Plastics News Daily Report - May 10, 2018 - 4

4 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 10, 2018

Coperion 'thinking into the future' with virtual experience
Coperion is showing customers
how activities like operator training, machine troubleshooting and
plant layout can take place without having to be, well, physically
there.
It doesn't require time travel
or challenging theories from the
late, great Stephen Hawking, but
it does require a certain level of
trust and bravery as you strap
something that could be described as "a video game console
for your eyes" over your head and
exit this world to enter a computer-generated one.
"What the virtual reality experience does is it actually gets you
into a full production line where
all our equipment would be, so if
you're not familiar with loading
a silo or the silo itself, you could
point and click and go up on top
of the silo and check out how the
piping would go into the silo,"
John Winski, director of sales for
Coperion K-Tron in Sewell, N.J.,
said during a May 8 booth tour.
"If you go down to the silo
ground level, you could see
the valves," he explained. "You
could see how the material flows
through the valves by sticking
your head inside of the valve and
seeing what's going on - in this
case, without getting hurt."
Coperion K-Tron is part of Coperion's equipment and systems
division. Parent company Coperion GmbH is based in Stuttgart,

Plastics News photo by Joe Wilssens

By Audrey LaForest
Plastics News Staff

Coperion K-Tron Director of Sales John Winski, right, gives a plant virtual reality demonstration at NPE2018.
Coperion designed the virtual plant demonstration to be a look at how future plants can be configured and
operated in a virtual space.

BOOTH W729
COPERION
Germany.
With virtual reality, customers
have the opportunity to not only
look at an extruder system, but
also see what is going on inside.

"You can see the raw material
in solid form being melted within
the extruder and then coming out
at the end of the extruder, prior
to going in the pelletizer," Winski
said. "And then you can actually
see what it's like going through
the pelletizer."
It also allows operators to get
familiar with unfamiliar equip-

ment in what is perceived as real
time and also helps with setting
up and positioning additional
process lines for seamless installation at a plant.
"It gives the user the ability to
say, 'What are the limitations?
Do I have enough space to pull
equipment away or am I too close
and I have to change my layout?'"

he said. "It gives the user a lot of
flexibility."
For companies with multiple facility locations, especially globally, access to a virtual reality plant
can make troubleshooting across
continents a much simpler task
as well.
"If I were to be sitting in Houston and I have a problem in China, I can [use the virtual reality
plant] to go in and see what's
happening," Winski said. "If it's
a processing problem, I can put
myself in there and troubleshoot
remotely."
If you expand it further into Industry 4.0 standards, he added,
it provides even more flexibility
for preventive maintenance and a
better understanding of how your
equipment is running.
But for those looking to maintain some of their true lives, the
company is also showing various
applications of augmented reality
- no headset required.
Shari Lake, Coperion K-Tron's
director of marketing, showed
how augmented reality can display additional imagery, data and
process information by scanning
a QR code on certain machinery, such as the company's STS
35 Mc11 twin-screw extruder for
masterbatch, for example.
"It helps us explain a few things
about the processes. ... It's a
great way to communicate how
equipment works without having
to [physically] go inside it," she
said. "It's thinking forward, thinking into the future."

By Frank Esposito
Plastics News Staff
RTP Co. plans to reopen a
compounding plant in Dayton,
Nev., by the end of the year.
The Winona, Minn.-based
compounder also has growth
projects in Wisconsin and Poland and is showcasing several
product grades at NPE2018.
The Dayton plant will reopen
by the end of the year, company
executive Jean Sirois said in a
May 9 interview at the show. The
site is needed to improve RTP's
access to the U.S. West Coast
and to better serve its customers there, he added.
In Portage, Wis., RTP will add
new capacity for high-volume
compounding by the end of the
year. The firm's new plant in
Wroclaw, Poland, is set to begin
production by the end of the
summer, according to Sirois,
who serves as global director of
strategic planning and acquisitions and as general manager of
the firm in Canada.
The 86,000-square-foot Wroclaw site will be RTP's third in
Europe, joining plants in France
and Germany. The new plant has
room for as many as six extrusion lines and is expected to employ at least 25.

Plastics News photo by Michael A. Marcotte

RTP to reopen Nevada
compounding plant
BOOTH S22091
RTP CO.
At NPE2018, RTP is focused on
three product areas:
* Carbon-fiber compounds,
which are lighter, stiffer and
stronger than glass-filled compounds. The materials provide a
lightweight alternative to metal
and glass-fiber compounds without sacrificing strength or performance.
* High-temperature solutions
that improve performance at elevated temperatures, including
retention of physical properties,
chemical resistance, and dimensional stability for autoclaving,
reflow and high continuous use
applications.
* Abrasion-resistant alloys
that demonstrate abrasion resistance comparable to ultrahigh
molecular weight polyethylene
but are designed specifically for
injection molding. These alloys
are available in multiple resin
and additive combinations to
provide wear and friction resistance, flame retardancy and conductivity.
In addition to organic growth,
RTP continues to be on the lookout for new acquisitions. In

Jean Sirois, director of strategic planning and acquisitions at RTP Co.

The 86,000-square-foot Wroclaw site will be RTP's third in
Europe, joining plants in France and Germany. The new plant
has room for as many as six extrusion lines and is expected to
employ at least 25.
2015, the firm purchased Polymer Partners LLC, a maker of
black compounds and concentrates in Henderson, Ky.
"We're looking for good com-

panies that would fit in well with
our corporate culture," Sirois
said.
RTP is one of North America's
30 largest compounders and

concentrate makers, according
to Plastics News data. The firm
operates 19 plants worldwide,
making compounds based on 60
different engineering resins.

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