ATLANTA — Thermoformer ITW Dacco boosted capacity last month for heavy-gauge packaging, such as plastic trays for the auto industry, and plans to add an in-line roll-fed machine for high-speed, high-volume applications by early next year.
Dacco, which became part of the Illinois Tool Works family about a year ago, operates out of a 65,000-square-foot plant in Mechanicsburg, Pa., where it has ``ample room for expansion,'' according to Dacco sales manager Jeff Casper. The company mainly vacuum forms thin-gauge shipping trays, multicavity tubes, slide packs and clamshells of PVC and glycol-modified PET, including static-dissipative and conductive materials. It also forms some stouter, heavier-gauge packaging, from 0.080 to one-quarter inch, out of polystyrene and ABS.
Casper would not disclose Dacco's investment or the supplier for the new cut-sheet machine. Besides increasing heavy-gauge capacity, the equipment will let the firm ``prototype new molds a lot more quickly, as opposed to the redundant setup with an in-line machine,'' he said in a recent telephone interview.
Dacco disclosed the expansion Sept. 15 at the Society of Plastics Engineers Thermoforming Division conference in Atlanta.
At Mechanicsburg, Dacco operates multiple in-line machines and will target the one to be installed in early 1998 at high-volume packaging trays and clamshells mainly for the electronics market, Casper said. He noted that the company is ``out to widen the customer base'' for clamshells for printed circuit boards through an aggressive marketing campaign.
Dacco, which employs about 80, does not expect the expansions to create any jobs.