Taiwan Makers Grow Keeping Quality Up, Efficiency High

Taiwan's makers of plastic extruding equipment are focusing on machines that offer high output and parsimonious use of materials this year, responding to the search for greater economy and efficiency in the wake of the recent wild rises in the price of oil.

Since most plastic materials are taken from crude oil, plastic prices tend to follow oil prices. The recent sharp increases in plastic prices have put a damper on demand, dealing a heavy blow to Taiwanese makers of plastic extrusion equipment.

The industry is important to Taiwan, which is the world's sixth-biggest supplier of plastic extrusion equipment, after Japan, Germany, Italy, the Untied States, and France.

Some of the island's manufacturers say that hope to spark demand by offering machines that produce more while using less plastic material.

Unique Ability

Cheer Young Machinery Works Co., Ltd. For example, is pushing its feature-laden, water-cooled downstream two-layer co-extrusion blown film machine, which debuted late last year.

The machine is especially suited to the food processing industry. It has two screws to force plastic film made up of PP and PE layers through three molds, making it more economical compared with the more common machines that use three screws.

Another cost-saving feature of the machine is a downstream blower. The company's sales manager, Teresa Kuo, says that upstream blower designs are usually limited to using a few specific of PP materials, whereas machines with a downstream blower design can use a wide range of PP and allow the choice of less expensive materials.

Kuo stresses that what makes her company's machine truly unique, however, is its ability to combine PP and PE film, allowing users to produce bags that incorporate the advantages of both materials. "PP is known for its excellent transparency, " she explains, "while PE has excellent waterproofing and insulation properties. But providing both quality and transparency requires a water-cooled system."

A digital tensiometer allows users of the machine to reduce waste in printing and laminating treatment when tensile strength needs to be taken into consideration during extrusion. Tensile strength is set on a liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitor, which is part of the control system, and a pressure sensor in the machine's screw system detects extrusion pressure. Wastes can be reclaimed directly through the screw system, eliminating the need for crushing machines.

Control of temperature and materials feed is digitized, giving operators a safe and convenient environment. Thanks to the use of servo inverter motors, the machine wastes barely 5% of the electricity passing through it, compared with 30% or so that is wasted by brushless direct-current motors, Kuo insists.

The machine comes with manual systems to cater to markets where knowledge of automation is weak. Options available for the machine include an automatic feed system, surface treatment system, and waste-collecting system. The six-foot-tall machine extrudes about one kilogram of product per hour, about the same as other comparable machine

Among Cheer Young's smart machines are a two-layer co-extrusion machine and a three-layer co-extrusion machine (designed for producing packaging films for users who require a highly uniform thickness) with a touch-screen control panel for the drive motors and an Internet-linked camcorder on the dies. Users can send real-time processing data to customers over the Internet, or by fax.

The two-layer co-extrusion blown-film machine, unlike the three-layer model, is equipped with a patented stand-alone rewinder that has a unique front-flying cutter to keeps the front side of the film from jamming into the roller bearings when it is cut. "This is a cost-efficient design, " Kuo stresses, "because it helps reduce waste film."

The company spends 5% of its revenues on the development of new machines. Thanks to its highly proficient R&D department, it has won the CE mark from Germany's TUV and expects ISO certification soon.

Kuo says that the soaring price of oil has had an impact on procurement willingness in the market for plastic processing equipment. As a result, she goes on, "Our business began slipping in the second half of last year. Although we feel that our business will climb in the current half, the growth will be slow compared with the same period of 2004." She feels, too, that users are adapting well to the situation, so that the impact will not be as great this year as it was as last year.

Poly's Machine Full of Sheet

Poly Machinery Works Co., Ltd. Recently introduced expanded PE foamed sheet and expanded PE foamed tube machines featuring cost and output efficiencies.

Foamed sheet is used to protect electronic equipment such as computers and TV sets from being scratched, while foamed tubes are used to cover heating and air-conditioning pipes for insulation purposes.

The sheet-making machine can turn out 400 kilograms per hour, with a density of 18 to 20 kg per cubic meter. Compared with older models, says the company's chairman, Chang Jin-chiu, "This machine turns out around 100 kg of products more per hour." Similar efficiencies are provided by the foam tube machine.

The new machines have a human-machine interface and programmable local control (PLC) units that make operation simple and less laborious.

The company introduced the machines last October and by March this year had shipped about five systems. The sheet-making machines go mainly to emerging economies, like India, that have small but rapidly developing electronics industries. The tube-making machines are aimed mostly at markets in the high latitudes, where they are needed to turn out products for heating and air-conditioning systems.

The two main product lines for Poly Machinery are foam machines and laminating machines. The company recently added an edge-trimming free-type laminating machine to its catalog; this machine, Chang emphasizes, reduces materials costs because it does not generate as much waste as other types of machines do.

Screws made of Italian chrome-molybdenum steel and dies made of German or Japanese alloys help make the company's machines especially durable. The machines are exported to Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, mainland China, Poland, the Ukraine, Southeast Asia, and Japan under the "Poly" brand.

In his industry, Chang notes, EPE has replaced EPS as the major plastic material used, since EPS presents pollution problems. The chairman does not expect his business to be affected by the high price of oil, thanks to the cost and production efficiency of his machines.

Chang reports that Poly Machinery will likely diversify into the production of furnaces for medical-waste incinerators, since it was recently contacted by a Japanese incinerator supplier about such products.


New Model Soon on the Block


Jenn Chong Plastics Machinery is currently testing a hollow-fiber extruding machine, which it expects to put on the market soon. The new machine requires a higher level of technology than the monofilament-extruding machines, which have provided much of the company's income in the past.

"The primary challenge of the new machine, " comments Jenn Chong's sales manager, James Huang, "is the ability to extrude complete hollow fibers, which tend to break." The fibers are used mainly to make nets for liquid filters, and for some high-end paint brushes.

The latest addition to the firm's monofilament-extruding line is the user-friendly JC-MNN65, which consists of an extruding unit, cooling unit, annealing unit, and take-off machine and comes with a co-speed control system that reduces manpower needs and, therefore, operating costs.

Jenn Chong was established in 1992 and now turns out products in four major categories: blown film machines, woven bag equipment, monofilament extruding lines, and net-making machine. The blown-film family of machines includes an HD/LDPE super-high-speed machine, HK/LDPE mini machine, LD/LLDPE machine, and PP blown-film machine.

Huang laments that the high oil prices have compounded competition in the market for plastic extruding machines, which was already intense because of the rapid rise of India and mainland China as suppliers.

To improve its products and processes, the company employs four product development specialists. One of their achievements is a recycling system that extrudes products using materials from PET bottles that are chopped into pieces instead of being melted into grains. Melting usually takes more work than chopping, Huang explains, and causes environmental problems as well.

ISO-9002 certification attests to the quality of Jenn Chong's products; and, Huang says, good quality and user-friendly design has helped development of the European market. Exports to that market, all under the "Jenn Chong" brand, have increased rapidly in recent years.


Prizing High Value Over Low Price

Chairman Cheng Wu-hsiung of Sengar Machinery Works Co., Ltd. Is proud of his PE/PET co-extrusion laminating machines and EPS foam-sheet machines, two new products that result from the firm's strategy of turning out high-added-value products to overcome the low-cost, low-quality, low-price competition.

Cheng claims that his is the first company in Taiwan to make PE/PET co-extrusion laminating machines for turning out lamination films that can withstand temperatures up to 200 degrees Celsius. Domestic competitors, the chairman stresses, "can produce machines that are able to tolerate 100 degrees at best."

The company bought the technology for making the new machine from an American company around a year ago, paying US$700, 000 for it.

Sengar's EPS foaming machine can produce 15-centimeter-thick foam boards for use as insulators and shock absorbers in buildings. Like the PE/PET co-extrusion laminating machine, the foaming machine is made with foreign technology. Cheng claims that his foaming machines sell for around NT$30 million (US$940, 000 at US$1:NT$32) each, compared with NT$100 million (US$3.12 million) for similar machines made in America.

The company focuses its sales mainly on overseas markets, including Indonesia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Despite pressure from low-cost rivals, Cheng is confident that his company has a bright future because buyers who need quality will remain loyal to suppliers of quality equipment. (Mar. 2005)