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.

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.

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?

Most of the news to be found at NPE in post-consumer recycling comes from Europe and concerns direct recycling of PET flake into sheet without repelletizing.

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

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.

There was plenty of news in thermoforming at K 2007 as suppliers rolled out continuous roll-fed packaging systems with greater output, enhanced cooling, reduced air consumption, and more automation.

Continuous in-line packaging systems will be the main emphasis in thermoforming at K 2007.

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.

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

Thermoforming machine supplier OMV-USA has opened a laboratory and technical center at its headquarters in Elkhorn, Wis.

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.

Thermoforming innovations at K 2004 include several new trim-in-place units for packaging, the first in-line packaging system with an infrared scanner that automatically adjusts oven temperatures. and improved halogen heating that works better with preprinted sheet.High-speed packagingIllig of Germany will introduce the RDK 80, a high-speed automatic trim-in-place pressure former whose advanced servomotor control is said to allow very precise setting of variable platen strokes and speeds.

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.

New capabilities for continuous roll-fed forming machinery were unveiled at NPE. They include forming heavier sheet, forming lids with a tamper-evident band, and producing in-mold decorating preforms with preprinted sheet. Tooling also advanced with a new and easier way to keep the forming inserts and trim-in-place punch level after the punch is sharpened.