Your Business in Brief - January 2003

SIG Plastics Buys Ryka Blow Molds

Swiss-based SIG Beverages, parent of SIG Plastics Technologies (USA) Inc., North Branch, N.J., has acquired Ryka Blow Molds Ltd. in Mississauga, Ont. The move strengthens SIG’s role as an integrated supplier of blow molding equipment in North America, providing it with its first tool-building capacity here for stretch-blow and extrusion blow molding.
Ryka designs and builds tools for one- and two-stage stretch-blow molding of PET, extrusion blown containers, and industrial parts.

In a separate move, SIG also plans to cease building SIG Kautex industrial blow molding machines at its New Jersey facility, although it will maintain sales and service there. Kautex machines will be built only in Germany.

 

Xaloy Buys Spirex Twin-Barrel Assets

Xaloy Inc., Pulaski, Va., has bought the former Progressive Alloys twin-screw extruder barrel business and assets from Spirex Corp., Youngstown, Ohio. The operations of Progressive Alloys will move from Lynchburg, Va., to Xaloy’s Pulaski site. Spirex will concentrate on components for single-screw extrusion and injection molding.

Dow Automotive Plays New Role As a Custom Injection Molder

Dow Automotive of Auburn Hills, Mich., a business unit of Dow Plastics, is trying something new: injection molding and assembling automotive parts and modules at a car assembly plant in Brazil. This is the first known case of a major polymer supplier entering the automotive injection molding field.
Dow Automotive has begun to make parts at a 129,000-sq-ft facility in Ford Motor Co.’s industrial park near Salvador, in Bahia State, northeastern Brazil. The park is dedicated to making Ford Fiestas for domestic and export markets. Dow says its new “pellet-to-part” service supports its role as “materials integrator” at the Ford site. “This aligns us with a strategic customer at one of the automotive industry’s leading industrial parks,” says Bob Rogowski, director of Dow’s Integrated Sites Unit, which will manage the molding facility. Dow installed 12 Engel injection presses that range from 330 to 2530 tons. Also in place are a paint line, glass-bonding equipment using Dow’s Betaseal polyurethane adhesives, and ultrasonic and hot-plate welders.

The major materials to be used at the molding site are Dow’s own polypropylene resins and compounds, including TPOs and glass- and talc-filled PPs compounded at a Dow facility near Sao Paulo. Among the 20 parts to be molded by Dow are front and rear fascias, interior and exterior trim, floor consoles, instrument panels, wheel-well liners, and radiator grilles. Parts will be delivered on a just-in-time basis to the adjacent Ford assembly line.

In explaining Dow’s forward integration into molding, Rogowski says it puts the company in close contact with Ford and such associated suppliers as Visteon and Faurecia. It also helps Dow keep on top of new developments in automotive molding.

 

Farrel Buys Mixers From Skinner Engine

Farrel Corp., Ansonia, Conn., has purchased the technology and related assets of the Polymer Mixer Business of Skinner Engine Co. of Erie, Pa. Skinner produced twin-rotor intensive mixers similar to Farrel’s Banbury mixers.

Cinpres Gas Injection Moves

Cinpres Gas Injection, Inc. has moved into a new facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The new address is 3915 Research Park Drive, Suite A-4, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Telephone, fax, and e-mail remain the same.

Rheometric Sells Rheometer Line

Rheometric Scientific, Inc., Piscataway, N.J., a maker of computer-controlled materials test systems, has agreed to sell its rheology instruments and services business to Waters Corp.’s TA Instruments Div. in New Castle, Del. TA Instruments supplies rheology and thermal-analysis test instruments. Rheometric will henceforth focus on its life-sciences business.