GREENVILLE, OHIO - Preferred Plastic Sheet of Greenville will add a second large custom sheet coextrusion line at Greenville by mid-January. The firm ordered a coextruding machine from HPM Corp. and down-stream equipment from Mega Machinery Inc., and is building a 10,000-square-foot addition at Greenville to house the new equipment, said President Bill Augustine.
He did not disclose the cost of the project.
The coextruder has 6-inch and 41/2-inch barrels and will make mainly heavy-gauge sheet up to 0.375 inch thick and 100 inches wide, Augustine said in a telephone interview. It will run mostly ABS, high-impact polystyrene and high density polyethylene.
Augustine said the expansion will not affect his firm's plan to acquire Plains Plastics Inc., a custom sheet and profile extruder in McPherson, Kan. He first revealed expansion plans for Greenville in October during an interview about the Plains Plastics agreement. PPS is doing due diligence and hopes to conclude the Plains Plastics purchase by year's end.
Plains runs five sheet lines and nine profile lines in McPherson and has annual sales of about $20 million, most of which is in sheet.
PPS had sales of more than $72 million for its year ended Aug. 31. The Greenville expansion caps a two-year program that also boosted extrusion capacity at plants in Greensboro, Ga., and Taylorville, Ill., by about 25 percent.
Augustine would not disclose poundages but said Greenville's capacity will increase by more than 25 percent when its new line is running.
Greenville will account for eight of the company's 21 extrusion lines.
Film company adds space in England
POTTERS BAR, ENGLAND - On the heels of a recent expansion, Amalgamated Plastics Ltd. is looking for a way to promote itself.
For starters, the British film manufacturer wants to be known as Amplas, a catchy derivative of its formal title, said spokesman John Steer.
Amplas is a major manufacturer of custom and proprietary stretch films for industrial and agricultural applications in Europe and worldwide.
In June, the company moved into a brand-new headquarters plant in Potters Bar, an investment of more than 4 million ($6.29 million), Steer said in a recent telephone interview.
That facility sits on five acres, beside Amplas' original plant; together the buildings supply about 160,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space.
Steer said the company's current capacity for its cast and blown polyethylene stretch films is about 55 million pounds per year. The firm's core proprietary products are Polyflex industrial pallet wrap, Silaflex agricultural stretch film and Bubbleflex air bubble cushioning.
Amplas was founded 40 years ago by Chairman A.E. Englander. His sons, Simon and Nick, are joint managing directors of the firm. The company employs 140 in Potters Bar.
Seal-It employee numbers increase
HICKSVILLE, N.Y. - Seal-It Inc., a fast-growing producer of heat-shrinkable printed PVC sleeves, now employs 120 after opening in June 1990 with five people, according to Sharon Lobel, president.
Seal-It uses a modified flexographic process to reserve-print the sleeves with either water-based or solvent-based inks in as many as seven colors.
The sleeves encase three-packs of H.J. Heinz Co.'s fat-free beef gravy and WD-40 Co.'s lubricant spray, two-packs of Kraft General Foods' Crystal Light mix and other containers.
The Heinz sleeve, for example, has five colors and includes an ingredient list, directions for use and Universal Product Code bars.
Seal-It converts heat-shrinkable PVC and glycol-modified PET for tubing, seamed material, neck bands, labels, sleeves and tamper-evident packaging and builds heat tunnels that can shrink up to 900 sleeves per minute.
Lobel said Seal-It operates in a 50,000-square-foot facility in Hicksville, and reported 1994 sales of more than $15 million.
Briefly. . .
The following firms received ISO 9002 certification: Ensinger Inc., a Washington, Pa., producer of engineering plastic stock shapes and custom cast nylon parts; custom injection and compression molder Rostone Corp. of Lafayette, Ind.; Delphi Interior & Lighting Systems' Windsor, Ontario, trim plant; automotive sealing and trim systems producer Standard Products Ltd.'s Huntingdon, England, plant; Brooklet, Ga.-based custom profile extruder Loxcreen Co. Inc.'s plastics group; the Texas division of Vinylex Corp., a plastic extrusion company based in Knoxville, Tenn.; and GenCorp's Vehicle Sealing Division plant in Marion, Ind.
Foamex International Inc.'s JPS Automotive Parker automo-tive carpet manufacturing plant in Greenville, S.C., received ISO 9000 and QS-9000 certification.
