Plastics & Rubber World - May/June 2019 - 36

case study

Partnership paves the way
Companies come together
to create a moulding line
for Amaray, believed to be
the most advanced of its
type in the world

The Sumitomo (SHI) Demag
El-Exis machine used in the
project has 580 tonnes of
clamping force

Wipe packaging lid produced using the
new production line at Amaray

If you challenge yourself
to think differently, you
can be more disruptive
Rick Ormerod, Amaray

Polymer is injected between the two
plates for distribution across 24 cavities

WWW.PRW.COM | MAY/JUNE 2019

maray is a series manufacturer of
plastic packaging for a variety of
customers across a series of market sectors. The company, which has UK
facilities in Corby, Northamptonshire, was
tasked with producing an advanced lid
solution for a wet wipe product, the design of which needed to include a series
of innovative features which had to be
moulded as a single component, with assembly and decoration taking place in a
seamless process.
The company did extensive market
research with parents and carers to understand how they could structurally improve upon the existing and widespread
rigid pop up lid concept used with most
wipe products, as Rick Ormerod, head of
technology at the moulding company, explains.
"Wipes are a classic, on-the-go product
where convenience and accessibility are
paramount. During the design and trial
phases, users repeatedly emphasised
the dexterity challenges they face when
changing or cleaning a wriggling child.
Above all else, they desired a secure lid
that stopped wipes from drying out to
save on waste, yet could be opened and
closed with one finger."
In preparing for production, Amaray
considered a series of partner companies. Ormerod picks up the story: "We
intentionally chose suppliers that could
bring fresh thinking and were leaders in
their respective fields. This was our first
UK Sumitomo (SHI) Demag installation to
join our fleet of 38 injection moulding machines. The team were key in selecting the
exact machinery specifications needed
to create a fully automated, streamlined
packaging production line."
The Sumitomo (SHI) Demag machine
selected for the job was the ultra-high
speed, 580-tonne EI-Exis SP, fitted with

a multi-cavity 12+12 stack mould. An integrated high-speed IML Waldorf Technik
robot places each label into the mould,
and then removes and closes each of the
24 hinged lids upon extraction. This has to
be done with speed, while the polypropylene is still malleable.
Each lid is then placed on the conveyor where they undergo individual quality
checks completed by an automated vision system. A robot then creates stacks
of lids which are passed to a bander, at
which point the stacks are fed into an automated wrapper to create bricks of lids
for loading onto a pallet.
Although more productive, using a
12+12 stack mould presented a tooling
and processing challenge. Sumitomo (SHI)
Demag's UK packaging expert Kevin Heap
explains: "Creating the flip-like hinge was
a challenge as the tooling needed to accommodate varying depths of raw material. Unlike a single-face tool, the polymer
is injected in the centre between the two
plates and has to be evenly distributed in
all 24 cavities."
Additionally, using a two-face, 12+12
stack mould in conjunction with the IML
system meant that 24 cavities were opening at the same time. This meant the
Waldorf Technik side-entry robot had to
accurately place package labels within
fractions of a second. "Typically, packaging moulders use a single-face mould
with a maximum of twelve cavities when
integrating an IML system," says Heap.
"Amaray's installation doubled the complexity. To insert labels on both tool faces
required a much larger robotic system."
Upon removal from the mould, the robot then needed to place the packaging
lids on a conveyor in preparation for quality checks covering dimension and label
accuracy. The vision system, cameras and
software were supplied by Mevisco.

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Plastics & Rubber World - May/June 2019

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