Plastics News K Show Daily - October 19, 2013 - (Page 7)
PLASTICS NEWS, October 19/20, 2013
7
Bridging the skills gap
with control technology
By James Snodgrass
EUROPEAN PLASTICS NEWS
DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY - The technical knowledge of blown film machine operators is in decline, according to Gloucester Engineering
Co. Inc. (Hall 14/A-8) of Gloucester, Mass. Gloucester's solution is
Symphonix, a control system
with an icon-led, touch-screen interface, launched in 2011.
This skills gap is particularly
apparent in emerging markets
where rapid growth has found extruders looking to other developing world markets to hire lowercost operators.
"We now have three or four of
these [Symphonix controllers] in
the field now, operationally. I've
just come back from the Far East
and a line we have out there is using the system. The Far East is an
important market for us," said
Mark Jones, product group director for flat dies. "If you look at the
economic growth you see relatively little in the United States,
not so much in Europe, but
there's a lot of growth in Asia.
And you're seeing that partly because they're moving into markets that they didn't originally
have, so there's a lack of machinery over there.
"We're also seeing what machinery there is, a lot of it is old
and not competitive. So they're
investing in new equipment. A
company I was working with that
has our new line has a lot of exports which are coming back to
Europe. They're buying new lines
so they can compete in the European marketplace."
Bill Helmuth, product group director for blown film, said he believes the Symphonix concept is a
giant leap from Gloucester's pre-
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Hall 16
Stand B19
vious control system, Extrol.
"Extrol was so far ahead of its
time in the '80s and '90s, but now
a lot of competitors are offering
the same types of features.
"The whole thrust behind Symphonix is for it to have most, if
not more, of the features that Extrol has, and which integrates a
lot of the auxiliary equipment
into a single system, but also to
make it more touch screen and
contemporary-looking as well as
using an off-the-shelf, standard
operating system."
Jones continued: "Across the
world, the level of skill of the operators is dropping. The era
when you had high-tech people
who really knew what they were
doing is more or less gone. If you
go to a developing-world country
you'll find the operators come
from another developing-world
See Gloucester, Page 38
Helmuth, left, and Jones from Gloucester Engineering
examine a Flex 2 cross-rail punch from Pearl.
Plastics News photo by Catherine Seidel
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