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.

There will be an extraordinary range of new auxiliary equipment on display at the show.

Most of the developments will focus on in-line systems.

Continuous in-line packaging systems headed up the K 2010 thermoforming news as suppliers launched a range of roll-fed systems with greater capacity, more flexibility, and improved automation.

At K 2010, thermoformers will be greeted by numerous advances in inline machines for packaging.

When you’re a successful injection molder with more than 40 years under your belt and more than 50 presses producing 1.8 billion containers and lids for food-packaging containers annually, what do you do when you feel the time is right to expand?

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

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.

After several fits and starts over the last decade, thermoforming IML appears ready for prime time, thanks to improvements in output and labeling technology. For now, the action is mostly in European packaging.

A merger in Germany creates a new force in plastics machinery.

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

Like many other NPE exhibitors, thermoforming equipment suppliers are taking less machinery to this year’s Chicago event.

Innovations in thermoforming at K 2004 included new twin-sheet technology for automotive fuel tanks, a highly flexible and modular "plug-and-play" industrial vacuum former, and a range of high-speed units for cups and packaging.

Gearless extrusion, cryogenic profile calibration, wireless data communications, and automatic start-up of blown film lines are just a few of the new ways to raise efficiency and output that were highlighted at NPE.

High-speed packaging systems dominated thermoforming news in Dusseldorf. A new shallow-draw, servo-driven system promises to make formed PP deli lids competitive with injection molded LLDPE. Other new machines use electric servo motors to speed forming of PS, PE, and PET packaging.

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.

The buzz in thermoforming at K'98 was actually more like a hum--the sound of electric servo motors driving every motion of new or redesigned roll-fed machines. Greater speed and accuracy are said to result from the shift away from pneumatics and hydraulics, an evolution that was evident at the show in many different types of plastics machinery. A line of Dutch machines now sold in the U.S. also comes with servo drive.