In an unusual move, materials firm Ampacet Corp. has acquired LIAD Weighing and Control Systems Ltd., a maker of feeders and blenders based in Israel.
The acquisition "is all about color integration," said Doug Brownfield, an Ampacet executive who will serve as commercial director of a new business unit the company is setting up with the addition.
"We're a color and additives company, and this will allow us to better integrate our products into the manufacturing process," Brownfield said in a Feb. 14 phone interview. "We can work with existing customers and grow into other applications."
LIAD makes and assembles its feeders and blenders at a facility in Misgav, Israel. Brownfield said that Ampacet currently has no plans to make LIAD equipment in the U.S.
Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Ampacet, a global maker of masterbatch concentrates, had been aware of LIAD's technology, but the two firms hadn't worked together before the acquisition, which will allow Ampacet to use its new Spectro 4.0 color management system with LIAD equipment. The new technology allows processors to measure the color of parts as they're made, Brownfield said.
Spectro 4.0 also can help reduce scrap rates and down time, he added, as well as assist companies that are using larger amounts of post-consumer resin in order to meet sustainability goals.
In North America, LIAD products will be distributed by CISystems Color Integration by Ampacet, the new business unit Brownfield will oversee, created to improve the way manufacturers use color in their processes and products. CISystems will offer color management technologies to help customers increase production efficiencies, reduce waste and achieve sustainability goals, officials said.
"We are excited to say that Ampacet is entering into a new era of delivering holistic solutions to our customers and preparing the stage to enter into new markets with a different value proposition," President and CEO Alvaro Mendoza said in a news release.
Ampacet ranks as one of North America's 30 largest compounders and concentrate makers. The firm employs more than 2,000 at 25 manufacturing sites worldwide and has annual sales of more than $1 billion.
