For Extrusion and Injection-Blow Molders, Numerous Upgrades in Machines and Services

At NPE2024, Uniloy Inc. presented an energetic array of programs to enhance all its machinery lines and service categories. To put this large handful of initiatives into a coherent perspective, Plastics Technology interviewed Uniloy CEO Gary W. Riley Sr. and Timothy Tomlin, vice president of Sales – Key Accounts. In explaining the company’s direction, Riley, who became CEO in June 2022 (and was on Uniloy’s board prior to that), says he learned from experience in his family’s injection molding business that the way to “help customers become better and more profitable” is to help them improve “uptime, throughput and quality.”

Another element of the picture is Uniloy’s expanded market focus. Riley says dairy is still a critical market for the company — which has supplied 90% of the milk bottle machines in the U.S. — but medical, pharmaceutical and beverages such as iced tea are growth areas for its machine sales. Industrial containers also beckon, such as gallon bottles for windshield wiper fluid.

And Uniloy is putting new emphasis on Asia, which Riley sees as a big opportunity: “Cold chains are developing rapidly there now for dairy and citrus juices,” he notes. In addition, Uniloy sold a seven-layer shuttle machine for retortable protein drinks to a molder in Vietnam.

Wide-Ranging Service Enhancements

Reflecting a business built largely on parts and service, Uniloy gave top billing at the show to its efforts in these areas. A prime example is the new asset management program, Mold Maintenance R&R (Repair and Refurbish). Started last year with selected customers, and now being rolled out to a larger audience, this program is aimed at customers that have several hundred cavities of the same bottle. “It’s not for a molder of 20 different bottles,” Riley notes.

Customers send Uniloy tooling for scheduled maintenance; some of those molds are stored at Uniloy for quick shipment when needed. “This way, customers can get refurbished tooling in 72 hours instead of the usual six to eight weeks,” Riley says. “We usually ship even before the customer pulls the old tooling. Also, there’s a fixed charge for the service, eliminating delays for quoting each job.”

In addition, Uniloy has expanded its service staff almost tenfold over the last two years, through both new hires and certifying independent contractors who received training at Uniloy University.

The company has also invested millions of dollars in its newly named Uniloy Genuine Parts business, increasing both the quantities on hand and boosting the range of part numbers by 30%. In this third quarter, Uniloy will launch an online parts catalog and store, aimed initially at the company’s reciprocating-screw machines, though it will be expanded later to injection blow and shuttle extrusion machines.

Tomlin is enthusiastic about Uniloy’s new interactive electronic owner’s manual, available first for the UR 100 reciprocating screw model. In its initial version, a small tablet located at the machine is loaded with schematics, bills of materials and safety videos. Later on, Tomlin says, it will be available online and part numbers for the machine will link to Uniloy’s online catalog. “This will compensate for limited technical help in today’s factories,” Tomlin explains. “It will enable customers to ID parts quickly and get help with troubleshooting. This will set us apart from the competition.”

At NPE, Uniloy announced another upgrade to its service capabilities by purchasing the moldmaking and tech service business of FGH Systems, which has been Uniloy’s longtime partner for shuttle machine sales, molds and service. This move adds FGH’s shuttle mold design and manufacturing assets to Uniloy’s moldmaking facilities in Fremont, Ohio, and Tecumseh, Michigan. (The Fremont facility was formerly Century Die Co., bought by Uniloy in 2022.) Also, three Uniloy shuttle lab machines (all-electric and multilayer coex) are moving from FGH to Uniloy’s Tecumseh tech center, adding to its reciprocating screw and injection blow lab machines.

Machine Intros and Upgrades

“We’re making a big push on our shuttle machines, which are better known in Europe,” Riley says. The company’s emphasis is on all-electrics, which are said to be 30% more energy efficient than traditional hydraulic machines. These currently range up to 27 tons; a 10-tonner was introduced at K 2022. Uniloy is also introducing to the U.S. its own three-layer, spiral-mandrel coextrusion head for encapsulating recycled resin. It has been used for a while in Italy, where it was developed, and is very attractively priced, Riley notes. For coextrusion of four to seven layers, Uniloy uses heads from W. Müller.

As part of its new Asian focus, Uniloy announced last year a new plant for its joint venture in India, which will launch a line of hydraulic shuttles for low-cost markets.

Meanwhile, Uniloy is now shipping its first all-electric injection blow machine (85 tons), the first of a new line that will include 130-ton and 180-ton models. Planned for the third quarter of next year, these three models will replace 13 previous hydraulic models from 80 to 199 tons. Aimed at medical, pharma and personal health care, the new all-electrics are said to be 40% more energy efficient and are capable of co-injection with Uniloy’s multilayer technology introduced at K 2022. One application is three-layer polycarbonate/nylon/polycarbonate barrier bottles for blood cultures.

One development that Riley considers “really exciting” is new additions to Uniloy’s reciprocating screw line. The former lineup of four models from UR 70 to UR 110 (numbered according to the screw diameter in mm) has been trimmed to two models — UR 90 and UR 100. What’s more, these two are now more energy-efficient servohydraulic designs, and newer versions in development will be even closer to all-electrics in energy consumption, Riley says.

Uniloy is especially proud of a new 10-cavity version of the UR 100 — up from eight cavities previously — which is said to offer 24-40% higher throughput while using 20-35% less energy per bottle. Compared with many older six-cavity machines, the new UR 100 is said to use the same or less energy overall. And a 10-cavity machine is equivalent to 1.5 six-cavity units while occupying far less floor space. Aimed at round and dairy gallons, the new machine has an electric-driven extruder and servohydraulic clamp and head.

To round out the range of Uniloy blow molding technologies, another program at Uniloy’s Italian branch is developing hybrid accumulator-head models (20, 120, 170 and 290 tons) with electric clamps and servohydraulics for other functions.

To implement these all-electric and servohydraulic developments, Uniloy has formed a strategic partnership with Baumüller, a German producer of servo motors, drives and controls (U.S. office at Baumueller-Nuermont Corp., Norcross, Georgia). Besides energy efficiency, Uniloy will harness Baumüller technologies to achieve seamless integration with Industry 4.0 standards.