The USA this week may be reeling from its exhausting political and economic wranglings but our friends and associates at Weco International go from strength to strength in servicing that country’s large and sophisticated thermoforming industry.

The land that invented fast food, food service packaging, and many other innovations in packaging has extensive and accompanying needs for volumes of thermoformed goods. Many thermoforming operations in the US are therefore both large scale and demanding in terms of quality. And as the world economy shifts we will undoubtedly see similar operations of scale and sophistication emerging  – in China, India, Russia and other areas of large population.

Meantime, Brett Wehner and the team at Weco in the US are growing the infrared network throughout all the states in America.  One recent job saw Weco doing great work for a leading international producer of disposable packaging with sites around the world. Weco’s client in this case needed a complete upgrade on one of its principal thermoforming lines for beverage food service.

The Weco team was required to upgrade the existing heating arrangements and ovens and to replace them with a more effective infrared-based solution. Ceramicx were in attendance through the project from start to finish in the design and supply of infrared thermoforming platens.

As part of its work, Weco engineers succeeded in halving the overall oven length at the client – a move that resulted in immediate energy savings. And cycle times – shots per minute – were also increased by a substantial 15.2 to 23.4.  Weco’s Client  Line 1 became the fastest; not only within the factory but also within the client organisation as a whole. Substantial engineering work was also carried out in the machine control area – including ethernet communications; automation work and computing interfaces.

As Brett said to me after the job completion – ‘Imagine the ability to make over 50% improvements in your productivity and run it on just half the energy of previous!’ Most plastics thermoformers would take that, wouldn’t they?

However, it takes more than a shot of courage to truly innovate; to commit to those first steps in plant design and improvements – to take a step back and see the future in a new way. Successful thermoformers are doing just that – and unsuccessful thermoformers, however, are not. The latter group continue to ignore the signs; continue not to measure their energy useage or  their equipment performance – until it’s too late.

By the skin of its teeth, the US Government has lately stepped back from an avoidable conflict and disaster. At Ceramicx, we believe that good science, engineering and technology can help many companies do the same. A little foresight and cool reflection can go a mighty long way.

* Weco International features in the latest edition of Ceramicx HeatWorks magazine. Contact Ceramicx direct for your free copy of the magazine.