Plastics News Daily Report - May 10, 2018 - 16

16 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 10, 2018

Emerging markets, shale and supplier partners fuel Sekisui SPI
Shale gas in the U.S., the emerging middle class in Asia and the rise
of mass customization in manufacturing are fueling opportunities for
compounder Sekisui Polymer Innovations LLC.
The Bloomsburg, Pa.-based
company, a unit of Japan's Sekisui
Chemical Co., has re-engineered its
manufacturing in the last six years
- and is investing $24 million this
year in its U.S. factories - to handle the quick response manufacturing needed in both Asian markets
like aviation and new entrants in
industrial manufacturing like Tesla
and Google.
The company is using NPE2018
to detail those investments and
note the role that its industry suppliers have played in developing
new equipment to help it dramatically shorten its lead times and be
much more flexible.
Chief Operating Officer and President Ronn Cort said that since
2012, the company's average order size has dropped from 1,700
pounds with a lead time of four
weeks to 600 pounds and a lead
time of 12 days.
"With 3 billion people moving
into the middle class over the next
10-15 years, they are skipping, they
need to skip, the traditional metal
to fiberglass to plastics journey
and they're going to jump right into
plastics," Cort said.

Plastics News photo by Michael A. Marcotte

By Steve Toloken
Plastics News Staff

Ronn Cort, chief operating officer and president of Sekisui Polymer Innovations LLC.

BOOTH S30119
SEKISUI POLYMER
INNOVATIONS LLC
"In the next 10 years, half of all
the aircraft being built will be delivered in Asia," he said.
And they'll want those plastics
much faster. The company's end
markets in Asia include supplying

plastic materials to aviation and
mass transit.
"The Middle East and Asia, their
product cycle in an aircraft may be
two or three years, where in North
America it's seven or nine years,"
Cort said. "These really small batch
and these really short lead times
become critical for them."
As an example, he said, the company supplies materials for large
Chinese airlines China Southern

and China Eastern.
"They're in rapid competition
with each other to develop the
brand leadership in these emerging
markets," he said. "They're constantly renovating and constantly
upgrading. They're in a brand contest to win the hearts and minds of
the Chinese middle class."
The rapid response time is the
same with customers like Tesla and
Google.

"Without getting too specific, we
supply some plastics to both Tesla
and Google," Cort said. "Their expectation of how quickly we can
iterate is completely different than
traditional industries.
"The Elon Musks of the world
and the Googles of the world, as
they move into industrial hardware, they are not looking for legacy suppliers," he said.
Three things are making it possible for Sekisui SPI to respond, Cort
said: Shale gas in the United States
making resin and energy costs
globally competitive, a renewed
focus on developing its workforce
and its suppliers developing new
equipment.
The company issued a press release at the show noting how its
suppliers have redesigned their
equipment to meet Sekisui's rapid
product development cycles.
For example, it's spending $8.4
million on a new 80-foot blending
tower, with suppliers like Schenck
Process (Booth W2683) and Greiner Extrusion (Booth S24035) that
will let Sekisui automate its small
custom color batch manufacturing.
As well, it's spending $4.4 million
with Milacron (Booth W2703) for
new PVC extrusion lines at its factories.
"Our strategy is to partner with
our suppliers to help them reinvent
their existing equipment to help
us make ever smaller production
batches and shorter lead times,"
Cort said.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News Daily Report - May 10, 2018
