As you walk the NPE show floor, you might be hypnotized by the city-block-long injection molding machines ejecting plastic parts with metronomic precision, dazzled by blown film machines reaching to the sky, and entertained by robots performing their intricate choreography, to name a few of the main attractions. But you know as well as anyone that it takes a supporting cast of auxiliary equipment to keep your plastics processing operation…
Arburg set the initial course for its “local-to-local” activities back in 2020, with the opening of the Arburg Technology Factory (ATF) in Pinghu, China, near Shanghai. Initially, activities focused on adapting Allrounder machines to customer-specific requirements and implementing turnkey systems in cooperation with local suppliers of molds and peripheral equipment. This was followed in 2023 by the Flexlift linear robotic system and now the Allrounder Golden Electric EVO. Both product…
Frustrated by long lead times for the heat-shrink tubing needed for its catheter production, Putnam Plastics Corp. decided to bring that capability in house. Now, it has added FEP heat-shrink tubing to its portfolio of products for the medical manufacturing supply chain. Bonding and contamination issues eliminated. The 40-year veteran of extrusion services for makers of minimally invasive devices said that, unlike some other products in the marketplace, its FEP…