Building a new plant in 2003 gave Lyle Schut a clean slate.

Exhibitors at this year’s show introduced an assortment of new machines and upgraded models with designs incorporating the latest in mechanical, hydraulic, and electronic technologies.

Shift from private to capital ownership give Tray-Pak a boost.

There will be fewer thermoforming machines on display at NPE 2003 than at many recent NPEs.

"We tend to jump on things early," says John Kittredge. "F-K has been a pioneer in a number of things. Our earliest example was converting HDPE margarine tubs to ABS. After that we were a leader in thermoforming polypropylene, and then APET." Now it's PLA biopolymer.

NPE had its share of innovations in thermoforming, notably a new machine that opens the small-bottle market to thermoformers. New trim stations offer more in the way of output and versatility. And more machines are now outfitted with off-the-shelf controls to facilitate servicing. A line of formers from Australia also arrived in the U.S. (Note: additional NPE thermoforming news appeared in May and June—see Learn More box.)

For thermoforming of both heavy-gauge sheet and thin-gauge packaging, the show will present new machines with unusual flexibility, able to form a wide variety of products and materials.

A new continuous roll-fed machine for high-precision forming and a flexible pressure former for prototyping were among the highlights of the recent 18th Annual SPE Thermoforming Conference in Minneapolis.

EPCO Machinery LLC, a remanufacturer of injection and blow molding machinery, has moved from its former Freemont, Ohio, plant to the Brown Machine facility in Beaverton, Mich.

Brown Machine LLC, Beaverton,, Mich., and automation specialist DJS Systems Inc., Homer, Mich., have teamed up to offer a novel lid production system that incorporates a servo-actuated trim press and a three-tier lid automation and packaging system.

An innovative design provides up to four tag slots within the rim of horticulture containers without the use of fragile, high-cost pre-punches and dies or time-consuming and costly secondary operations.

New long-stroke horizontal trim presses from Brown Machine LLC, Beaverton, Mich., are designed with extra stroke length to pre-punch and trim deep-draw containers in a progressive-trim application.

A new corner-guided forming station is available for CS and SRS continuous thermoformers from Brown Machine LLC, Beaverton, Mich.

A servo-driven horizontal trim press that reportedly increases flexibility in part handling and permits fully automated packaging was introduced at the recent NPE show by Brown Machine LLC, Beaverton, Mich.

Several new processing technologies unveiled at NPE point to thermoforming’s growing capability to produce in-mold labeled and decorated plastic parts.

The industry’s first quick-release mold-clamping system for cut-sheet machines made its debut this fall at the SPE’s 15th annual Thermoforming Conference in Milwaukee.

Ever wonder what it would be like to get tomorrow’s newspaper today? After reviewing the most important technical developments of the past 50 years in our October issue, we asked industry experts to help us imagine the biggest headlines in plastics from now to 2055. What we got was a mixture of predictions of what will happen and a wish list of what should happen.

Soaring interest in in-mold finishing techniques for injection molding and fiber-reinforced composites offers new prospects for cut-sheet formers.

Thermoforming equipment displays at K 2001 focus on innovations in trim-in-place packaging, especially for PP food containers. There is also action in improving productivity of heavy-gauge industrial forming machinery.

Thermoformed Products Inc. (TPI) in Muskegon, Mich., has always been a large-parts specialist.