Packaging, consumer, medical products all take home awards

ATLANTA — Two companies — Allied Plastics Inc. and Les Produits Plastitel Inc. — tied for the People's Choice Award, and each won another category award in the parts competition at the Society of Plastics Engineers Thermoforming Conference in Atlanta.

The People's Choice Award is voted on by conference attendees.

Wilbert Plastic Services Inc. of Belmont, N.C. won a gold in the category of heavy-gauge innovation, as well as the Judges' Award for its medical part.

The SPE Thermoforming Division handed out 20 awards to companies and students Sept. 1 during a dinner at the conference.

Matt O'Hagan, chairman of the parts competition, said a total of 30 part entries and eight student parts vied for the awards. He said the contest generated a strong crop of products.

“The quality of the parts, value-add and innovation, it was all there,” said O'Hagan, who is sales manager, non-automotive and distribution for LyondellBasell's Equistar business. He is based in Lansing, Mich.

Both student winners were from the University of Wisconsin. Kevin Langer won $1,000 for his turtle shower caddie. David Charlier picked up $500 for his product, called a Whirl, with six thermoformed compartments in a round holder.

The division received the student parts from Richard Freeman of Freetech Plastics Inc. in Fremont, Calif.

Here is a recap of the parts competition winners:

Roll-fed consumer, gold

Think4D Inc. of Antona, Manitoba, won the gold award for the packaging for Gillette's Venus Swirl women's razor. A key is the technology to print and form the silver Flexiball on the package. The Flexiball acts like a rotating hinge for the razor.

The package, hinged like a clamshell, is easy to open. Think4D prints and forms the blister packaging, which can be heat-sealed in an automated production line. The multidimensional lids are packed hot right off the thermoforming line onto thermoformed packing trays, and the residual heat maintains the desired arc required, which reduces scrap and increases line speed, according to the company.

The Venus Swirl package is made of PET, recycled PET and paperboard.

Roll-fed consumer, silver

Another Gillette razor package — this one the men's Fusion — netted the silver award for Placon Corp. of Madison, Wis. The package features an easy-open design, through a 360-degree perforation around the periphery of the PET blister pack, which is then heat-sealed to a paperboard insert. A pull-tab, marked with an arrow at the top of the blister, shows the consumer where to pull down and easily separate the plastic blister from the paperboard.

Placon controlled the perforation tearing — not too easy, not too difficult — by adjusting stop blocks and changing the height in the tool.

The trimming to create the perforation presented a challenge. The thermoformer used matched metal tooling and innovative trimming techniques to make the perforated outer trim with the multi-level final trim manufactured in only two trim presses.

Blister walls were canted in at a specific draft angle, and the package designed so it can be integrated into Gillette's high-speed automated packaging.

Roll-fed food, gold

Plastic Ingenuity Inc. of Cross Plains, Wis., brought home the gold for a two-component tray that holds healthy snack products from Sargento, preventing the unwanted mixing of the items — cheese in one portion and fruit and nuts in the other. The outer sleeve gives eye-catching graphics, nutritional information, radial-shaped sides and product visibility from multiple angles.

One critical element: the reverse draft stacking, allowing for easy separation of the trays with high-speed, automated de-nesting equipment, while remaining transparent to the consumer, unlike typical random, alternating stacking lugs used on thermoformed trays, according to the company.

Roll-fed innovation, gold

OMG srl of Givoletto, Italy, near Turin, won the gold for a paintable thermoformed panel that resembles a brick/stone wall. The panel is made of PVC sheet, produced in a thin-gauge thermoforming machine from roll-stock. Forming, cutting, bending and punching are done in a 30-second cycle.

The part is made with a production tool with a temperature controlled aluminum mold, OMG said.

Roll-fed recycled, gold

Innovative Plastech Inc. of Batavia, Ill., won the top honor in recycled content for its reusable dunnage tray that holds 40 two-liter soda bottles for shipping, distribution and displaying in warehouse-type retail stores, without the need for extra shelving, other than a pallet.

Each tray is molded from recycled PET sheet.

Bottles are loaded, then topped with an empty tray, which locates on the bottle caps below. This nesting saves vertical space. Two of the trays fit next to each other on a standard-size pallet. Once the stacks of trays and bottles get up to five layers high, the pallet is wrapped for shipping.

Since the trays nest over the bottles, bottles cannot slip out of the stack when shipping, as can happen with sheets of cardboard, according to the company.

One difficulty in forming is the thickness of the material (0.70-inch). The chain rails on the thermoforming line need to be heated in order to pierce the material. Also, the external roller drive is critical to getting the material fed into the thermoformer. The trays are made on a single-cavity aluminum mold, attached to a water-cooled block for good temperature control.

Roll-fed recycled, silver

Plastic Ingenuity won silver for its clamshell package for Flonase over-the-counter nasal allergy relief spray.

The curved-flow clamshell has a continuously varying, non-planar seal that differentiates the brand in stores. The coined hinge technology provides a high level of repeatability during robotic closing in high-speed automation. A durable snap closure is important to keep the packs closed during the 180-degree, aggressive robotic transfer of the packs into the sealing station.

The designers made a narrower-than-typical bottom flange and gave additional features, so the pack could stand on a shelf and work well with retail pusher trays. As a result, the narrow flange increased the complexity of the heat-sealing process. A patent-pending sealing technology was developed to seal the pack, with its continuously varying, non-planar flange.

The package contains about 40 percent post-industrial recycled material.

Heavy-gauge vacuum forming, gold

Plastitel grabbed the gold in this category — and a People's Choice Award — for a system of thermoplastic polyurethane pods used as the main support surface on a Stryker IsoLibrium medical bed. The pods are divided into four sections, individually controlled to maintain the correct pressure needed for the patient.

The pods help the mobility of the patent, improving the functioning of vital organs, helping to reduce bed sores and improving circulation.

Heavy-gauge vacuum forming, silver

Medallion Plastics Inc. of Elkhart, Ind., picked up the silver for an aftermarket hood for a Ford F-150 pickup truck, the one made with an aluminum body.

The hood's design features an outer and inner hood assembled together, to replace the F-150's original hood for an aftermarket truck assembly plant. The two-piece hood uses a black smooth polycarbonate/ABS for high impact strength combined with high heat deflection.

Medallion uses a ceramic tool that is non-water cooled, allowing an innovative design to allow for negative drafts.

According to the company, the PC/ABS hood replaced a much heavier aftermarket glass-fiber reinforced hood that weighed about 20 percent more. It also cuts the time in half for processing, preparation and painting.

Heavy-gauge pressure forming, gold

Specialty Manufacturing Inc. of San Diego, won the gold for an assembly for a medical device used in an operating room.

SMI forms the parts from Kydex-T sheet. The design uses snap-fit features to attach the canister chamber, which eliminated the need for mechanical fasteners and cut assembly time. Formed-in featured also allowed for easy, consistent part alignment.

Formed-in threads also addressed a customer requirement to reduce secondary operations and reduce the total number of parts. The tooling is temperature-controlled production tooling that is machined from block aluminum.

Heavy-gauge pressure forming, silver

Productive Plastics Inc. of Mount Laurel, N.J., won for its three-part cover for an automated diagnostic system that checks patient test results and flags them for doctor evaluation.

Productive uses Baystate Casting and Borke Mold for tooling, using a textured mold. All parts use pushers to pre-stretch the materials.

Kydex-T sheet allows for the required wall thicknesses and consistency over multiple runs and hundreds of parts.

The kiosk design had the parts fitting to a metal skeleton with very tight tolerances for the attachment. The full assembly is seven different parts.

All of the three pressure formed parts use undercuts to make formed-in seams. Because of the depth of the location of the undercut, the tooling loose pieces had to be temperature controlled to reduce the effect of warpage during processing.

Twin-sheet, gold

Profile Plastics Inc. of Lake Bluff, Ill., won the gold for an air duct that cools critical elements of a medical diagnostic machine.

The material is Kydex-T. The tooling of machined aluminum female twin-sheet production tooling with temperature control. The two-cavity mold forms left-hand and right-hand parts.

The customer chose a twin-sheet design over other processes for a combination of low-cost tooling, dimensional stability and design flexibility.

Twin-sheet, silver

Associated Thermoforming Inc. of Berthoud, Colo., won silver for intake and exhaust ducts for the healthcare industry, from Kydex-T sheet.

ATI officials not the parts have very challenging draw ratios and required minimum wall thicknesses, adding to the difficulty in forming the part. The company uses a two-up aluminum billet, temperature controlled tool.

Heavy-gauge TPO, gold

Allied Plastics won gold in this category — and also grabbed a People's Choice Award — for a two-piece enclosure housing for the engine and fuel tank for a mobile light tower.

The material is a high-flexural-modulus thermoplastic olefin, in varying combinations of colors. The parts are made on water-cooled, cast-aluminum molds, which were cast-oversized, then CNC-machined to CAD data supplied by the customer.

The depth of draw versus multiple potential undercut features meant that part orientation on the tool was very critical, Allied officials said.

The plastic enclosure replaced a metal housing. The TPO housing offered weight savings, and eliminated the need for painting. It's also corrosion proof.

Heavy-gauge TPO, silver

Brentwood Industries Inc. of Reading, Pa., snagged the silver for a center console for the interior of a refuse truck, formed on Primex TPO sheet. The assembly replaces a sheet metal interior panels on the previous model of the truck.

The pressure-formed part gives a highly aesthetic, structurally rigid assembly. The material is custom colored gray and black, and formed on an acid- etched mold surface to give a medium-gloss appearance. The machined-millet mold has four hydraulically controlled core pulls, to create the recess for the metal gauge panels.

Heavy-gauge value added, gold

Productive Plastics won gold for a cover for a medical diagnostic scanning machine. Parts are pressure formed using a cast and machined mold. All parts utilized pushers to pre-stretch materials, to achieve the customer's requirement for distribution of materials.

The company used Kydex-T sheet.

The 10 parts use undercuts and are formed in mating edges, for better line-to-line fit. The assembly allows for the parts to fit a separate metal frame that comes together at a staging location.

Productive Plastics paints the covers using a high-gloss PPG paint.

Heavy-gauge value added, silver

Kintz Plastics Inc. of Howes Cave, N.Y., picked up silver for a pressure-formed top cover enclosure for a portable medical laser unit used to remove tattoos.

The cover measures about 20 inches wide by 34 inches long, and is formed on a female, machined aluminum, temperature-controlled mold that is more than 11 inches deep. The material is Kydex-T sheet, extruded to size.

To accommodate the fact the three of the top cover's sidewalls had zero draft, horizontal ribbing for venting, undercuts and several molded-in sidewall recesses, three of the four molded sidewalls retract pneumatically, to allow the forming of the features and removal of the part after forming.

A syntactic foam plug-assist helps stretch the heated plastic into the deep mold.

After the part is formed, Kintz adds internal blocks for mounting features, then machines the cover on a large five-axis machining center. Then the company adds 16 threaded inserts used for mounting. Finally, the cover gets a copper conductive coating on the inside, and a two-tone paint finish on the outside surfaces.

Heavy-gauge innovation, gold

Wilbert won for a medical enclosure made with temperature-controlled positive tooling for vacuum forming, and negative tooling with action for pressure forming. The part also won the Judge's Award.

The sheet materials include PVC/acrylic, polycarbonate and PC/ABS.

Undercut features on tooling hide trimmed edges on parts at transition areas. The enclosure uses hidden fasteners.

Each enclosure kit is packaged and shipped to the customer.

Heavy-gauge innovation, silver

Medallion Plastics got silver for dashboard top for a motorhome, featuring automotive-style sticking. The company said that is a step up from the current ABS/vinyl wrapped style of dash tops for motorhomes in the high-end, Class A motorhome segment.

Medallion uses a ceramic tool that is non-water cooled to make the part. An innovative design allows for negative drafts.

The assembly includes a dash top outer, an inner, foam and a cut-and-sew stitched cover.