Düsseldorf, Germany — More than 65 percent of caps in the plastics industry are made by compression molding, according to machine maker Sacmi Imola S.C., which aims to increase that market share for itself and the sector with a new model to be launched in early 2017.
The Imola, Italy-based company used K 2016 in Düsseldorf to show what its latest machine — called the CCM24SC — can achieve.
“A 24-cavity machine is producing 1,000 closures per minute,” said Giuseppe Lesce, general manager of closures and containers. “It's the fastest cycle time worldwide at 1.4 seconds. I challenge everybody to do the same.”
Helping customers unleash the full potential of today's factory is driving innovation at the company, Lesce said, pointing to a new compression blow molding machine — the CBF 20 — as well as a new injection preform system, a quality control system and digital printing for caps.
“We are trying to show the market — not just the customers we have because they know us quite well — that we are more and more a global partner in terms of plastic closures and containers,” Lesce said. “That's 360 degrees starting from plastic closures for beverages where we are a market leader up to the last machines that we developed for PET preforms, which we entered just a few years ago, but we are going a bit faster than we forecasted.”
The company's latest compression molding machine was making containers for the pharmaceutical industry, which is second to beverages as a major market for Sacmi end users.
“You can use any plastics material, colorant or additive,” Lesce said of the new machine.
Sacmi sales reached a record 1.35 billion euros ($1.22 billion) in 2015 with a net profit increase of 3 million euros compared to 2014, according to the company's annual report released in May 2016.