event review | Compounding World Forum
More than 230 people attended the third
Compounding World Forum in Philadelphia in December last year
their carbon footprint, and plastics – with a lower carbon footprint than other solutions – help this effort, added A. Schulman’s Rzepka. Improving profit margins is a challenge that can be
addressed by continually looking for ways to reduce operational cost and improve operational excellence. Raw materials are the largest component of any compounder’s cost and Infinity LTL’s Carreno recom- mended that companies put some of their best technical people in raw material procurement to do this job well. Customers are aiming to cut costs while also looking for higher quality and more data for improving their properties, said Ametek’s Rasberry, who noted that his company has introduced additional technology for data acquisition.
The impact of data Using data to analyse a process and help make it more productive is a primary objective of the Digital Manufac- turing Design & Innovation Institute, said Jacob Goodwin, director of membership engagement and communications at the institute (launched in 2014, DMDII is a US government-funded organisation operating within the National Network for Manufactur- ing Innovation, which is designed to advance US manufacturing excellence). Digital manufacturing at the machine level can use
sensors to monitor a machine in real time and identify out-of-specification material, according to Goodwin. In addition, advanced analysis of “big data” can take a broader look at the whole process and determine how to make it more productive. Large manufacturers are already using these tools, and will expect their supply chain partners to start doing this too, he said. The outlook for manufacturing in North America is
positive, said Kirk Hanawalt, president of Entek Extruders. A key to success is US productivity (making
66 COMPOUNDING WORLD | January 2016
more products without adding more employees), which is contributing to the “reshoring” trend. As a conse- quence, he said he expects to see US manufacturing employment begin to grow slowly, or at least to end its decline. Another factor in favour of US manufacturing is local supply, which means products can be provided more quickly. “Distance equals time, and time is money,” he said. Sirmax SpA, a compounder headquartered in Italy, opened a new manufacturing facility in Indiana in the US in 2015, choosing the location in recognition of the need to be close to its existing and future customers as well as its suppliers, said Lorenzo Ferro, vice-presi- dent of sales & marketing at Sirmax North America, Inc. He said the company has evolved from a local champion in Italy to become a global player today. The US expansion follows the opening of plants in Brazil and Poland, the latter its first overseas plant opened in the mid-2000s to focus on automotive and appliance industry customers. Interest in additive manufacturing - otherwise known as 3D printing - is strong and the market is expected to grow, noted Tom Drye, managing director of Techmer Engineered Solutions, which offers several 3D print compounds. Techmer ES collaborated with the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory and others to make a 3D printed car – the Shelby Cobra – using Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM). This project and others have demonstrated that BAAM can be used to make large parts, although the technology is still more of an “art” and the science is being developed.
Natural fibre developments Another area of development in automotive is the use of natural fibre-reinforced composites (NFRC), said Alexis Baltazar, product and process development project manager at Magna International. He said that use of NFRC in North America for automotive applications is currently low, although it is more established in Europe. Concerns over the use of natural fibres include physical performance (compared to glass fibre), hydrophilicity, and the potential for attack by termites or fungus, but there are solutions to address these problems. Oliver Frey, head of the compounding department at
Ensinger, described solutions for optimising tribologi- cal properties for high-temperature and engineering polymers, including the benefits and drawbacks of using PTFE additives for reducing friction and wear. Polyketone (PK) compounds provide some advantages in tribological applications, including chemical resist- ance and good performance in PK-PK paired parts (this was discussed in more detail in the November 2015 issue of Compounding World).
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