SPE honors medical, solar energy blow molding breakthroughs

Atlanta — DoseCue, a pill bottle that has a series of lights that signal when it's time to take medicine — and lets you know if you miss a dose — won three awards for FGH Systems Inc. at the Society of Plastics Engineers' blow molding division's annual parts competition.

FGH, of Denville, N.J., made the blow molds and molded the container, which won the People's Choice for packaging, the pharmaceutical award in the packaging category and the blow molding division award for packaging.

DoseCue has a stepped-in panel inside the high density polyethylene pill bottle. Patients simply follow the lights: The top light flashes green at dose time; the second light flashes green when a dose is taken; if a dose is missed, then a third light flashes red; and the fourth light flashes yellow when it's time to order a refill.

The mold maker is listed as DoseCue and FGH.

The other People's Choice award, for industrial parts, went to Western Case Inc. of Riverside, Calif., for SolarTub, a modular, ground-mounted array of solar panels that can be quickly installed using hand tools. SolarTub also picked up the "other" award in the industrial category.

SolarTub allows solar panels to be installed in virtually any location worldwide to provide power where needed. The product replaces traditional concrete and steel racking with an HDPE base that can be filled with water or other ballast material to stabilize SolarTub in windy conditions. The low-profile design makes it easy to maintain and easy to move to other locations.

Hawkeye Preferred Tooling made the mold.

Other awards presented at the Sept. 17 awards dinner in Atlanta during the Annual Blow Molding Conference:

• Silgan Plastics Corp. won the packaging award in food for a PET container for McCormick Old Bay Seasoning and black pepper, replacing the iconic metal canister last year. The metal-to-plastic conversion gives a 16 percent reduction in carbon emissions and eliminates BPA in the package, according to the judging form.

Silgan produced the PET container on a Sidel SBO-8 Universal blow molding machine. The recyclable oblong PET container is trimmed inline, and shrink sleeve decorated inline and offline to the blow molding machine. Sidel made the mold.

Silgan also produces the plastic flip-top dispensing closures.

• Nissei ASB Co. of Smyrna, Ga., won the beverage award in packaging for a returnable 5-gallon polycarbonate water container with a hollow handle called the TruHandle, for home and office use.

TruHandle is injection stretch blow molded on Nissei ASB machines. The injected neck finish had no base weld, giving improved impact resistance, the company said. No top or tail flash gives a significantly better visual look that extrusion blow molding.

Nissei ASB made the mold.

• Bekum America Corp. of Williamston, Mich., picked up the "other" category in packaging for an ecobottle for Ecological Brands Inc., known for its bottles made of 100 percent recycled cardboard and newspapers, with a thin-wall blow molded liner made from post-consumer HDPE from Envision Plastics.

The molded-fiber shell provides the structure, so the blow molded liner, which only needs to provide barrier and closure features to protect the contents, uses 60 percent less plastic than rigid blow molded bottles. Patented blow molded features in the liner neck interface have mating features in the thermoformed fiber outer shells. That provides a reclosable bottle without the need for lamination or adhesives.

The toolmaker is M.C. Molds Inc.

• Mann+Hummel USA Inc., based in Portage, Mich., won the awards for both automotive/transportation in the industrial category and the division award for a blow molded clean air duct assembly for the Ford F150 truck. The assembly of parts, most of them blow molded, carries air from the air filter box to two turbo inlets. The main blow molded components integrate silencers and air connections used to activate and control critical functions such as crankcase ventilation and evaporative emissions. The plastic overmolding seals the silencer assembly.

Mann+Hummel uses double-cavity molds to handle the production volume of more than 750,000 units a year.

The mold maker is PT Tech.

• Agri-Industrial Plastics Co. of Fairfield, Iowa, snapped up the award for consumer products in the industrial category for a dog kennel feeder it blow molds for Kane Manufacturing Co. Inc.

The HDPE part was designed to be an easy method to feed dogs in medium- to large-scale kennels without the employee having to enter into the kennel area. The feeder slides under an opening outside of the kennel, and food is added through a lid opening attached to the top.

Features include a living hinge to mold the lid and base as one piece. The lid's snap-close feature eliminates additional hardware.

H&H Tool made the mold.