Pliant Corp. is adding new equipment at several facilities to keep up with film products it is launching.
In late September, Schaumburg, Ill.-based Pliant installed a seven-layer cast film line at its Lewisburg, Tenn., plant to make stretch film, spokesman John McCurdy said at Pack Expo International 2002, held Nov. 3-7 in Chicago.
The line will be used to make Pliant's new polyethylene-based machine film used with high-speed, automated wrapping equipment. The lightweight film helps secure products or pallet loads before shipping, providing a higher roll yield than with traditional pallet stretch wraps, McCurdy said.
The new line will add about 30 million pounds of stretch film capacity annually, said Pliant technology director Paul Edelman, who left the company after Pack Expo.
Pliant also is adding a 10-color printing press at its plant in Langley, British Columbia. The site is one of two for Pliant in North America that produces recloseable gripper bags for food and other products, Edelman said. The press will be installed in the first quarter of 2003, McCurdy said.
The firm is launching a new line of top-loading bags for grapes that allows the fruit to be loaded from the top of the bag, McCurdy said. Its 4-pound Super Grape bags will be sold through club stores in North America, he said.
The company added three new extrusion lines at plants in Langley and Macedon, N.Y., at the end of last year, Edelman said. Those lines will support the company's grip-bag business, which features an injection molded slider on the top of each bag, he said.