At this year’s show, Bekum America is celebrating its 45^th year by making a multipronged effort to enhance its North American reputation in extrusion blow molding. One thrust is launching its “Americanized” E-BLOW all-electric shuttles, now built with a high content of locally sourced components.

While that strategy addresses Bekum’s major market in consumer packaging, a second thrust is to expand its role in bulk packaging and industrial parts with a new design of large machines, available with complete automation.

And a third thrust acknowledges the show’s overriding theme of sustainability with emphases on energy-saving technologies and recycling through trilayer coextrusion.

“Our primary focus at the show is to introduce our program of domestically built, all-electric shuttle machines for packaging,” says Gary Carr, v.p. of sales. Local supply of key components such as servomotors and actuators eases availability of spare parts. On display is the first offspring of that program, the double-sided, 15-metric-ton EBLOW 407D, “a four-cavity gallon machine,” as Carr describes it. Next in line will be the longer-stroke EBLOW 407DL, and eventually the whole EBLOW line will be “Americanized.”

The model on display makes a point about the capabilities of electric machines, Carr notes. It’s running 2 L EPET handleware in two cavities, demonstrating the ability to handle “a tough application like EPET, which is hard to trim.”

The second main focus of Bekum’s exhibit is a move to raise its profile in large industrial machines. On display via video and examples of molded products is the brand-new XBLOW 200, a 200-m.t. press featuring a new clamp design with diagonal tiebars and rapid two-stage closing action. The XBLOW series, introduced at K 2022, is available with accumulator or continuous-extrusion heads and servohydraulic or hybrid clamps of 50 to 300 m.t.

“We’re looking to differentiate ourselves in the large-machine market,” Carr says, “by offering a higher technical standard and higher degrees of automation.” As to the first, Carr is referring to features like a new extruder concept (already popular in Europe) that saves energy by using an extruder of smaller diameter but longer L/D – with no downside in output or machine footprint. In addition, Bekum can provide fully automated lines for products like stackable canisters of 5 to 7 gal, with cooling masks inside the machine, followed by indexing cooling lines. And for large industrial parts, Bekum can supply six-axis robotic handling, insert loading, in-mold labels and in-mold deflashing.

The third main thrust of Bekum’s NPE exhibit is on the theme of sustainability, exemplified by energy savings through electric drives and extruder design, as well as recycling via trilayer coextrusion. On display is an example of a three-layer HDPE head with vertical extruders for the inner and outer virgin layers, available on new machines and as a retrofit kit to convert monolayer machines at much lower cost than buying a new machine.