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Advanced Films Are Your Competitive Edge
July 18, 2011
Danafilms invites you for a look inside, from the eyes of coextrusion technical manager Aaron LaPointe.
How did your education and technical experience help you succeed as Danafilms’ first coextrusion technical manager and help Danafilms become a trusted supplier for coextruded films?I feel very fortunate to be able to offer what I feel is a good mix of education and technical experience. I attended the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and then Michigan State. Additionally, I have been working in the industry for over 15 years, primarily as a development engineer for coextruded products, but also as an analyst for quality control in a lab setting, and I even have some time on the production floor.
My experience working in production has been the most helpful because, as I see it, you can’t develop products well unless you first know the equipment on which they will run. Fortunately for me, I’ve worked with so many great people who helped me develop a good understanding of what will run, and how it can be run most efficiently—so I now bring a very strong nuts-and-bolts understanding of film.
No matter what film we develop, we first have to know that it will consistently and productively run on our equipment. Just as importantly, that it can be consistently and productively converted by our customers, and their customers. And that’s where my mechanical engineering background really comes in: understanding line speeds, fill weights, and how to blend resins or stack up layers to get a specific end result in film.
What is a typical day in the shoes of the coextrusion technical manager for Danafilms like?Really, this position is about efficiently managing multiple projects, for multiple customers working with multiple salespeople. These projects all are looking to meet different and equally important deadline times, too, so it’s important that I keep all of them moving forward. Often they begin with extensive analysis work, then move in to product development or selection, and through to the scheduling of incoming raw materials and our production lines, and finally shipping materials off to our converter.
One minute, I may be answering an email to help one of our sales people develop a film, and then next a phone call to help lay out testing on another product. And all of this happens while I head out the door to visit an end user to help bring more efficiency to a filling line. But the key to success with all of this is knowing how to keep different types of projects with various stages of completion always moving forward.
What are the challenges—and along with that, the rewards—that go with engineering more customized films for Danafilms’ clients?The biggest reward, really, is seeing an end product either in use, on a store shelf, and knowing that our company is responsible for putting it there. That’s a good feeling.
An ongoing challenge is keeping up with the push for sustainability and making a better, more efficient version of an existing product. What are the best ways to use all of our resources to engineer sustainability and lower costs? And still improve upon the performance of existing products at the same time? That’s a challenge with almost every film; but also an opportunity to realize that reward of seeing a better Danafilms’ product on a store shelf.
What do you do to ensure that both you and Danafilms stay informed about the latest film technologies and how to best apply those to customized films?We get lots of support and a steady stream of information from our suppliers. Whenever something new or cutting edge comes out, it's usually going to come from our machine suppliers or resin suppliers.
To our recent great advantage as well, we now also have a tremendous technical resource in RKW-Group, our new parent company. There’s great value in this relationship for both Danafilms and for our customers. It’s really nice knowing that I can pick up the phone anytime and talk to one of my peers in the RKW technical department. Similarly, RKW also brings a lot of complimentary and new technology, which we look forward to being able to offer more to all of our Danafilms’ customers.