ICMA Sets Up Lab Line in Michigan

Italy’s ICMA San Giorgio has set up a twin-screw compounding lab line for North American trials in Monroe, Mich. The line is equipped with ICMA’s 50-mm diameter co-rotating twin-screw extruder, part of its MCM high-torque family, and is reportedly suited to run a wide range of engineering resins and filled compounds. The MCM line can be equipped with a nominal specific torque of 9 Nm/cm^3, and up to 16 Nm/cm³ .Two other Italian companies are providing auxiliaries: Enginplast is furnishing a gravimetric dosing system; and Gefran the control system from Gefran.

ICMA had been fairly quiet in North America until about two years ago, when it signed a representation agreement with Prescott Machine, Saginaw, Mich.  Explains Giorgio Colombo, ICMA’s managing director, “(We have) a good tradition in the North American market, where we have operated for more than 30 years with success stories in both the compounding and direct extrusion field. The project to strengthen our local presence reflects ICMA’s commitment to better serve a market that, thanks to the re-shoring of many manufacturing activities, is particularly active, also for our European customers that are opening or already started production activities in the U.S.

Ray Miller, for years a top executive with B&P Process Equipment, is the CEO of Prescott.  “Having a production line for testing in this market, offers a greater opportunity to those American companies wishing to test ICMA’S extruders locally, and it is also a way to improve its market opportunities,” he says.