Canadian Plastics February 2013 by Annex Business Media

CanadianPlastics www.canplastics.com

FEBRUARY 2013

Utilization r ate s ? Purchasing p l an s ? Markets s er ved ?

Our

INJE CTION M O LD E RSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; SURVEY answers the big questions!

PLUS! Avoiding common mistakes in shredding & granulating The benefits of extrusion purging A blow molder gets the perfect ERP solution

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contents

Canadian Plastics FEBRUARY 2013 VOLUME 71 NUMBER 1

LOOKING BACK...

The September 1959 issue of Canadian Plastics reported on Unique Novelties of Canada, a St. Martin, Que.-based molder that specialized in permanently sealing products or facsimiles in a solid, colorless plastic, for use as souvenir paperweights. The company used a combination of liquid monomer and powdered Lucite 41 acrylic resin to encase such items as airline insignia, beer caps, spark plugs, and — this one we don’t quite get — "miniature tractors." The casting was built up gradually by alternate pouring and curing, with the embedment item in the centre. "Sentimental parents desiring to preserve baby’s shoes or toys may have them set in the plastics and the embodiment will last a lifetime," our man wrote.

Number of the month:

$15.06*

* Average hourly operator wage in a Canadian injection molding shop, excluding benefits. (See pg. 14)

5 Ideas & Innovations: Deep recess handle puts the pinch grip in a death grip

cover story 11 INJECTION MOLDERS’ BENCHMARK SURVEY: What do they really think? Manufacturing is hot again after the chill of the Great Recession, and our latest injection molding survey gives us a look at an industry segment that we hope is heating up along with it. Inside, how some of Canada's injection molders fared over the past 12 months, and what they believe is coming their way in 2013.

6 News: • Recycling of post-consumer plastic across Canada increases by 24 per cent: CPIA • FEPAC gets $200,000 gov’t grant • New extrusion division for Macro Engineering • Supplier News & People

features 16 SHREDDERS & GRANULATORS: Blowing the whistle on unforced errors Shredders and granulators are crucial in making effective use of reclaimed resin, but are you making effective use of your shredders and granulators? We look at some of the most common — and completely avoidable — mistakes in size reduction.

in every issue 4 Editor’s View: A victory for common sense and a sensible question

9 Executive’s Corner: Three-point plays: How the principles of basketball can make you a winner in business 30 Technology Showcase 36 Plastics Data File 36 Advertising Index 37 Classified Ads 38 Technical Tips: Taking the “art” out of injection molding

20 DOING IT BETTER: B&C Plastics Blow molder B&C Plastics was trying to survive in today's business world with yesterday's — actually, last millennium's — management information technology. It went about as well as you'd expect. Then an investment in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software brought them up to date, fast. 26 PURGING COMPOUNDS: Cleaning up the extrusion industry Commercial purging compounds have been aiding color changes and removing carbon in injection molding machines since your grandfather's time. But they're not just for I/M anymore. Here's why no extrusion shop should be without them.

Visit us at www.canplastics.com Cover image compilation from thinkstockphotos.com

www.canplastics.com February 2013 Canadian Plastics

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editor’s view

A victory for common sense and a sensible question

hank you, Santa! Shortly before the holidays one of my big Christmas wishes came true: Toronto’s execrable plastic shopping bag ban went down in flames. In the face of lawsuits brought forward by industry groups denouncing the hastily made decision by city council to ban single use plastic bags, councillors voted 38 to 7 to delete the recommendation that would implement the ban. This should be the end of the matter, but it probably won’t be. While they no doubt know a good venti mocha latte when they sip one, what most of these councillors understand about plastics or manufacturing — or wealth creation, for that matter — would fit comfortably in Tom Thumb’s jock strap. Small wonder, then, that bag ban supporters on council insist the issue isn’t dead, and are pointing to a report council ordered on ways to reduce plastic bag use and disposal as a chance to revisit it. The staff report is due in June. For the time being, though, let’s be happy for the victory. But if the industry got a break in that respect, others wonder if it — and Canadian manufacturing in general — deserves a break in a larger sense. The author of a recent article in the National Post answered with an unqualified no. According to Jack Mintz, a director at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, government subsidies of the manufacturing sector are counter-productive. “Rather than being a positive multiplier, subsidies could generate less, not more, growth in the economy,” he wrote. “By supporting less productive sectors that grow at the expense of more productive ones, Canada’s GDP declines.” Mintz proceeds to note that, historically, Canadian manufacturing has benefited from a more favorable business tax structure, and it continues to

enjoy significantly lower effective tax rates on new investments than nonresource industries. Then comes the kicker. “Has propping up manufacturing investment led to faster growth than other sectors? Not at all,” he wrote. “The manufacturing share of total private sector investment has declined from 19.4% in 1997 to 11.2% in 2012, despite accelerated depreciation and the lower corporate income tax rate.” As with Toronto’s bag ban fiasco, politicians are a big part of the problem. “Although politicians want to attract votes from manufacturing provinces, a strategy protecting an industry from stagnation hurts overall economic growth,” Mintz wrote. “If we really want to improve our economic performance, best to let businesses figure out where to invest. Governments do a lousy job.” To anyone who watched as the U.S. federal government laid the groundwork for the Great Recession by diverting hundreds of billions of dollars in Fannie Mae assets to the purchase of mortgages to unqualified homeowners in the name of “affordable housing,” it’s hard not to agree that politicians should simply butt out of the private sector, period. But, given that subsidies are going to be given out, does the plastics industry in particular need them? Based on conversations I’ve had with industry members, my sense is that most feel that we do — and I can see why. With Western governments showering money on favored industries like green energy, plastics manufacturers can be forgiven for feeling a mite underappreciated lately. And as Toronto council demonstrated when voting for the bag ban in the first place, we appear to be an easy target for faddish public policies. Mintz’s obviously isn’t the final word on the topic, but he raises an interesting question. I hate to end with a whimper, but I doubt there’s a right answer.

Canadian Plastics magazine reports on and interprets develop ments in plastics markets and technologies worldwide for plastics processors, moldmakers and end-users based in Canada.

www.canplastics.com EDITOR Mark Stephen 416-510-5110 Fax: 416-510-5134 E-mail: mstephen@canplastics.com ART DIRECTOR Andrea M. Smith PRODUCTION MANAGER Steve Hofmann 416-510-6757 E-mail: shofmann@bizinfogroup.ca PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER Phyllis Wright SENIOR PUBLISHER Judith Nancekivell 416-510-5116 Fax: 416-510-5134 E-mail: jnancekivell@canplastics.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Brayden Ford 416-510-5124 Fax: 416-510-5134 E-mail: bford@canplastics.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Anita Madden 416-442-5600, ext. 3596 Fax: 416-510-6875 E-mail: amadden@bizinfogroup.ca HEAD OFFICE: 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto ON, M3B 2S9. 416-442-5600, Fax: 416-510-5134 CANADIAN PLASTICS is published 7 times a year by BIG Magazines LP, a div. of Glacier BIG Holdings Company Ltd., a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-to-business information services. 2012 SUBSCRIPTION RATES

6 issues Canadian Plastics, plus Dec. 2012 Buyer’s Guide: CANADA: 1 Year $70.95 plus applicable taxes; 2 Years $115.95+ taxes; Single copy $10.00+ taxes. USA: US$79.95; FOREIGN: US$124.95 B uyers’ G uide only : CANADA: $103.00 plus applicable taxes and $5.00 shipping USA & FOREIGN: US$103.00 plus $5.00 shipping. From time to time we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: phone 800-668-2374; fax 416-442-2191; e-mail: privacyofficer@businessinformationgroup.ca; mail: Privacy Officer, Business Information Group, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto ON M3B 2S9. The contents of this magazine are protected by copyright and may be used only for your personal non-commercial purposes. All other rights are reserved and commercial use is prohibited. To make use of any of this material you must first obtain the permission of the owner of the copyright. For further information please contact Judith Nancekivell, 416-510-5116. For reprints call RSiCopyright, Michelle Hegland, msh@rsicopyright.com USPS 745-670. U.S. Office of Publication, 2424 Niagara Falls Blvd., Niagara Falls, NY. 14304-0357. Periodical Postage paid at Niagara Falls NY USA. Postmaster: Send address changes to Canadian Plastics, PO Box 1118, Niagara Falls NY 14304-0357. PAP Registration No. 11035 CANADA POST – Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Dept. – Canadian Plastics, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto ON M3B 2S9. RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED INDEXED BY CBPI ISSN 0008-4778 (Print) ISSSN 1923-3671 (Online) MEMBER: Canadian Business Press, Canadian Plastics Industry Association. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities.

Mark Stephen, editor

mstephen@canplastics.com

Canadian Plastics February 2013 www.canplastics.com

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ideas & innovations

Photo Credit: Side SA

Deep recess handle puts the pinch grip in a death grip T

here’s nothing wrong with rapid innovation — the sudden leap from black and white to color TV 50-odd years ago comes to mind — but most products improve gradually. It’s not particularly sexy, but it definitely works. A recent example is the North American introduction of the T-Handle bottle. Developed by Side SA, the Spanish maker of linear stretch reheat blow molding machines, the T-Handle is a new way of molding an integrated handle on a PET bottle — a method that comes closer than ever before to providing the characteristics and feel of a blown handle without the window being punched through. Way back when, the introduction of blown handles on large-size extrusion blow molded containers made them more user-friendly, especially where the total weight of the package reached several kilos in household product containers, and where larger weights of five- to 20-litre containers were involved. Problem is, the formation of a handle with an open window in the centre is difficult when using PET due to the inability to fuse the material together at the blowing temperature. The traditional alternatives for PET bottles have been pinch grips — which aren’t great for the heavier end products — or handles added through a secondary step. Until now. “The Side T-Handle is formed by internal mold action bringing the window webs to within 10 mm of each other just after the initial expansion of the preform,” said Gaston Petrucci, executive vice president at Compact Mould Ltd., which represents Side in Canada. “The result is a deep recess that ensures easy gripping and secure handling of the package with minimal gripping force. Additionally, the technology offers good wall thickness uniformity, especially in the area created for hand access.” The T-Handle works in just one step, Petrucci continued, preblowing the handle at the same stage. In the end, he said, the system reduces production costs, cuts cycle time, and reduces power consumption because the machine reheats the preform in a standard process. The T-Handle bottle can be molded on Side’s Maxi-blow one-cavity machine at up to 900 bottles per hour; on its 2002e-G two-cavity press at up to 1,800 bottles per hour; and on its three-cavity 20033-G at a rate up to 2,700 bottles per hour. “It’s the next big improvement for the manufacturing of PET bottles, and might make the pinch grip obsolete,” Petrucci said. “Until there’s a revolutionary development that makes PET much easier to mold, this is the best way to create a functional handle without an extra production step.” Compact Mould Ltd. (Vaughan, Ont.); www.compactmould.com; 905-851-7724 CPL www.canplastics.com February 2013 Canadian Plastics

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news

Recycling of POST-CONSUMER PLASTIC across Canada INCREASES BY 24 PER CENT: CPIA

thinkstockphotos.com

ided by the addition of thermoformed polystyrene and polyester packaging and molded tubs and lids to some municipal collection programs, Canadians recycled an additional 24 per cent of plastic packaging and products in 2011 compared to 2010, according to a new report released by the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA). The increase is the result of more mate-

rial collected for recycling as well as more companies providing recycling information, the CPIA said. In total, over 268.5 million kilograms of post-consumer plastic was collected for recycling in Canada. Compared to 2010, the recycled plastic quantities reported for 2011 represent an increase of 19 per cent for bottles (29.3 million kilograms), an increase of 70 per cent for non-bottle rigids (21 million kilograms), and a more modest increase of one per cent for plastic bags and outer wrap (272,000 kilograms). The plastic packaging collected for recycling comes from a variety of everyday consumer goods such as plastic bottles, non-bottle rigid plastics (such as deli and dairy containers, bakery, vegetable, and fruit containers), plastic film, bags and outer wrap, and foam polystyrene. “This everyday packaging

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serves an essential purpose by preserving product integrity, and once completed the packaging is an excellent resource for new consumer goods,” said Cathy Cirko, the CPIA’s vice president. Despite the overall good news for 2011, there remains room for improvement. “There is underutilized capacity, creating ample opportunity for consumers and businesses to supply our recyclers with more plastics,” the CPIA said. “For instance, it’s estimated that film and bag recycling in Canada is at 38 per cent utilization of the capacity. There is also growth in demand for good quality non-bottle rigid plastic, including PET thermoforms and polyethylene and polypropylene containers and bulky rigid items, as recycled bottle supplies continue to be tight.” The figures in the CPIA report were provided by Moore Recycling Associates Inc., of Sonoma, Calif.

FEPAC gets $200,000 gov’t grant

he Federation of Plastics and Alliances Composites (FEPAC) has received $200,000 in non-repayable funding to help it continue maintaining and improving the competitiveness of Quebec plastics processors. According to Denis Lebel, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, the contribution will allow the Boucherville, Que.-based industry association to carry out a three-pronged project: recruit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop an action plan and strategies for sustainable development; implement the plan and strategies mapped out; and, lastly, assess the actions taken. “Optimizing their capabilities will encourage plastics industry SMEs to improve their performance and their compliance with the new requirements for eco-friendly production,” Lebel said in a press statement. The funding has been granted through Canada Economic Development’s Quebec Economic Development Program.

......stay connected

Canadian Plastics February 2013 www.canplastics.com

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wit

ted

news

Plasmatreat opens new Ontario sales and technical centre

Photo Credit: Plasmatreat

lasmatreat North America, a provider of surface treating technology for the plastics industry, has opened a new office in Ancaster, Ont. The new 6,000-square-foot facility incorporates sales offices, technical service, and spare parts, as well as the latest equipment for atmospheric plasma cleaning and activation and coating processes. Headquartered in Germany, Plasmatreat is the manufacturer of the Openair plasma-jet technology for the pre-treatment of material surfaces, including polymer auto components, packaging applications, and consumer goods products. In addition to Canada, the company has facilities in the U.S.,

Outside the new Plasmatreat office in Ancaster, Ont.

Japan, and China, as well as subsidiaries and sales offices in more than 25 other countries.

New extrusion division for Macro Engineering

anadian extrusion systems manufacturer Macro Engineering & Technology Inc. has created a new division for film and sheet extrusion customers. According to Mississauga, Ont.-based Macro, the new Technology Division is geared towards providing technical expertise and resources, as well as product and process development services, for increasing operational performance for blown and cast extrusion systems and web handling machinery.

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan buys U.S.-based Plano Molding

irst the Toronto Maple Leafs, now a plastics processor. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) — former majority owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment — has acquired U.S.-based outdoor sports storage system maker Plano Molding Company Inc. The financial terms have not been disclosed. Founded in 1932, Plano, Ill.-based Plano Molding has an in-house molding operation to manufacture organizational products for fishing and hunting enthusiasts as well as a variety of consumer applications. The company is said to be one of the leading fishing tackle box and tackle storage system brands worldwide. “Plano Molding has exceptionally strong brands and product categories supported by attractive market characteristics. It also benefits from its long-standing relationships with top North American retailers,” said Jane Rowe, senior vice president of OTPP. “Plano’s proven management team has a record of solid organic growth, and has strongly positioned the company to benefit from acquisition opportunities.”

“The division will expand on Macro’s current service offering to include comprehensive system audits on any film or sheet extrusion system or winding operation, system retrofit services, and troubleshooting,” the company said. “These services are available for any OEM’s machinery, as they’re not limited to Macro-built systems.” The Technology Division, which is located at the company’s headquarters, will be headed by Dr. Felix Guberman, Macro’s technology director.

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news

PEOPLE — Color and additive concentrates maker FD Plastics Canada Corp., of St-Laurent, Que., has named Guy Deschènes as account manager. — Dayton, Ohio-based process control system manufacturer Beta LaserMike has named Randy Luffman as vice president of global sales. — Screen changer and extrusion gear pump manufacturer PSI-Polymer Systems, based in Conover, N.C., has named Don Macnamara as general manager. — Washington, D.C.-based SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association has named Lori Campbell as director of operations and Brad Williams as director of marketing and sales. — Measuring instrument and metrological technology supplier Mitutoyo Canada Inc., headquartered in Toronto, has named Jay Summers as executive vice president of Cana-

Guy Deschènes

Randy Luffman

Peter Detmers

Bernadette Marti

Raymond Kelly

Chris Weinrich

Don Macnamara

Lori Campbell

Brad Williams

Jay Summers

dian operations and Peter Detmers as vice president of sales. — Nordson EDI, a Chippewa Falls, Wis.-based supplier of flat dies, feedblocks, and related equipment for film, sheet, extrusion coating, fluid coating, and pelletizing, has named Sam G. Iuliano as chief technologist. — Extrusion machinery maker American Kuhne, headquartered in Ashaway, R.I., has named Bernadette Marti as regional sales manager for Canada; she will be responsible for the sale of turnkey pipe and profile systems. — Cranberry Township, Pa.-based auxiliary equipment manufacturer The Conair Group has appointed Raymond Kelly as conveying product manager and Chris Weinrich as general manager of downstream extrusion.

SUPPLIER NEWS — In a move designed to expand product range and service organization in the PET market, injection molding machine and automation equipment manufacturer Athena Automation has formalized a partnership with Italy-based plastic container maker SIPA. SIPA will manage the sales, service, and integration of all Athena PET preform machines on an exclusive worldwide basis. Vaughan, Ont.-based Athena was founded in 2008 by Robert Schad, founder and former head of Husky Injection Molding Systems. — Raw materials handling equipment maker Schenck Accurate Inc. has named Western Process Equipment as its exclusive representative in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Western Process Equipment has offices in Calgary and Saskatoon.

Canadian Plastics February 2013 www.canplastics.com

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executive’s corner

Three-point plays: How the principles of basketball can make you a winner in business By Mark Lichtblau, Haremar Plastic Manufacturing Ltd.

side from my family, my big passions in life are basketball and plastics. These last two might seem unrelated at first glance, but look harder and you’ll see valuable similarities that can benefit your plastics processing business.

1. IT TAKES FIVE TO PLAY BUT 10 TO WIN

It takes a minimum of five players for a basketball team, but you really need more than that; it’s great to have a slate of all-stars to fall back on, but you have to develop depth throughout the whole squad. Ditto in business. Your assistants or juniors have to be recognized so that they know their positions — whether they’re the back-ups for sick days, vacation days, or poised to run departments in the future. If you treat an employee like a number two, they’ll act like a second stringer; practice them as starters, however, and they’ll play like starters.

2. IF YOU DON’T DO IT IN PRACTICE YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DO IT IN THE GAME

On the basketball court, I like to finish clutch time-outs or huddles by saying, “Just like we did it in practice”. The phrase comes in just as handy in a manufacturing environment. How many companies buy a world-class extrusion line for millions of dollars, for example, but opt out of off-site training? Just as you need to practice the plays you’re going to run on the court, your staff needs to practice on the machinery that they’ll be working with going forward.

the game within the game. In basketball, this might mean concentrating on staying ahead through the last quarter instead of running the score; in the plastics business, it might mean focusing on new product development if your year-end sales aren’t on target.

5. THERE’S NO “I” IN TEAM

Okay, this one is a real cliché by now, but still...I’ve yet to see either a basketball team or a plastics processor do it all with only one person. And that goes for you too, Mr./Ms. Company President — no matter what you bring to the game, you’re not the whole show. But you can make an even bigger difference by motivating your team properly. Hopefully, they’ll adopt the same level of competitiveness that you lead with. CPL Mark Lichtblau is the corporate vice president of Haremar Plastic Manufacturing Ltd., a Toronto-based mono and co-extruded film supplier. Visit www.haremar.com.

3. OFFENSE AND DEFENSE ARE IMPORTANT BUT GOOD TRANSITIONS WIN GAMES

There’s an old manufacturing expression that says that you don’t make money on selling, you make it on buying. I like to tweak it slightly by saying that you don’t make money on manufacturing an item, you make it on quick and efficient transitions. How so? If every company runs relatively similar lines and the materials are pretty close in cost, the only place to gain over the competition is in having quick changeovers. Lost time is lost dollars, so you have to practice product changeover and document the time lost. The basketball analogy would be changing from offense to defense (or vice versa), wherein getting caught flat-footed might just cost you a couple of points.

4. PLAY THE GAME WITHIN THE GAME

I start every basketball game and every fiscal year with the same attitude: I believe my team has earned the right to win. In sports as in business, there are unplanned obstacles that arise. Whether it’s the sprained ankle that sidelines your best player or the unexpected swing in foreign currency that hits you in the bank balance, you’re now behind in points and profit. You need to keep your cool and focus on playing

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injection molders’ benchmark survey

WHAT DO THEY REALLY THINK? Manufacturing is hot again after the chill of the Great Recession, and our latest Injection Molders’ Benchmark Survey gives us a look at an industry segment that we hope is heating up along with it. Markets served, buying intentions, utilization rates — it’s all here. Let’s see how some of Canada’s injection molders fared over the past 12 months, and what they believe is coming their way in 2013. By Mark Stephen, editor

or the past few years, the Canadian Plastics injection molders’ surveys have read more like Stephen King horror stories than anything else, charting an industry in freefall and reflecting everything from declining utilization rates to freezes on equipment purchases. Now, as Canada comes out of the worst economic downturn since the Depression, it’s the manufacturing sector that leads the way. Are injection The Injection Molders’ Benchmark Survey was sent to 660 people at injection molding shops throughout Canada, with one survey going to one respondent per facility. We received 28 completed surveys. Because not everyone answered each question, the percentage values in the charts and tables might be given as a percentage of the respondents to that question, with the number of respondents given in parenthesis, for example (n=23). We thank the participants. www.canplastics.com February 2013 Canadian Plastics

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injection molders’ benchmark survey

(n=27)

MARKETS SERVED BY YOUR PLANT

Automotive 34.6% Construction 30.8% Consumer goods 73.1% Packaging 23.1% Electronic 42.3% Medical 34.6%

their main market served; two years later, that number had grown to over 65% of respondents. Well, the trend continues this year, with 73.1% of respondents molding primarily consumer goods. Almost 43% of respondents primarily serve the electronics markets, 34.6% serve the auto market, 34.6% specialize in medical parts, 30.8% specialize in parts for construction, and 23.1% specialize in packaging applications. The number of exclusive captive molders, meanwhile, holds steady: almost 12% of respondents this year said their shops were exclusive captive molders, compared to 10% of respondents last year, and well up from 2.9% in 2010. The largest number (40.7%) this year identified themselves as custom molders doing some proprietary work on the side, followed by exclusively custom molding (37%), captive molding with some custom molding (7.4%), and exclusively proprietary molding (3.7%).

ARE THEY BUYING IT?

Other 19.2%

molders sharing in the recovery? Let’s let the molders speak for themselves.

THE BASICS Right off the bat, we have a bit of good news: approximately 66% of respondents this year said they worked in an I/M shop with 50 or more employees, compared to 60% reporting the same last year and a meagre 25% in 2010. This seems to show a continuing recovery from the employee downsizing that many companies underwent during the recession. Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to this year’s survey worked in shops that had either an ISO or QS9000 standard. With another 8% of respondents saying their shops are in the process of becoming certified, this shows no real change from the 62% that had one or the other standard last year. As always, the majority of respondents — 52.4% — work in Ontario, but we also heard from Quebec (33.3%), British Columbia (9.5%), and Alberta (4.8%).

MARKETS SERVED To the surprise of no one, our surveys over the past few years have recorded a steady decline in the number of shops that specialize in molding auto parts. In 2009, the majority of our respondents, for the first time, reported consumer goods as

Whatever they’re making, business for most our respondents is picking up. Almost 43% said business volume improved in 2012 by more than 10% compared to 2011, 14.3% said it was up by between 6% to 10%, and 14.3% reported no change. That’s good news any way you slice it, since it reinforces similar improvements reported by respondents in the two

AVERAGE MACHINE UTILIZATION RATE (%) 35

(n=21)

30 25 20 15 10 5 0

0 90-100%

9.5

33.3

9.5

19.1

80-89% 70-79% 60-69% 50-59%

14.3

40-49% < 39%

WHAT THEY’RE DOING IT WITH According to our survey, commodity and engineering resins constitute the vast bulk of what’s being processed at Canadian plants, with 91.7% of respondents using commodity and 87.5% using engineering resins. But specialty materials and biopolymers have their fans, too: 33.3% of respondents mold at least some parts with the former, and 20.8% report using the latter.

Canadian Plastics February 2013 www.canplastics.com

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injection molders’ benchmark survey

for pre-owned units. Additionally, 19% of this year’s responyears since a whopping 77% respondents reported a signifidents said they were unsure about adding any kind of moldcant business downturn in the dark days of 2009. Furthermore, ing machines during the next 12 months, but didn’t rule it out. 52.4% of respondents this year anticipate a business volume increase of more than 10% during 2013, and 47.6% expect business to either remain the same or improve by up to 10%. Doing the math thusly, we PURCHASING PLANS FOR 2013 (%) 60 see that on one — not a single respondent — expects their business to fall off in the next 12 Yes Yes months. 50 No No On the down side — literally — utilization rates Don't know Don’t know have stopped ticking upwards. In 2010, a relatively healthy 15% of respondents reported utilizing more 40 than 80% of their machines; last year, 14.7% hit the same mark. This year, only 9.5% of respondents 30 reported a utilization rate of more than 80%. Another 42.8% from this year’s group had a utilization rate of between 60% and 79%, which is roughly 20 on par with the rates reported 12 months ago. But here’s the gazillion-dollar question for the machinery suppliers: will this slight decline hurt 10 the processors’ appetites for new equipment? It 57.1 14.3 28.6 33.3 33.3 33.3 14.3 42.9 42.9 42.9 38.1 19.0 doesn’t sound like it. Almost 43% told us their 0 shops planned to buy injection molding machines Auxiliary Articulated Injection Molding Linear in 2013, and 56.3% of these said they’d be on the Equipment Robots Machines Robots (n=21) (n=21) (n=21) (n=21) lookout for new I/M machines; the remaining 43.8% are either entirely or partly on the lookout

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injection molders’ benchmark survey

On the auxiliary equipment front, it gets slightly better still. Approximately 57% of respondents this year plan on buying auxiliary equipment during 2013; of these, 33.3% are looking to buy linear robots and 14.3% are on the hunt for six-axis robots.

PEOPLE POWER? As interesting as they are, statistics about machine utilization only tell part of the injection molding industry story. Take wages, for instance. According to last year’s survey results, the average hourly wage paid to a machine operator was $14.75, excluding benefits — a big drop from previous years that almost certainly reflected the lagging impact of the Great Recession. So how did wages in 2012 compare? Marginally better from the workers’ perspective. Averaged out, the decline has been reversed slightly, with the hourly machine operator wage ticking up to $15.06. In some ways, it seems, the cutbacks might be over. CPL

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shredders & granulators

Photo Credit: Vecoplan LLC

AVOIDING Unforced Errors in Size Reduction

Because producing good regrind is hard enough already without you making it tougher. By Mark Stephen, editor

hether you’re on the golf course or in a plastics processing tion for The Conair Group. plant, it’s never fun to wind up in a trap. In the first sceSmall wonder, then, that processors tend to fall into some nario, you probably risk bogey or worse. In the second, it’s common traps. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are a few even grimmer: wasting time and material, including valuable guidelines to follow so you can avoid major shredder and granuregrind that should go back into the product. This really hurts. lator errors. Shredders and granulators are crucial in making effective use of reclaimed resin, but are you making effective use of your FIGURING CONFIGURATION shredders and granulators? The answer might surprise you. Shredders are capable of processing a large variety of materials to According to the experts, the granulator is the single most mis- a multitude of fraction sizes and throughput rates. Placed ahead applied piece of equipment in our industry, and shredders aren’t of a granulator, the theory is simple: pre-shredding material far behind. before granulation will typically increase the throughput of the This would seen to fly in the face of advances in cutting tech- granulator, and reduce wear of the granulator blades and screen nology and machine design available for today’s size reduction by reducing the amount of recirculation. It should be the perfect systems — but maybe these developments are part of the prob- system for size reduction. But beware the first trap: a shredder lem. “Too many processors haven’t kept up with technological and/or granulator that is improperly configured for the task. changes in shredders and granulators,” said Mike Cyr, vice president of Rotogran International Inc. “They’re operatWhat you want: good regrind (left) that’s free from dust and fines, and has uniform size. ing just as they would with older What you don’t want: bad regrind (right) that has excessive dust and fines, machine designs from 20 years ago, and is definitely not evenly-sized. which isn’t a good way to maximize efficiencies in modern units.” The fact that, too often, size reduction equipment is treated as the lowliest face on the totem pole doesn’t help, either. “They’re often the last pieces of equipment to be considered for purchase in a plastics processing operation and the first to be ignored when it comes to proper care,” said Jeff Taylor, national sales manager for size reduc16

Photo Credit: Rapid Granulator Inc.

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Photo Credit: Vecoplan LLC

shredders & granulators

Machines bought used are a big cause of the problem here. “The likelihood that a machine purchased by a processor on the used market is going to be configured properly for the intended application is extremely rare,” said Madison Burt, vice president of sales for Weima America Inc. “The unit may well do the work, but not as quickly or as efficiently as will a tailored machine.” Having a pre-conceived — and almost invariably incorrect — notion of the required size of a new shredder or granulator plays a role, too. “Processors will purchase a 20-hp unit, for example, and then discover it’s not powerful enough or the throat opening is too small,” said Brian Davis, general manager of Maguire Canada Inc. “Defining their own needs clearly before going out for tender is hugely important for the processor.” However the mistake is made, undersizing the granulator tends to be the most common configuration problem...and it’s getting worse. “Undersizing is happening more often now than in the past, probably for the simple reason that processors are trying to save money,” Mike Cyr said. “Their mistake is in calculating their throughput need based only on their scrap rate, forgetting the fact that granulators are often surge-fed additional bad parts.” The result? A jammed granulator or the sad sight of a product bouncing around in the cutting chamber for long periods before finally being ingested by the rotor. This leads to lower throughputs than expected from the machinery, not to mention very poor regrind quality. In order to cut material efficiently, you’ll need a shredder or granulator configured specifically for your application. If not, expect higher energy consumption, excessive dust and noise, lower capacity, and increased knife wear. The good news is, most sophisticated size reduction machinery suppliers offer products that allow the builder to configure core machine components to match the specific application requirements. “Especially with granulation, you’ll need at least seven critical pieces of information to size the unit appropriately,” said Kirk Winstead, CEO of Rapid Granulator Inc. “These include what the application or process is going to be, what material is going to be used, what the method of feeding will be, a physical description of the intended parts, the part dimensions, how many pounds or kilograms per hour you expect to run, and the screen size.”

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DOESN’T CUT LIKE A KNIFE Poor knife design and positioning are another common trap that can bedevil your size reduction process, creating non-uniform regrind with high dust and fines content, and a high level of wear and tear on the shredder or granulator. The number one culprit? Again, machinery bought on the used market. “It’s almost impossible for a processor to properly configure the knives themselves if a shredder has been bought on auction,” said Greg Parent, Canadian sales representative for Vecoplan LLC. Another potential drawback of a used size reduction unit is that the blades might not be suited to the resin you’re planning to run through the machine. “Don’t use a nylon 66 resin purge in a shredder with carbide knives, for example, because it will very likely chip them,” said Madison Burt. “Also, don’t use knives made from low-grade tool steel in a PVC application

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shredders & granulators

because PVC is a high-wear material; for PVC, it’s better to use carbide knives.” It helps to keep in mind what well-designed, well-positioned knives should do. “The goal is to have proper scissor-cutting action, good rotor design, optimized location of fixed knives, and optimal rotor knife speed,” said Kirk Winstead. Fortunately, preadjustable knives and cassette knives are features found on most modern machine designs. “Recognizing the importance of knife sharpness and gap and their relationship to final granulate quality, many machine manufactures have standardized on more maintenance-friendly designs for the knives,” Winstead continued. Understanding bed knife angles and the different blade rotor styles available in the cutting chamber — and tailoring them to whatever it is you’re shredding or granulating — can go a long way to avoiding problems, particularly in granulation. “A granulator can have either high shear or low shear, the differences being the angle of approach and how much back-angle exists on the knife,” said Mike Cyr. “High shear is best suited for grabbing and grinding thin-wall parts or film, while low shear is better at handling thicker parts.” It gets trickier. “A ‘super-tangential’ cutting chamber with a three-blade open rotor is the preferred configuration for granulating bulky items such as bottles and containers, as well as for large quantities of runners and small parts and for film scrap,” said Kirk Winstead. “A ‘tangential’ cutting chamber with five-blade open rotor is good for sheet, thick-

walled parts, and large quantities of shredded material.” And do we really have to remind you to keep the blades sharp? Apparently so. “Dull blades are, far and away, the most common granulator problem,” said Jeff Taylor. “Check your blades regularly; a quick visual inspection to verify that the blades are sharp should be built into your regular preventive maintenance schedule.”

FEEDING FRENZY As with people, stuffing too much too quickly into size reduction machines usually leads to bad outcomes. Before going any further, it should be noted that the trap of overfeeding is actually much more of a problem for granulators. With shredders, in fact, the opposite mistake tends to happen. “Many operators, afraid of jamming the shredder, don’t put in enough material,” said Greg Parent. “Actually, it’s better to put as much into a shredder as you can because the ram pushing the material into the rotor, and the weight of all the material pushing down, helps maximize throughput.” With granulators, though, overfeeding usually arises when a unit sized for a particular application is wheeled across the shop floor to perform its duties for a different part or job in which the materials and throughput are different. “Overfeeding your granulator will obviously back it up, reducing productivity,” said Sebastien Diaz, sales and marketing manager for Mo-Di-Tec. “In some cases of overfeeding, the granulator approaches the maxi-

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shredders & granulators

mum amp load capacity of the drive motor and simply jams or ceases working.” It helps to understand how the granulator is sized in terms of throughput. First, there’s a big difference between instantaneous rate and intermittent rate, the latter generally being how the granulator is sized. “A granulator sized for 2,000 pounds per hour should be fed at a rate of approximately 33 pounds per minute,” said Kirk Winstead. “If a processor dumps 100 pounds of material in the hopper in a matter of seconds, don’t expect the granulator to perform. It’s a very common occurrence with hand-fed granulators.” The best solution is to automatically meter-feed your granulator, either with a robot or a conveyor. And consider the more exotic solution of a second flywheel on the granulator. “The second flywheel adds more inertia to the rotor, giving it the extra torque to cut through a shock-load of material,” said Mike Cyr. Similarly to shredders, it’s also important to avoid underfeeding the granulator. “If your granulator sits idle and the rotor spins without parts, the energy efficiency ratio is greatly decreased,” said Jeff Taylor. Plus, if your scrap is just sitting next to your machine in a drum, box or storage area, it’s not hard to imagine what can happen next: hoping to make up time, the over-eager operator dumps a whole box into the granulator. The result: downtime. “Regular, steady feeding of your granulator is best,” said Brian Davis.

So while staying out of that yawning bunker on the 15th fairway might still be beyond your power, avoiding the common traps in shredding and granulation doesn’t have to be. CPL RESOURCE LIST The Conair Group (Cranberry Township, Pa.); www.conairgroup.com; 724-584-5500 Dier International Plastics Inc.; (Unionville, Ont.); www.dierinternational.com; 416-219-0509 Industries Laferrière (Mascouche, Que.); www.industrieslaferriere.ca; 450-477-8880 Maguire Canada/Novatec Inc. (Vaughan, Ont.); www.maguirecanada.com; 866-441-8409 Barway Plastic Equipment Inc. (Vaudreuil-Dorian, Que.); www.barway.ca; 450-455-1396 Mo-Di-Tec/Auxiplast Inc. (Ste-Julie, Que.); www.auxiplast.com; 450-922-0282 Rapid Granulator Inc. (Cranberry Township, Pa.); www.rapidgranulator.com; 724-584-5220 Dier International Plastics Inc. (Unionville, Ont.); www.dierinternational.com; 416-219-0509 DCube (Montreal); www.dcube.ca; 514-272-0500 Rotogran International Inc. (Toronto); www.rotogran.com; 905-738-0101 Vecoplan LLC (High Point, N.C.); www.vecoplan.com; 336-861-6070; Greg Parent; 416-678-0154 Weima America Inc. (Fort Mill, S.C.); www.weimaamerica.com; 888-440-7170

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doing it better

B&C Plastics:

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By Mark Stephen, editor

B&C Plastics president Cory Gambon, Sr., reviewing real-time production data.

here’s nothing wrong with writing things down on paper by hand — it’s how Shakespeare and America’s Founding Fathers did it, among others. But let’s face it: it’s no way to run a business in the Internet Age. Pickering, Ont.-based B&C Plastics 20

spent years learning this the hard way. A blow molder of HDPE containers, the shop was having trouble — to put it mildly — in the information storage and retrieval departments. Founded in 1984, the family-owned company still relied exclusively on antiquated manual systems to run a

Photo Credit: CyFrame

Blow molder B&C Plastics was trying to survive in today’s business world with yesterday’s — and in some cases, last millennium’s — management information technology. It went about as well as you’d expect. Then an investment in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software brought them up to date, fast. multi-million dollar business supplying dozens of customers, with 30-odd employees and six blow molding machines — with an average run of 25,000 pieces — in a 60,000-square-foot plant. “We were still using a pen and paper for most our recordkeeping, which made it hard to access key financial statements when we wanted them,” said B&C’s general manager Marcel Kreitzer. And there were other, related problems “We had a cumbersome and inaccurate manual legacy accounting system, and no current, reliable basic data pertaining to inventory,” Kreitzer continued. “This deep lack of historical data made it hard to predict and manage seasonal spikes, and also difficult to schedule downtime and maintenance.”

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doing it better

DOING DUE DILIGENCE Before the solution, though, came the first step: Kreitzer, who spearheaded the project, convinced senior management that, despite the cost, implementing an ERP system was the key to ensuring B&C’s survival and long-term sustainability. That done, a simple Google search led Kreitzer to Montreal-based software provider CyFrame. Further investigation confirmed CyFrame as the right choice because Kreitzer knew he wanted an ERP system that had been created for blow molders. He also preferred an Oracle, true browser-based solution rather than a Microsoft-based system, which is typically less flexible with a much higher cost of ownership, since it’s installed on each employee’s PC and requires more IT administration. Prior to investing upwards of $70,000 in a CyFrame system, though, B&C wanted assurance that CyFrame, a smaller firm in a field of larger players, was in it for the long haul. Kreitzer had a specific analogy in mind. “Once you fully commit to ERP, it’s a lot like poker; you have to go ‘all in’ and abandon your old manual, inefficient ways, so you’d better make the right choice,” he said. “Essentially, B&C was putting its entire business in the hands of its ERP supplier, so we needed to know it would work.

CyFrame has a good track record within the plastics industry, and their test system gave us the opportunity to try it out and get to know it.” Having been green-lighted, the Oracle-based ERP system was installed in two months, beginning in May 2011 with CyFrame’s Financial Management, Inventory and Purchasing, and Production and Distribution base modules. In September, the Production and Shipping, and Barcode Scanning and Client Portal modules — complete with e-commerce capabilities — were successfully installed.

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TAILOR-MADE Key to selecting the CyFrame system was the tailoring to the specific needs of a blow molder. The level of tracking and traceability, for example, gives B&C an edge with highly regulated food and pharmaceutical clients who face rigorous compliance demands. “Our access to tracking and tracing data is already impressing existing customers, and we intend to leverage these capabilities when targeting new business down the road,” Kreitzer said. Credit CyFrame’s familiarity with the ins and outs of plastics processing here, which taught them about the need for specific features, functions, and parameters. As a result, clients like B&C are able to easily and cost-effectively personalize their off-the-shelf ERP by selecting from a menu with more than 600 features, functions, and parameters. As importantly, CyFrame populates all “menu” changes across all modules. Another must-have: because B&C runs 24/7, its ERP had to have reliable, redundant backup system capability. CyFrame installed a backup server so that in the event of a catastrophic hardware failure, the backup takes over, limiting downtime to about 30 minutes. Equally important, in a shop small enough that every worker is directly involved in production, the ERP system had to be accessible to all. “It had to be truly intuitive and user-friendly because every single employee has to use it regu-

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A stop-gap solution just wasn’t going to cut it — not that B&C didn’t try. Kreitzer provided his own combination of Excel and Quickbooks for a time, but he would have had better luck trying to seal the leak in the Titanic with masking tape — it simply didn’t have the reach or sophistication required to turn the business around. Information-wise, the company needed to get out of the horse and buggy era. The solution? A full-fledged ERP system to give management the accurate, real-time, hard data required to effectively and efficiently run the business day in and day out; more specifically, an offthe-shelf, configurable ERP solution tailored to the needs of a blow molder.

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doing it better

larly,” Kreitzer said. “CyFrame’s ERP interface is easy to use, and the icons do a good job of telling you what they do.” An additional benefit: once the ERP solution was installed on the server, which is faster and more powerful than each employee’s PC, it eliminated inter-PC compatibility issues. “All of the data sits in one place, making it easy to support and backup,” Kreitzer said.

SOLD ON SOFTWARE If you haven’t guessed by now, the investment has been a hit. “We’re running all of the more basic modules, and have minimized shipping errors, assessed scrap to identify mechanical and human errors, controlled and managed raw materials and inventory, and tracked and monitored equipment downtime and breakage,” Kreitzer said. “We experienced an almost immediate return to profitability and a seven-month return on investment.” Small wonder, then, that the company has plans to spend another $12,000 in the future to further tailor the system. This will include a secure, online, client log-in zone that will offer customers web access to their current and past orders, as well as billing information that will include customer-specific price lists to enable online ordering. Finally, B&C plans to give

Cory Gambon, Sr., on the shop floor.

Photo Credit: CyFrame

dedicated suppliers access to its raw materials inventory. For Kreitzer and his co-workers, having ERP is simply the price of doing business in the modern world. “Fifteen years ago, you might get away with doing things the way you always had, but in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace, we’re expected to hold the line on prices and survive by driving out excess costs,” Kreitzer said. “To make money in blow molding today, you need an ERP system.” CPL

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purging compounds

Commercial purging compounds have been aiding color changes and removing carbon in injection molding machines since your grandfather’s time. But they’re not just for I/M anymore. Here’s why no extrusion shop should be without them.

e’ve all heard the old myth that an apple falling onto his noggin inspired Sir Isaac Newton to start thinking about gravity. A more recent myth holds that commercial purging compounds (CPCs) are for injection molding machines only. While the first tale may or may not be true, there’s no doubt that the second is a bunch of bull. While it’s true that CPCs are considered most often for injection molding, they also can provide the same benefits to extrusion processors. Blame the technical ins and outs of the injection molding and extrusion processes for any misunderstandings. “Historically, CPCs have been used less frequently in extrusion than injection molding because of equipment design and the fact that extrusion is a continuous process whereas 26

injection molding is a cyclic process,” said John Pizzo, technical service and development engineer for Sun Plastech Inc. Truth is, though, when it comes to handling color and material changes and removing carbon and color deposits, CPCs can be invaluable tools for almost any extrusion shop.

SLIPPERY SOLUTIONS First, a quick backgrounder. Purging compounds operate on either chemical or mechanical principles. In a nutshell, chemical purging compounds use reactions during the purge that have an effect on resin residues at the molecular level; mechanical purging compounds exploit differences in melt viscosity or other flow characteristics to displace resin residues

from the equipment being purged. Each method has its strong points. “Chemical purging compounds are very effective in dealing with challenging purges; as a group, however, they’re likely to involve more process complexity than mechanical purging compounds, and are likely to be somewhat more expensive on a ‘per pound’ basis,” said Frank Van Haste, general manager for NovaChem. “Mechanical purging compounds can provide excellent service and value in more routine purge situations, and they offer the added benefit of being simple to use.” These are rules of thumb that most injection molders probably know as well as their own thumbs, but they also apply to extrusion purges. Another rule that applies to the extru-

Water illustration: thinkstockphotos.com Photo Credit: American Maplan

By Mark Stephen, editor

Canadian Plastics February 2013 www.canplastics.com

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purging compounds

sion world is that, as with injection molding, a CPC can be used for a wide array of processes: pipe, profile, tubing, sheet, film, compounding, and extrusion blow molding. “CPCs are more commonly used in profile extrusion and compounding because changeovers are more frequent and the resins, colors, and additives are more varied,” said John Pizzo. The good news is, most CPC suppliers offer a full product line of purging grades that address different resins as well as purging issues, and many have formulations that are tailored specifically for extrusion, including more aggressive glass or mineral-filled grades. It’s largely because of this last point, in fact, that CPCs are becoming increasingly popular among extruders. “CPCs are being used much more frequently today than 10 years ago, primarily because extrusion shops are making things that require mineral-filled grades or flame retardants to be added,” said Jeff Lewis, sales manager for Slide Products Inc. “These materials really change the mechanics of what’s going on inside the mold, causing considerable build-up on the screw.” Why not just run a similar resin through the machine when it comes time to purge?

Several reasons, actually. “Color and material changes are faster using a CPC than with the traditional method of running hundreds or thousands of pounds of virgin material through the extruder to purge the previous material,” said John Pizzo. “Most CPCs are designed to remove stubborn carbon and color deposits while ordinary processing resins cannot. CPCs can also prevent the need for screw-pulls, and can drastically reduce the time and effort required to overhaul the machine if the pull is required.”

BARRELS OF INFORMATION So now that we know why, let’s talk about how. Purging the screw and barrel of an extruder is typically straightforward and easy, the experts say, though it tends to become more difficult when more mixing/kneading elements are used. In most cases, one to three full barrels of a CPC should be sufficient to clean an extruder. If that seems a touch vague, CPC suppliers should be able to provide estimates on how much purge to use based on the screw diameter and how severe the purging application. To maximize performance of the purging compound, it should be fed slowly in order to ensure that all the flights are full;

then, increase the screw speed to the maximum safe rpm once the purge starts to come out of the machine. Keep in mind that a mechanical purge benefits from the greater turbulence and agitation caused by higher screw rpm. “During the purge, periodically stop the screw and allow the purge to settle into any dead areas,” said John Pizzo. “After a few minutes, start rotating the screw slowly, and then go back up to high screw speed. This stop-and-go purging provides a fluctuating environment of pressure and agitation that allows a purging compound to work its best.” This is done until the purge is visibly free from any contamination. Sounds simple, but there are areas where it can get tricky. Vented barrels are often difficult to clean because the vent is an area of low pressure and lower agitation. “If the barrel has a vent, we recommend plugging the vent,” Pizzo said. “If no plug is available, or if your company has a policy against doing so, we recommend that the CPC be fed into the vent simultaneously with its feed into the main hopper.”

THE DIE IS CAST While the purging instructions for cleaning the screw and barrel are almost always the same for any particular CPC regard-

WAR STORIES: Tales of extrusion purging from the front lines TRIED & TESTED

St-Leonard, Que.-based Queplex Ltee. manufactures PVC extrusions and profiles for window blinds and valances. The company currently utilizes six Davis Standard and Milacron machines with 65-mm screws, operating at barrel temperatures between 162°C to 165°C. Queplex staff purge the machines at various times during the week, and then again when every machine is shut down on Saturday. CPC supplier Dyna-Purge recommended using Dyna-Purge K at shut-down to increase start-up efficiency and reduce scrap when the machines are restarted on Monday. The barrel is kept full of Dyna-Purge K, which is purged out with production resin at start-up. “Our extrusion pieces are clean from the start, and we’ve reduced machine downtime by 30 per cent,” said Adriano Stocchero, vice president of operations and resources.

A dirty thumbs up at Queplex.

The Department of Chemical Engineering at Montreal’s McGill University uses Sun Plastech’s Asaclean E grade and U grade CPCs to clean its co-rotating conical twin screw extruder. Since the unit is typically operated at temperatures between 150°C and 200°C, the staff prefers the E grade, which is the company’s most effective between 160°C and 270°C. A recent test proved it. LLDPE was extruded at 200°C, and when the barrel was opened up the residue was almost impossible to entirely scrape off; after the U grade was run through, minor scraping was required to get the screw and barrel clean; and after the E grade was run through, both were clean without scraping.

www.canplastics.com February 2013 Canadian Plastics

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Photo Credit: Shuman Plastics Inc.

Water illustration: thinkstockphotos.com

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purging compounds

less of the type of extrusion process, the instructions will likely vary when it comes to cleaning the die. The die is, in fact, typically the most difficult area of the extrusion line to clean. “While a mechanical-type CPC is often a great choice to clean the screw and barrel, a chemicaltype purge, or even one that foams or expands, may prove useful in cleaning the dead areas that are common in dies,” Pizzo said. “Raising the die temperatures by up to 50°F, or 10°C, may help soften any deposits within the die, but don’t try it if running heat-sensitive resins.” In order to build up pressure, in many cases it helps to leave in place screen packs and breaker plates (if used). “But ensure that the screen packs have openings sufficient to let the purging the contamination Rotogran Jan compound 12-AB-CPLand2/15/12 11:52 AM it will remove pass through,” Pizzo added. And a word of caution about melt pumps/gear pumps. Some CPCs have no problems passing through these high-pre-

cision devices, but it’s important to triplecheck with your CPC supplier about the particular purge compound before you run it. Also, a glass-filled purge shouldn’t be run through a melt pump. As we’ve seen, mechanical and chemical purges each have strengths and weaknesses that will impact the end result. “Mechanical purging compounds are normally efficient at cleaning the screw, but less efficient at cleaning the head,” said Graziano Pestarino, president of UltraPurge representative Moulds Plus International USA. “Chemical purges tend to be better at expanding inside the accumulator and reaching the dead spots where material builds up.” One the other hand, longer residence times are a possible strike against Page 1chemical purges. “The chemical reaction is paramount when doing a chemical purge, and that reaction usually takes time,” said Tim Cutler, vice president of the Dyna-Purge division of Shuman Plas-

tics Inc. “Processors don’t always give the material enough time to soak, however, because it adds to machine downtime.” But no matter where they are on the learning curve, it’s clear that extrusion processors are seeing more benefits from the material and time savings that CPCs can offer. And that’s no myth. CPL RESOURCE LIST Dyna-Purge Division of Shuman Plastics Inc. (Depew, N.Y.); www.dynapurge.com; 866-607-8743 NovaChem (Bridgeport, Conn.); www.novachem.net; 800-762-3984 Slide Products Inc. (Wheeling, Ill.); www.slideproducts.com; 800-323-6433 A cetronic Industrial Controls (Mississauga, Ont.); www.acetronic.com; 905-564-7227l Sun Plastech Inc. (Parsippany, N.J.); ww.asaclean.com; 800-787-4348 UltraPurge/Moulds Plus International USA (Santa Anna, Calif.); www.ultrapurge.com; 877-884-3129

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can be fitted with side feeders with steeply angled sides that help prevent the regrind from hanging up and bridging. The material can then flow easily through an oversized opening at the bottom to a horizontal auger that positively conveys granules into the mixing chamber. Well-suited for pipe extrusion or similar applications requiring blending high volumes of regrind, Conair blenders use “lift augers” to eliminate bridging problems and promote a free flow of material. The lift augers are positioned at an angle in a corner of the regrind bin and, instead of forcing material out of the bin as most conventional augers do, they turn in the opposite direction, moving granules up and away from the bottom of the bin, keeping the material loose so that it can flow more easily through oversized side gates and into the mixing chamber. On both systems, when the full-length access door is closed, all pellets are contained within the mixing chamber, virtually eliminating waste and improving accuracy. Throughputs can range from less than 50 pounds per hour on model TB45, to 12,000 pounds per hour on model TB3500. Units with up to 12 ingredient bins can be supplied. The Conair Group (Cranberry Township, Pa.); www.conairgroup.com; 724-584-5500 Dier International Plastics Inc.; (Unionville, Ont.); www.dierinternational.com; 416-219-0509 Industries Laferrière (Mascouche, Que.); www.industrieslaferriere.ca; 450-477-8880

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technology showcase cise measurement of the quantity of material transferred from a loading container to a storage hopper, allowing for prompt action to be taken with the machine’s operating parameters and, above all, gaining information on the machine’s effective productivity. Ryng uses proprietary software with specific algorithm settings, which manage and process the gathered data and consequently indicate the actual quantity of transferred material. The system measures the gain in weight in the loading phase, interpolating this data with the value for the loss of weight of the container when transferring material to the hopper. In this way, it provides information directly from the field and allows comparisons to be made between the machine’s expected production and what it actually produces. In addition, the software is programmed to exclude or reduce to a minimum any measurement fluctuations that may be caused by the inevitable vibrations felt throughout the feeder system due to the machine’s normal operation, resulting is precise measurements with an error rate of less than one per cent. Piovan Canada (Mississauga, Ont.); www.piovan.com; 905-629-8822

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technology showcase

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CHEMOPHOBIA/Bis-Phenol A Recently a customer asked me to quote pricing for polycarbonate. The material he wanted was bis-phenol A free polycarbonate with a guarantee that there was no BPA in the product. The term “chemophobia” is defined as the belief that manmade chemicals are bad and natural things are good. This is irrational, for example alcohol, tobacco, opiates and cocaine are natural. The world is made of chemicals whether man made or not. I asked myself what is the fear of bis-phenol A? I believe it comes from a fear that baby bottles manufactured from polycarbonate may release bis-phenol A into the milk? The baby will ingest bis-phenol A. Bisphenol A according to the myth can act like estrogen in the human body. Specifically is the fear that baby boys drinking milk from said bottle will have lower weight organs or develop feminine traits. There is about 3 million tons of bis-phenol A globally annually mostly converted into and epoxy. Epoxy (thermoset) is used the inside of food steel (known as tin

Bis-phenol A is derived from benzene. Polycarbonate is polymerized by the combination of bis-phenol A and phosgene (gas) with an intermediate step. The bis-phenol A is reacted with sodium hydroxide (NaOH)(base)(caustic soda) to create a sodium salt of bis-phenol A and water. (See fig. 2) The sodium salt is then reacted with phosgene (CO Cl2) in a reactor to produce polycarbonate and sodium chloride (table salt). (See fig. 3) The molecular weight (length of the molecules) of the polycarbonate is controlled by time, pressure and the temperature in the reactor.

manufactured polycarbonate to coat/line cans) cans.

TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS SERIES #4

My research says that bis-phenol A is one of the most extensively tested substance and has been tested for over 40 years. Included in the testing many years ago was to seek out an estrogen replacement. Bis-phenol A failed as a replacement for estrogen. The weight of scientific evidence supports the fact that there is no scientific basis that bis-phenol A is a human health concern. Researchers from industry, academia and government have studied the migration of bis-phenol A from polycarbonate into foods and drink. These studies consistently demonstrate migration of bis-phenol A is very low; less than 3 parts per billion. A person would have to eat greater than 1,200 pounds of food or beverage that had been in contact with polycarbonate per day for a lifetime to exceed the safe level of BPA set by the Environment Protection Agency. Also note that studies have shown that human beings metabolize bis-phenol A. Laboratory studies conducted on mice concluded that no effects on the weights of the prostrate, preputial glands (Preputial glands are exocrine glands that are located in front of the genitals of some mammals (including mice) and produce pheromones), epididymis or other reproductive organs. Sperm counts of male off spring from mice exposed to BPA while pregnant were not different than controls. Human exposure to BPA from polycarbonate is minimal and poses no health risk. BPA should not be considered as a developmental toxin. I wondered if BPA is evolving from polycarbonate and how does this work? BPA is a solid @ room temperature and melts @ 158o C (316.4o F). BPA boils @ 220o C (428o F). It also turns out that water and BPA mixtures form azeotropes. An azeotrope is a liquid mixture that is characterized by a constant minimum or maximum boiling point which is lower or higher than that of any of the components. For example azeotropes of alcohol and water change the boiling temperature and change the freezing temperature of either of the Rigid and flexible components by themselves. See the ethylene glycol and water PVC compounds. mixture in your car’s radiator/cooling system for an example. Water mixtures with BPA boil @ lower temperatures than BPA by itself. Another aspect of polycarbonate is the way it is manufactured. The method also should assure people that there is very little if any BPA in polycarbonate. The name polycarbonate comes from the “carbonate” groups in its chain. A carbon atom joined by three oxygen atoms (See fig. 1). One oxygen double bonded to the carbon and the other two essentially holding the polycarbonate molecule together with a carbon in between. Polycarbonate is polyester. Other polyesters include polyurethane (TPU), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

If there is any unreacted BPA, there is very little as it has been reacted with sodium hydroxide prior to being combined with phosgene (Carbonyl dichloride). Since the chemical reaction to polymerize polycarbonate generates heat in excess of 220o C the boiling temperature of bis-phenol A, I conclude that residual or unreacted bis-phenol A has evolved as a gas and is captured from reaction vessel. This is the case as unreacted phosgene is also captured. Polycarbonate is converted into pellets after the reaction in an extruder and depending upon the molecular weight heated beyond the boiling point of BPA. Polycarbonate used for lenses and I suspect polycarbonate used for baby bottles is further processed @ higher than the boiling point of bis-phenol A to filter black specks. Black specks are generated in a hot low oxygen environment, incomplete combustion such as found in the reaction vessel making polycarbonate. Black specks are produced in the creation of polycarbonate. In my opinion prior to the processor seeing polycarbonate it has undergone heat history that would have evolved bis-phenol A. Once a moulder receives the polycarbonate he dries the polycarbonate @ 250o F. for 2-4 hours and processes with a sought melt temperature of 550o F. (288o C) (10 melt flow injection moulding grade such as CARBONEIGHT® PC1210 ). In my opinion these heat histories would have if it was remaining evolved BPA either as an azeotrope (lower boiling temperature than bis-phenol A by itself) or without water. (BPA boiling point is 220o C (428o F) and this is lower than the processing temperature of polycarbonate. Note that many foods contain estrogen including soy beans and wheat. Please note that white bread is made from flour (made from wheat) that has been digested partly by a fungus prior to consumption. This digestion process makes gluten. Gluten interferes with absorption of estrogen from foods such as soy beans as it gets into the nooks and crannies of the villi in the duodenum.

CHEMOPHOBIA hurts the plastics industry and the plastics industry needs to educate. For additional information regarding the science of polycarbonate CARBONEIGHT® & OMNICARB® please don’t hesitate to contact Richard Pounds and or Boris Funduk @ 905-286-9894.

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technology showcase

EXTRUSION

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