Plastics processors struggling through the recession need to save energy costs where they can, they need an affordable means to do so, and they could use energy-saving technology that pays for itself during times when plant throughputs are variable and below optimum capacity utilization.
After preparing our latest Custom Injection Molders’ Hourly Rates Survey report, with its grim picture for custom molders, I became curious about long-term trends in molding economics.
Not quite two decades ago, I wrote in this space, “Something needs to be done to improve the quality, usefulness, and believability of materials property data.” All three quantities were sorely lacking because materials specifiers had no assurance that any two materials had been tested in the same way, using specimens with the same geometry and same method of preparation.
In December, about a dozen representatives of European chemical companies gathered in Aachen, Germany, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of a quiet revolution in plastics.
Preoccupied as you may have been lately by high resin prices, a stagnating economy, overseas competitors, hurricane disruptions, and the credit crunch, not to mention the chaos on Wall Street, you may not have noticed something new and different sprouting up all around you, so to speak.
The lead-off speaker at our Processing Conference & Workshop in Chicago at the end of this month asks an important question: “What is your old auxiliary equipment costing you?” In other words, what is it costing you not to replace it?
With the growing popularity of thermoplastic microcellular foams (such as those produced by the MuCell process of Trexel Inc.) comes increased need to understand how to optimize foam properties through appropriate foam structure.