News
MoldMakers Trade Fair has ambitious plans
Dieffenbacher to make LFT-D machinery in Canada
Graham Packaging goes public
Canada slips on environment and innovation
Changes
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News
MoldMakers Trade Fair has ambitious plans
Plans are moving ahead for the sixth Canadian Association of Mold Makers' Trade Fair, being held at Caesar's Windsor on November 18 and 19. This tabletop show always draws tooling industry people from Ontario and Michigan, but this year it will also draw visitors from overseas, thanks to a grant from the Ontario government, which supplied $100,000 to attract 50 non-traditional tooling customers from outside the country.
There is a cocktail reception for invited guests on the evening before the show, Monday, November 17. The first day, Tuesday, November 18, starts with a breakfast at 8.30 for guests, mould shop owners and visiting dignitaries. The show itself will formally open at 10.00 am, but for guests only, with public admission starting at noon. The event closes at 5.00 pm.
There are seminars throughout the afternoon, and in the evening, a dinner at St. Clair College. The special guest at this is legendary hockey goal scorer Paul Henderson.
The second day also starts with an invitational breakfast, and the show is open to the public from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm. There are seminars at noon and 2.00 pm.
The show closes with a dinner at Caesars Casino featuring former astronaut Roberta Bondar. She will speak on creative problem solving, productivity, organisational culture, process and group dynamics.
For further information, contact Diane Deslippe at 519-255-7863, or info@camm.ca
Dieffenbacher to make LFT-D machinery in Canada
Dieffenbacher North America, Inc. (Windsor, Ont.) is adding capacity at its plant with two CNC-controlled machining centres costing $5.5-million and two gun drill machining centres costing $2.5-million. In addition, the company is to start building machinery for long-fibre compression moulding technology that can produce large, flat panels for automotive and other applications.
Previously, global markets for LFT-D equipment were supplied by the company's German parent, but in future, the compounding and compression moulding machinery for Canada, the US and Mexico will be made in Windsor. This technology is currently used for underbody panels, wheel covers, panel and front-end carriers, and instrument panels.
"The LFT-D process was developed in conjunction with Germany's Fraunhofer Institute," says Peter McCormack, North American sales manager. "It involves a compounding methodology as well as compression moulding."
Its advantages, he says, include there being no semi-finished products needed, as is necessary with glass-mat processes, and there being only one heat-history involved. Issues with warpage and knit-lines, which occur when injection moulding is used for larger panels, are not a concern with LFT-D.
Glass fibres and glass rovings are typically used, but McCormack says the process is versatile, and could also employ organic fibres or other reinforcements. It can also be adapted to employ such methods as gas-assist and in-mould decoration.
"There are around 40 of these systems around the world now, and a half-dozen in North America" McCormack says, "so it's proven technology. It's an important method for reducing weight in vehicles, and all the major automotive OEMs are interested in it."
www.dieffenbacher.ca
Graham Packaging goes public
Hicks Acquisition Co. Inc. (Dallas, Tex.), a special purpose acquisition company founded by Tom Hicks, has reached an agreement in principle by which Graham Packaging Holdings Co. will go through a transaction that will end with it being publicly held. Tom Hicks is owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, as well as Liverpool Football Club in the UK.
Hicks Acquisition is doing this in partnership with the Blackstone Group and the Graham Group. The deal is valued at approximately $3.2 billion, and is said by Hicks to be the largest ever between a SPAC and an industrial company.
Following completion of the transaction, the combined enterprise will be renamed Graham Packaging Co. and will apply for listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Blackstone will maintain the largest ownership stake for at least two years as it continues to guide the company strategically and operationally.
Founded in 1972 and based in York, Pa., Graham had 2007 net sales of close to $2.5-billion. It focuses on value-added blow-moulded rigid plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty and automotive lubricant industries. It blow-moulds more than 20-billion container units annually at 83 manufacturing plants in North America, Europe and South America.
Current stockholders of Graham Packaging will receive $350-million of cash held in trust, 35.0-million common shares, and 2.8-million warrants on completion of the transaction. The transaction has been structured to preserve Graham Packaging's existing capital structure.
www.blackstone.com
Canada slips on environment and innovation
Canada is sliding as an innovator among wealthy countries. A new report by the Conference Board of Canada, titled How Canada Performs, puts us in the middle of the 17 wealthiest countries in terms of social and economic rankings, but lower on innovation and environmental measures.
The Board's ranking puts as at second in education, ninth in health-care, 10th in social development, 11th in economic growth, 13th in innovation, and 15th in environmental progress.
In addition, our standard of living slipped to ninth this year from fourth in the 1970s, the report said. It linked Canada's lack of innovation to flagging economic performance,
"Canada's deteriorating transportation infrastructure, its longer hospital wait times, and the collective sense of urgency about the affordability of social programs are all directly linked to Canada's lagging productivity, which in turn is linked to its innovation problem," the report said.
The country as a whole has no innovation policy to commercialise technical discoveries and support emerging industries' development. Instead, resources are used to shore up fading industries, the board said. Slower productivity and other factors widened the gap between US and Canadian individual purchasing power from US$3,200 in 1985 to US$6,400 today.
Environmentally, our record is poor in areas such as climate change, smog, and cutting waste. Canada now generates more waste per person than any of its peers, according to the report, and produces more greenhouse gases as petroleum and forest products exports rise.
The US led the 17 nations in innovation, but was last in environment and society, and second-last in health and education. It ranked seventh in economic health.
www.conferenceboard.ca
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Changes
Raw materials supplier PolyOne Corp. (Cleveland, Ohio) has opened a new distribution centre in Brampton, Ont. The warehouse doubles the number of railcars that can be stored on-site
www.polyone.com
François Chevarie, executive vice-president of operations with Sigma Industries (Québec City) is a new director with the Canadian Plastics Sector Council. He replaces Anaheet Setha, who has left her position as human resources manager at Par-Pak Ltd. to take up a position outside of the plastics sector.
www.cpsc-ccsp.ca
Everlight Chemical Industrial Corp., a UVA and HALS producer for coatings, plastics, inks and adhesives, has appointed Inortech Chimie Inc. (Terrebonne, Que.) its exclusive distributor for the Canadian market.
www.inortech.com
Polywheels Manufacturing (Oakville, Ont.) has entered bankruptcy protection, and ceased operations until further notice. The compression moulding and injection moulding company is primarily a supplier of exterior automotive parts, employing about 250 salaried and hourly workers. Ball Corp. (Broomfield, Col.) is closing its Brampton, Ont., blow molding plant by the end of the summer, deeming it too small to continue producing PP food containers cost-effectively. The plant employs 90 people, and was bought by Ball in 2006.
www.ball.com
Frigel North America (Lake Zurich, Ill.) has a new partnership with Heisler Green, a specialist in environmentally-friendly water treatment chemicals and services for cooling towers, boilers, closed loop systems and waste water. Frigel plans to promote Heisler Green's CoolGreen products with Frigel's Ecodry closed loop cooling system, which reduces water and energy use for manufacturing. It operates by pumping the water returning from the process into heat exchangers and cooling it with ambient air flow.
www.frigel.com
Peter Prusak has been appointed Head of the North American Packaging market segment for Clariant Masterbatches, with responsibility for sales, marketing and product development. He will also continue as director of market development, a position he has held since joining Masterbatches in 2007.
www.clariant.masterbatches.com
Peter Prusak
Gneuss Inc. (Matthews, NC), the North American subsidiary of German machinery manufacturer Gneuss Kunststofftechnik GmbH, has moved to a bigger building to meet the needs of its expanding business. Gneuss manufactures filtration technology, processing technology and measurement technology. The new over-6000 sq ft facility has room for a larger warehouse for parts inventory as well as for equipment repairs. It also houses a lab line with a 2-in. extruder, fully-automatic filtration system, RSFgenius 45, and a pelletiser. The address is 10820-G Independence Pointe Pkwy, Matthews, NC 28105.
www.gneuss.com
Chemtura, a supplier of polymer additives, is to remain independent after terminating discussions on a sale, merger or other possible combination. The company has concluded that any sale is "unlikely at this time to result in an offer at a sufficiently attractive price."
www.chemtura.com
Cray Valley (Exton, Pa.) has promoted Mohamed Dekiouk to global manufacturing manager, hydrocarbon resins. In his new role Dekiouk is responsible for industrial projects, budgeting and monitoring productivity at the company's three manufacturing locations. He will also maintain responsibility as plant manager for Cray Valley's Channelview, Tex., manufacturing site, the position he held prior to the promotion.
www.crayvalley.com.
The Education Committee for the NPE2009 international plastics exposition is now accepting abstracts for presentations in a new educational program, called the Business of Plastics. The triennial NPE show takes place on June 22-26, 2009 at Chicago's McCormick Place. The Business of Plastics program will address such topics as marketing, human capital management, finance, environmental issues, regulation, global economic trends, and other matters of strategic importance to plastics business management. Conference papers, learning labs, panel discussions, and other formats are possible. Information is available from Felecia Marsh at educate@npe.org or 1-202-974-5285.
Sandretto Industrie (Turin, Italy) is now owned by Brazilian machinery producer Industrias Romi. After a delay related to staffing issues, Romi's shareholders voted for the deal at the end of June. The base price paid for the injection moulding machine producer is €5.5-million. In addition, Romi will retain the company's 286 existing employees.
www.sandretto.it
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Coming Events
2008
August 28: Canadian Plastics Industry Association's annual golf classic, at Cardinal Golf Club, Kettleby, Ont. (Contact Erin Cimino at 905-678-7748 or ecimino@cpia.ca).
September 4: Canadian Plastics Pioneers Eighth Annual Golf Tournament, at Richmond Hill Golf Club, Richmond Hill, Ont. (Contact: Peter Stephen at 905-940-5577 or pstephen@stephensales.com)
September 23-25: Canadian Manufacturing Week, at the International Centre, Mississauga, Ont. (Contact: 888-322-7333 or www.sme.org)
September 30-October 2: Interplas 2008, Britain's national plastics show, at the Birmingham NEC, UK. (Contact: Graham Earl at 020-8910-7890 or graham.earl@reedexpo.co.uk).
October 7-10: Ausplas 2008, Australia 's leading plastics show. At Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre. (Contact: Robert Damcevski, 61-3-9699-4699 or rob@exhibitionmanagement.com).
October 20-21: Expoplast 2008, Quebec's triennial plastics show, at the Palais de Congres in Montreal. (Contact: Tom Sockett at 905-678-7748 or tsockett@cpia.ca)
October 22: APAC international business development conference, at the Palais de Congres in Montreal. (Contact: Tom Sockett at 905-678-7748 or tsockett@cpia.ca)
October 22-23: Rotoplas '08, the international rotational moulding event, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Ill. (Contact: Maria at 630-942-6589, or mariap@cmservnet.com)
November 5-6: Canadian Waste & Recycling Expo. At the International Centre, Mississauga, Ont. (Contact: Arnie Gess, 403-638-4410 or arnie.gess@cwre.ca). TOP
Coming Soon From Plastics In Canada Magazine - September issue:
Special supplement – Expoplast 2008 show preview
Plastics in automotive safety systems
Measuring – what's happening in monitoring size, colour, dimensions and efficiency
Product Spotlight on Controls
Blow moulding report – New machine designs for blow moulding
Raw materials report – Innovations in resin technology, fillers and additives
Troubleshooting – Our regular look at what can go wrong, and how to be sure it doesn't
Processor profile – A visit to an innovative moulder, extruder or other manufacturer of finished plastic items
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