lips-the Turbostop function can be activated by pressing a button, bringing all the components of the machine to the initial position, and then slowly reducing the extrusion speed and the system controls the stop. With Turbostart, the operator no longer needs to climb stairs or handle knives, because Turbostart can not only cut off the air in the collapsed pipe, but also automatically insert the pipe slitting knife at the secondary nip or traction device to make the edge slitting pipe do Be prepared for network separation.
Due to such a high degree of automation, the operator only needs to attach the new film to the existing film passing through the production line, separate the film on the winder after slitting, and then replace the roll to put the production line into production.
PF&B President Eric Howard (Eric Howard) stated that the installation and commissioning were on time, smooth and in line with expectations. What surprised him, however, was the performance of the Turbostart system, which was customized to fit the gusset of the network. "We did not foresee the full effect of Turbostart," he pointed out. "Downtime has been reduced by a factor of five. Now, regardless of the size of the material, the unplanned downtime only lasts about 15 minutes."
Howard added: “We use Turbostart as a tool to complement Easy Change and are surprised that Easy Change can restore the parameters from the last run and use these parameters as the time the machine has been running. The system is in our weekly Adding 10-15 hours to the production plan is equivalent to about three-quarters of one million US dollars per production line per year. This is smart."
Easy Change is another innovation of W&H. It automates many steps that operators must take when changing products, including vacuum loader, weight hopper, extruder speed, mold temperature, bubble cage diameter and height adjustment, automatic adjustment of line speed and web tension.
PF&B has also seen Turbostart expand its workforce and growth opportunities. Howard explains: “The time to train and bring operators to an effective level has been reduced by 10 times. This means that we have saved a lot of money on training and scraps, which are usually accumulated as operators learn skills. This is every time This operator saves a lot of money each year. This is the time we can focus on sales now.” The company has ordered Turbostart modifications for its two existing Varex production lines. Polymer Film & Bag is about to begin a new expansion phase, which includes adding two to three more extrusion lines to existing facilities. The second phase will allow an additional 105,000 square feet of expansion to accommodate 10 additional blown film production lines, for a total of 18 at the site.
Black spots in the film or sheet—especially in light-colored or transparent plastics—can lead to scrap, unplanned downtime, and customer dissatisfaction.
Machine orientation is still discovering new market opportunities. But the technical difficulty is so great that some large projects will never mature. New equipment can make it easier.
Mold stacking, also known as mold drooling, mold leakage, or demolding, can affect any extrusion process.
© 2021 Gardner Business Media, Inc. Privacy Policy [Login]