Jan H. Schut
How United Plastics Became A Quick-Change Artist
United Plastics Corp., a small profile and sheet extruder with 125 employees in Mount Airy, N.C., combines an almost unbelievably diverse product mix (it has some 5000 dies in active use) with the ability to change over individual extrusion lines four or five times a day.
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Water-Blown EPS Will Help You and the Environment
The world’s first water-blown expandable polystyrene bead (WEPS) is in development at Nova Chemicals’ new technology center in Breda, the Netherlands.
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Seeking Hot Niches for Special Films
When Ajedium Film Group’s (www.ajedium.com) extrusion machinery arrives this November, the Newark, Del., start-up company plans to make “film structures that don’t exist today, out of any resin that is melt processable at up to 800 F,” says Richard Giacco, majority owner.
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Innovation - July 2002
Furniture maker Steelcase Inc. in Caledonia, Mich., loved the idea of a simple stacking chair with a seat and back that can move independently to fit the person sitting on it.
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They Hit the Market Running
Three years ago, when Martin Grohman and Michael Hurkes started Correct Building Products in Biddeford, Me., it wasn’t so much a start-up as a rocket launch.
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EPS Bead Molders Turn To Automation
Plantwide automation in EPS molding started among European block molders, who created ‘ghost’ plants with only a handful of workers where dozens had been employed before. Now, ‘hands-off’ automation has reached the U.S. and is making inroads in shape molding, too.
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Spartech Spreads "POP" Culture
“Continuous improvement” is not just a buzzword at Spartech Corp., the St.
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Fulfilling a Dream of Moldable Wood
It smells like wood, looks like wood, and has the same mechanical and chemical properties as wood.
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Recycling at K 2001: New & Better Ways to Reclaim PET
Last fall's K 2001 show in Dusseldorf brought out new advances in bottle-to-bottle PET recycling.
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Profile Maker Runs Lean & Fast
In the early 1990s, as competition heated up in European PVC window markets, many European processors looked to U.S. markets for growth.
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RIM Molder 'Bets the Farm' On Agricultural Vehicles
Back in the mid-1980s, GI Plastek, a custom RIM molder in Newburyport, Mass., was making medical and electronic cabinets, but that market was shrinking rapidly.
Read MoreFilm Extruder Tries Do-It-Yourself Electric Power
One of the country’s largest makers of stretch film and bags, the Sigma Plastics Group based in Lyndhurst, N.J., has embarked on an experiment in generating its own electricity.
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