Plastics News Show Daily - April 5, 2012 - (Page 1)

a crain publication ® Thursday DAILY Entire contents copyright 2012 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. April 5, 2012 A Plastics News Global Group newspaper $5 per copy rcotte by Michael Ma Firms laud Orlando Inaugural show in new city successful By Bill Bregar PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — After many years at Chicago’s McCormick Place, major machinery exhibitors had the most to gain by lower costs at the Orange County Convention Center — and a sampling of officials from injection molding machinery makers gave Orlando a thumbs up. Every three years, NPE turns its convention center home into the world’s largest plastics factory. The big machinery players consume a lot of power and have a wealth of complex equipment to set up and tear down. “All the procedures and the installation and the organization and the infrastructure here was very much easier to handle for our people compared to Chicago,” said Helmut Heinson, managing director of sales for Arburg GmbH + Co. KG. “Everybody was very, very happy. No comparison to Chicago. So, from a logistic point of view, from an organizational point of view, it’s a big step forward,” he said. One big difference in Florida, a right-towork state, is a more flexible setup process. At McCormick Place, rigid work rules required union workers to do much of the machine setup and connect electric power to each machine. But the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. moved NPE from Chicago to Orlando after the last NPE, in 2009. It caused an uproar in Chicago, which is working to restructure McCormick Place to make trade shows more affordable. In Orlando, convention officials were faced with hosting a major industrial trade show. Machinery officials said the Florida show leaders brought riggers down from Chicago to help local riggers move in the large machinery. John Adamowicz, Arburg application engineer who helped with the setup, said that was a good move. “In the rigging, they had ample people. They had brought in a lot of people from Chicago to do the job. The rigging people from Chicago are first class. They work in that industry,” he said. Bob Starr, who coordinates trade shows for Milacron LLC, agreed. “That makes a lot of sense. You have people See Orlando, Page 66 Bob Starr, Milacron director of global marketing said bringing workers from Chicago who were familiar with rigging setup eased the transition to Orlando. MGS rides momentum into ’12 Green PE By Rhoda Miel PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — Coming off 2011, MGS Manufacturing Group Inc. (Booth 63030) had already recorded a solid year for its mold-making, molding and machinery businesses. And 2012 is continuing to build on that success, especially in mold making as the firm sees new contracts from its existing customer base and adds new business. “We’re averaging $4 million a month in [mold] sales as of today,” said John Berg, marketing director. “Mold making is such a strange beast to forecast, but if we keep this up, even by the end of the summer if things dropped off, we could call this a very good year.” MGS is seeing increased orders in the medical and packaging industries, as well as resurgent growth from the auto industry — an industry many people had abandoned when car production slowed three MGS at NPE, from left: Bob Bordignon of MGS Manufacturing Group, Wayne Johnson of years ago. MacNeill Engineering Co. Inc. and John Berg of MGS Manufacturing Group at the show Berg credits the continued growth throughout the customer base to MGS’ investment in new tech- know we’re going to get a chance to look at the next mold you nology to speed production. Software from supplier Sigma Plas- buy,” he said. Those technology investments also are helping MGS win tics Services Inc. (Booth 65027) has sped the ability to fix potential problems before the mold steel is even cut, which reduces work early in the development process, where it can work manufacturing time and tweaks to the mold once the first parts alongside brand owners, designers, material suppliers and are made for testing. That reduces prototyping and the entire molders. “We’re looking at opportunities where people are bringing process, Berg said. And that, in turn, leads to repeat business. See MGS, Page 66 “If I’ve saved you $5,000 or $10,000 and one or two weeks, I Plastics News photo by Michael Marcotte boon for Braskem By Frank Esposito PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — Brazilian resins giant Braskem SA is seeing continued growth with its sugar-based Green polyethylene and also is advancing with joint venture expansion plans in Mexico. As if that wasn’t enough, the São Paulobased firm also is dealing with a polypropylene feedstocks supply issue while digesting the purchase of two separate PP businesses. Green PE “is a very interesting niche product,” Braskem America CEO Fernando Musa said in an interview at NPE2012. “It’s been sold mostly into packaging markets. There’s a lot of demand in Asia, but demand in North America is growing as well.” Braskem’s initial 440 million-pound-capacity plant in Brazil already is operating at more than half of capacity, and the firm is studying a second plant there as well. A pilot plant making sugar-based Green PP See Braskem, Page 66 Thursday INSIDE Daily xxx xxx UPG acquisition gives MedPlast China plants . . . Page 3 IceTech uses motorcycle to lure visitors. . . . . . . . Page 6 xxx xxx Molder Venture Plastics buys third plant . . . . . . . Page 8 Page X Check out our online NPE coverage at plasticsnews.com Page X Check out Plastics News’ daily news updates at http://www.plasticsnews.com photo Plastics News  http://www.plasticsnews.com

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Plastics News Show Daily - April 5, 2012

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