Jomar, Bosch join up to make energy-efficient blow molder

Düsseldorf, Germany — With 80 percent of its injection blow molding machines sold overseas, U.S.-based Jomar Corp. (Hall 14/A32) had a lot of customer requests to reduce energy consumption.

Company officials turned to Charlotte, N.C.-based Bosch Rexroth Group at NPE 2015 in Orlando, Fla., with the challenge and a tight timeline. Nineteen months later, the result of this collaboration is a custom-designed, servo-driven hydraulic system to power Jomar's new machine and its plastifier.

“The way we did the plastifier is unique to the industry,” Thomas Aufiero, a regional sales engineer for Bosch, said of the Jomar IntelliDrive it is showing at K 2016. “A vertical plastifier requires more torque, but all-electric is very expensive. We could do it with standard hydraulic motor components, except we're unique with a new radial-piston type motor to generate the torque required without any special gear box or anything else.”

Now the replacement cost of that motor is a fraction of an electric drive, while the energy savings is close to, if not better, Aufiero said.

The machine uses 40 to 50 percent less energy and it has more speed, added Ron Gabriele, Jomar sales manager.

“It's actually faster than our other machine,” he said. “It's dry-cycle time went from 2.4 seconds to 1.8 seconds so it's about a half-second faster. When you're making millions of bottles per year it's a big difference.”

Jomar's customers make bottles for products sold by Avon, Gerber's, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. The client list includes Düsseldorf-based Gerresheimer AG, which already purchased the model on display at K 2016.

“They're always talking about sustainability,” Gabriele said. “That's one of their tenets. They sent a technician out to review the machine and he loved it. He's their ace Jomar guy with 28 years of experience so he knows the machine as well as we do. That was a huge moment of validation.”

The Jomar IntelliDrive puts out 72 tons of clamp force, which Gabriele said is difficult to do without hydraulics and expensive to achieve electrically. The machine uses a new closed-loop clamping system that the company says delivers exact control over the clamp's speed and position. This contributes to its faster performance while going easy on the tooling, Gabriele said.

“We have a tighter precise control over where the clamp opens and closes,” he explained. “We're able to stop it from hitting the top, and stop it from slamming into the bottom and in between we're able to make it go really fast. That's how we shave off time and prolong the mold life.”

The machine uses the same frame so the footprint hasn't changed, which is important to Jomar. Part of the appeal of its vertical plastifiers is that the machines are 30 percent smaller.

“Even before this, Jomar had the highest output per square foot out of any IBM machine,” Gabriele said. “Now with our faster cycle times, we've increased that.”

Customers also can use the molds from earlier Jomar machines and expect the same quality, the sales manager said, adding that those customers are mostly in Europe, India, the Middle East and South America.

At K 2013, Jomar showed a hybrid machine with a plastifier run by an all-electric motor. The machine worked great, Gabriele said, but if the motor ever needed to be replaced, the cost would be as much as $50,000 to $60,000. For the new machine, the replacement and repair costs are more in line with hydraulic machines, which Gabriele said is a lot cheaper.

Jomar's development work in hybrid and all-electric machines kept hitting roadblocks, but company officials said they've got a good solution for customers now.

“The IntelliDrive is a preferable alternative for Jomar because we achieved energy savings comparable to all-electric machines while also maintaining our robust and versatile hydraulic system,” Jomar President Carlos Castro said in a news release.

Jomar officials are so confident in the hydraulic system, they extended the warranty from one year to 30 months.

“Not only are we lowering our customers' per-part cost with utility savings, but we're providing a solution that has a very low cost of ownership,” Castro said.

In addition, the IntelliDrive requires 40 percent less hydraulic oil, uses half as much cooling tower water than the previous machine, and emits less ambient heat than standard hydraulic machines.

“We tried to capture the best of the all-electric world with energy efficiency and repeatability and combine that with the best of hydraulics, which is a tough system,” Gabriele said. “The K show was the target the whole time. We're so proud it came together.”

Founded in 1968, Jomar is based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., and has sold more than 2,000 machines for pharmaceutical, health care, personal care, beauty, food, beverage and household products.