Fakuma 2014 review | Strategy
Right: Produced on a 3.5s cycle, these co-injec- tion moulded PP/EVOH fruit cups weigh 5.5g each
solution. The first thing we are doing is to take cost out of that. The system solution we are offering is signifi- cantly lower cost,” Gallagher said. The scale of the saving is heavily dependent on the application, he said, but a double-digit system cost saving can be realised. A large part of this cost reduction results from the
ability to build a complete Milacron group co-injection solution around its own moulding machine. “We can’t be competitive with another [brand of] machine so on a system solution all the quotes we have are on our own machines. However, we can retrofit on any machine,” he said. It is still early days in development of the new Kortec
strategy and the process of integration of the Mold-Mas- ters and Kortec co-injection expertise has only just begun. “For the time being we will present them as they existed with the exception that all of the Mold-Masters people in Europe have had training on Kortec and the Kortec guys have had training on E-Multi,” Gallagher says. The potential available from this new combination of
Below: The Kortec system was demonstrated for the first time at a trade show at Fakuma
technologies was demonstrated on the Ferromatik Milacron stand at the Fakuma fair, where the company was running a Kortec 4-cavity mould producing a co-injection barrier fruit cup on a 280 tonne hybrid Ferromatik F-Series machine equipped with an E-Multi auxiliary vertical-mounted injection unit from Mold- Masters. The parts, weighing 5.5g each, were produced on a 3.2s cycle – equivalent to 4,500 cups an hour. Kortec vice president of sales and marketing Russell Bennett said the system was the first Kortec co-injec- tion system to be integrated with a Ferromatik Milacron machine and the first it had assembled using an auxiliary injection unit on a standard moulding machine rather than a dedicated 2K (two-component) design. “It’s more challenging to integrate an extra injection unit and for us at Kortec this was a big change – before it was always a dedicated 2C machine,” he said. However, Bennett said the results, both in terms of
performance and quality, show the F-Series is well suited to the packaging task. A key benefit of the
F-280’s hybrid design is that it can be tailored to the process. The production system at Fakuma used an accumulator-backed energy-efficient hydraulic system to power the injection stroke, carriage movement and ejectors while electric servo drives were used for clamp movement and plasticising. The auxiliary E-Multi injection unit is fully-electric.
The main injection unit was a 60mm diameter type
delivering a shot of 19.8g of PP; the E-Multi unit was an 18mm diameter model delivering a shot of 2.2g of EVOH into the core layer of each fruit cup. The mould was by Nypro-Mold of the US. Applications for the Kortec technology are wide and
varied. Aside from thin wall barrier containers it can also be used in production of coffee capsules and PET preforms as well as barrier thin wall packaging. In Friedrichshafen, Kortec was showing its own-developed co-injection moulded Klear Can design, which it believes offers a drop-in alternative to metal cans at similar cost. “Quite a few brand owners are running trials. There was a lot of interest after Interpack [where the Klear Can was first shown] and that interest remains high,” says Bennett. Kortec says the Klear Can design offers a number of
attractions to end users. Packagers of fruit and vegetables like the transparency, he said, while others are more interested in the improved resistance to damage in transit before and after filling. Co-injection is seen as a high potential market for
Milacron, but Gallagher said the company has much broader sights and is carrying out what he describes as “very specific and intensive research” into new opportu- nities, which may include further acquisitions as well as internal developments. Extending its system solutions will be a key part of this, as will further integration of mould base and hot runner. Milacron will not, however, move into mould manufacturing, he said.
Click on the links for more information: ❙
www.milacron.com ❙
www.kortec.com
18 INJECTION WORLD | November/December 2014
www.injectionworld.com
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