Extrusion International USA 3-2021

26 Extrusion International 3/2021 EXTRUSION INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRY NEWS Proco Machinery Inc. www.procomachinery.com „ Proco Machinery, a leading manufacturer of automation systems for the blowmolding industry, has unveiled the next generation of its Pakman case packer which is integrated with Yaskawa Motomon HC10 and HC20 collaborative ro- bots for greater ef fi ciency and automation for blow molded bottle manufacturing lines. These systems ef fi ciently handle blow molded containers and deliver a major cost reduction versus conventional automation. Proco’s case packer has seen several generational changes which have delivered greater ef fi ciencies with the focus of bringing innovative technology to bottle packaging. The latest iteration is a breakthrough collaborative robotic auto- „ SI Group announced plans to invest more than $50 million across threemanufacturing sites inNorthAmerica to install glob- ally competitive main antioxidant capacity to increase its supply for this critically important and growingmarket segment. This investment demonstrates SI Group’s commitment to the expanding U.S. chemical market, with a focus on supplying strategically located, critical raw materials to key partners in the region.With SI Group’s current extensive antioxidantman- ufacturing footprint in the U.S. and backward integration, this planned expansion will increase its security of supply by offer- ing a fully integrated portfolio of phenolic antioxidants in the U.S. These performance additives are broadly used in growth segments such as food packaging, automotive, construction, adhesives, and other applications. “This capacity expansion plan is a direct result of our focused efforts on growth and responding to our customers’ needs. The investment will increase domestic capacity and security of Significant Additives Expansion in the U.S. SI Group www.siigroup.com supply for our customers and strengthen SI Group’s position as a partner of choice,” said Chuck Reardon, SI Group’s VP – Plastics Solutions. “We are pleased to be in a position to invest in SI Group’s capacity and support the success of our custom- ers as well as bring new manufacturing and product capabili- ties and manufacturing jobs to our local communities.” The new capacity is expected to come online in the second half of 2022. These projects are expected to create short-term construction jobs, followed by permanent manufacturing jobs once construction is complete. With projected growth in the polyole fi ns market in the U.S., the expansions will enable SI Group to increase its domestic supply to match growing de- mand, and further strengthen its position as a key partner to its customers. mation system that works interactively with co-workers and needs minimal training for teaching new tasks. Tooling considerations are important in the development of cobot systems for the blow molding of plastic containers. Proco’s Pakman case packer features a collating indexing ac- cumulation system to accumulate complete layers of bottles inside the packaging cell. The accumulation table stages the layer of bottles so they can be picked up by Proco’s end-of- arm (EOA) tooling and placed inside the box. Traditional robotic movement by row would slow the cycle time of the packaging system. The accumulation indexing conveyor helps to increase the line speed of the Pakman packaging cell since there will be one movement of the robot per layer. PET containers – due to high static of the heated bottles – tend to repel each other when they are close to- gether. The layer pack EOAT technology ensures that con- tainers are placed inside the box as a complete layer, pre- venting any change of bottle position. Another innovative feature is Proco’s Integrated Rotary In- verting Technology which helps to rotate a layer of bottles to neck-down orientation. Proco’s Pakman packaging cell has the new advanced innovative feature that will help the processor pack bottles in all neck-down orientation in a layer formation. This feature does not change the packaging cell size. It is an add-on feature that can be purchased at a later date and fi tted to the line. Next-Generation Case Packer with Collaborative Robot Automation System Launched