Honoring innovation in SPE blow molding awards

Pittsburgh — GoBout was one of the big winners at the Society of Plastics Engineers Blow Molding division's annual parts competition.

GoBout is an all-in-one travel dispenser that can hold shampoo, conditioner, body wash and face wash in one refillable container.

FHG Systems Inc., a maker of blow molded tooling in Denville, N.Y., entered the package, which won three awards: the People's Choice, the division award for packaging, and the "other" packaging category.

FHS said the extrusion blow molded PET GoBout replaces carrying separate travel-sized bottles, often collected in plastic bags. Those small bottles end up in the landfill, the company said.

Each bottle in the GoBout has its own pump. When the body is rotated to the selected product, it is dispensed by pressing the top cap. GoBout also is available in a small size to it can pass through airport security.

The bottles are molded on a Uniloy-Milacron all-electric UMS 4 blow molding machine with a W. Müller extrusion head and an FGH mold and tooling package. The molder was not identified.

GoBout was designed by Brainchild Engineering in Northville, Mich.

Including GoBout, five parts won awards at the Annual Blow Molding Conference in Pittsburgh. A lightweight cargo box for the bed of a pickup truck was another winner of multiple awards.

The parts and their creators were honored at an Oct. 9 dinner, during a riverboat cruise.

Here is a recap of the other winners:

SPI Blow Molding LLC of Coloma, Mich., won the automotive/transportation industrial category, the division award for industrial design and a People's Choice award.

The company's entry was a lightweight portable cargo box called the PickUp Tuck. It can be installed or taken out in minutes, without tools. The product, which weighs less than 30 pounds, folds together and stores behind the seat of a pickup truck.

SPI blow molds parts for the cargo box from high density polyethylene. The product has some unique plastic design features — especially an integral, snap-on single hinge between the panels.

The part is designed for single-cavity tooling to mold either side of the back panel, as the tooling configuration replaces left and right parts with a universal part. American Tool & Engineering Inc. made the mold. The designer was 99 Studio Inc. of Naperville, Ill.

Mumbai, India-based blow molder Creative Group of Industries earned the food packaging award for an oval bottle with the parting line in the middle, instead of the traditional parting line on the side. The center parting line is not visible, the company said.

Creative said the design can increase mold cavitation by 30 percent, leading to a 15 percent reduction in conversion costs and a 30 percent reduction in energy consumption.

Creative molds the bottles for Marico Oil, an Indian consumer products maker. The mold is from Alchemy Molds & Plastics.

Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta-based blow molder CKS Packaging Inc. and Thai chemicals maker Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd. teamed to make the Simply Orange juice bottle, which won the beverage packaging award.

The bottle is formed from extrusion-molded PET. The bottle is lighter than the previous container, made of glycol-modified PET, and it is 100 percent recyclable, the companies said.

The high-gloss bottle met or exceeded standard requirement for drop impact strength.

TricorBraun Inc. won the "other" industrial category for a six-gallon carboy, a container used in fermenting by the brewing industry. TricorBraun design engineers Gerald Christian and Jeff Bersch submitted the part.

The HDPE carboy is designed to replace glass containers, which can break and have narrow necks that are hard to clean.

The customer is Brewcraft USA. Western Case Inc. of Riverside, Calif., is the blow molder. The name of the mold maker was not included in the nomination document.

Features include embossed graduations in both standard and metric volumes. Integrated, needle-blown handles provide strength and rigidity through a unique pinch-off design, allowing the user to carry a full carboy without compromising a comfortable grip.