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- Visit us here: 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 SHOW DAILY http://www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com http://www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com/usa http://www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com/china http://www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com http://www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com

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