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Aug 25th, 2005 Print this article E-Weekly News Briefs, August 22 - 26By Modern Plastics Editorial Staff Visteon parks plant in Slovakia Automotive Tier 1 Visteon (Van Buren Township, MI) is constructing a factory in Dubnica, Slovakia for just-in-time delivery of climate-control components to Korean vehicle builder Kia, which is also building a plant in the Eastern European country. Production should start in December 2006. Kia is the second customer that Visteon will supply from Slovakia. Earlier this year Visteon announced plans for a manufacturing facility in Nitra, Slovakia to supply interior components for French OEM, PSA Peugeot-Citroen, which is also building vehicles in the country. Visteon and its Korean affiliate Halla Climate Control (HCC) have been awarded climate-control business for Kia's European operations, including heating, ventilation, air-conditioning systems, powertrain cooling, compressors, hoses, and temperature controls. "This new business for Kia Motors is testimony of Visteon's growing relationship with Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, Visteon's second-largest customer worldwide," says Mathias Hüttenrauch, Visteon's director for the Asian customer European business unit in Kerpen, Germany. Originally spun off from the OEM, Ford remains Visteon's main client. Visteon's 3800-sq-m plant in Dubnica will have a capacity of 300,000 vehicles/yr at full production by 2010 and can be expanded. PBM picked up by Printpack With an eye on what the company's melt-phase forming for thin-wall deep-draw packages could mean for its barrier, coextruded, thermorformed container business, Printpack Inc. (Atlanta, GA) has acquired the assets of PBM Plastics (Newport News, VA). Part of PBM Products (Gordonsville, VA), PBM Plastics developed melt-phase forming as a means to create unique applications including flexible thermoformed packages with draw ratios of 1:8 possible (MPW December 2004, Technology Trends). Printpack, a privately held packaging company with more than $1 billion in sales has 23 plants in the U.S., Britain, and Mexico, making flexible packaging, as well as rigid thermoformed packaging in its Rampart division. The company's technology portfolio already includes stand-up pouches, matte-finish plastic films to mimic paper, and Freshgard films with controlled oxygen and carbon dioxide transmission. In a statement, Printpack President Dennis Love said, "This [acquisition] strengthens our commitment to the growth of the Rampart business in the barrier plastics market and provides a unique position to accelerate our market substitution plans within these markets." Crown abdicates closures Global packaging giant Crown Holdings Inc. (Philadelphia, PA) has agreed to sell its Global Plastics Closure business to European private equity firm PAI Partners for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $750 million. Crown Holdings, which derives more than half its business from Europe, employs more than 27,000 globally and had 2004 sales of $7.1 billion, generated primarily from its metal cans business. The plastics closure business had 2004 revenues of $676 million generated from 29 plants in 15 countries with 3500 employees. Fully 76% of its sales came from Europe, where it built up an impressive presence through acquisitions, including CarnaudMetalbox, Zeller Plastik, Astra Plastique, United Closures and Plastics, Massmould, and Obrist. Husky revs up automotive hot runner business In a bid to grow its hot runner business through shorter lead times, geographic proximity, and a dedicated team, Husky Injection Molding Systems (Bolton, ON) has formed a new hot runner team at its Detroit Technical Center In Novi, MI. A supplier of hot runners to the automotive industry for 15 years in applications for interior, exterior, and under-the-hood segments, Husky previously did all design work at its Milton, VT hot runner manufacturing facility. During a June open house at the Novi facility, Husky officials said that automotive hot runners currently represented 10% of Husky's hot runner business, and the company had a 5% share of the overall market. At the time, the center had already brought on four dedicated designers for the automotive market. By relocating in Michigan, Husky believes that final prints for hot-runner systems will be available in five working days, with full systems deliverable in three to four weeks. On smaller parts, Husky promotes its fully configurable quick-delivery Pronto systems, while larger systems use the Ultra 1750, which has valve-gate cylinders for possible throughputs of 2000g/second. Davis-Standard swallows another U.S. extruder maker Following its takeover of extrusion equipment producer Black Clawson Converting Machinery (Fulton, NY; May 2005 MPW), one of the few U.S. competitors left, Davis-Standard (Pawcatuck, CT) has made another catch. This time it acquired Merritt Extruder (Hamden, CT), which will move assembly to Davis-Standard's headquarters. Merritt's brand line will continue to be offered and key Merritt employees will remain with the business, says Jim Murphy, Davis-Standard VP. This includes Merritt President Sandy Guthrie who joins Davis-Standard to help handle customer support of the Merritt line. Hilex Poly expands in Idaho Hilex Poly will complete their third expansion next month at the company's Jerome, Idaho, facility, after starting production just five months earlier. "The original plan when we opened this past spring was to look toward expanding the facility over two to three years," explained Mike Schutz, plant manager of Hilex Poly. "Instead, we've compressed a three-year timeline into just one year, and in order to meet our higher production level, we're looking to hire 25 to 30 employees experienced in manufacturing." Hilex Poly, headquartered in South Carolina, announced in August 2004 plans to expand its operations with a new plant in Jerome to serve as their western presence for the manufacture of plastic T-shirt bags. Hilex Poly is the largest manufacturer of plastic grocery bags in the U.S., according to information released by the company. Hilex made the decision to consolidate its convenience-store and produce-bag production in South Carolina to its Jerome facility. The company purchased some new production machines and relocated some machines from the SC plant to support the expansion. Jerome will now produce all of Hilex's convenience store and produce bags for shipments to clients throughout the U.S. Ampac Flexibles unit emerges Cincinnati, OH-based Ampac Packaging has formed Ampac Flexibles through the combination of its performance films group and two recent acquisitions, Kapak (Minneapolis, MN) and Flexicon (Chicago, IL). "By assembling all product lines under one business unit, we bring our customers more flexible packaging solutions than ever before," says John Baumann, CEO of Ampac Packaging. PET bottle demand continues Equipolymers, a joint venture between Dow Chemical (Midland, MI) and PIC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (Kuwait City, Kuwait), has contracted to construct a175,000 tonnes/yr capacity plant at Ottana, Sardinia, Italy, to produce polyester chips for PET bottles. The unit is scheduled to go on-stream in the first quarter of 2007. BASF wins supplier prize Polymer producer BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany) has been named as the only petrochemical producer to receive this year's Bosch Supplier Award. The prize was given in recognition of engineering polymer quality, delivery reliability, price-performance ratio, and technical support for the global electronics and electrical manufacturer. Roberto Gualdoni, director of BASF's European Engineering Plastics division, reports the company also won the prize in 2003 and 2004, but this year is the first time when only BASF, and none of Bosch's other 30 global plastics suppliers, was tapped for the honor. Moldmaker prefers togetherness Moldmaker Braun Formenbau (Bahlingen, Germany) has merged with its 1998-created subsidiary E. Braun, an injection molder for plastics and pharmaceutical products. Starting in September, both companies will be known as Braunform GmbH - Plastics and Pharma Technology. "This is the next logical step in streamlining both of our business sectors," says founder and director Erich Braun. Names in the News John Boutsikaris has been named senior VP of sales/marketing at process automation and optical inspection systems company Key Technology (Walla Walla, WA). He was previously executive VP at Pemstar Corp. Targeting a startup of December 2005, Arla Plast AB (Borsenberg, Sweden) has begun construction on a new plant to manufacture multilayer polycarbonate sheets in Kadan, Czech Republic. Ayub Adam will join Arla in September as the market director for multiwall products and Paul Haemhouts has been designated technical consultant for multiwall products after joining Arla in August. Alcan sells PET bottle operation Alcan Inc. (Montreal) has completed the sale of its Pet Plas Packaging Ltd. (Leeds, England) to Esterform Packaging Limited (Tenbury Wells, England), joining two manufacturers for extrusion and two-stage blowmolded PET bottles for juice, soft drinks, water, and dairy. Pet Plas, a custom PET bottle and preform manufacturer, operates one plant in Leeds where it employs 90 and had 2004 sales of $50.5 million. Thermoforming titan Requiring five flatbed trailers to do the job, Ray Products Inc. (Ontario, CA) has taken delivery of a modern rotary thermoforming machine with a 10-by-18-ft forming window. The unit will be able to process sheets measuring 10 by 18 ft in thicknesses from .06 to .5 inch. Ray has billed it as a mean to compete against offshore shops in markets like recreational vehicles, pools, spas, camper shells, truck-bed liners, retail displays, sports and leisure products, and material handling products for automotive companies. The three-station carousel system allows for continual loading, thermoforming, and unloading of formed sheet. Earlier this year, Better Bath (Waxahachie, TX) installed a three-station rotary machine from Advanced Ventures in Technology (Gladwin, MI) with a 10-by-25-ft forming area (June 2005 MPW World Tour). | 
