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New Line Adds Capacity
6/11/2008
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Steve Crimmin
Danafilms, Inc.
Phone: 800-634-8289
Fax: 508-898-0106
Email: scrimmin@danafilms.com
Website: www.danafilms.com
New Line Adds Capacity and Improves Quality for Danafilms Customers
[Westborough, MA June 11, 2008] As part of an aggressive program of continuous improvement and growth, Danafilms, Inc., upgraded its Westborough plant with another high precision Gloucester Engineering blown film line. “Our investment ensures our customers get a better, more consistent product on time,” said Steve Crimmin, Danafilms’ Sales Manager. “We were already known for the high quality of our polyethylene films, but we’re always aiming higher. We want to eliminate any downtime customers might have due to film issues. Our goal is to constantly improve the customer’s efficiencies and throughput.” The new line will add more than five million pounds of additional capacity.
To provide that consistency, the new system includes an Autoprofile® air ring system. This automatic gauge control system monitors and corrects the thickness of the blown film as it exits the die to keep it in extremely tight tolerances. It adjusts the thickness of the film by firing heated air from 96 heating components at exact locations on the surface of the bubble. The heating components interface with an Extrol microprocessor via an online thickness gauge. These air jets thin the bubble wall where required to guarantee consistency. “We find that tolerances are improved by 30% to 40% over non-automatic gauge control lines,” Crimmin said.
“Our new systems also include winders that will handle roll widths up to 78” and up to 40” in diameter. This will reduce the number of changeovers for our customers with long runs,” Crimmin said. “We’ve added internal bubble cooling to increase our throughput so that we can always keep up with demand. And everything is computer controlled for quality and consistency.”
A gravimetric blending system also improves quality. The system blends resins by weight. Since resins have different densities, weight provides greater consistency than volume. Consistency of blend can be critical to converters, not only for appearance but for throughput on the line. The blend of slip additives to control the Coefficient of Friction, for instance, can be critical.
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Other plant improvements include oscillating hauloffs on three other blown film lines to evenly distribute any gauge imperfections. This allows the film to enter, wrap and exit as a flat web. The improved roll quality increases uptime for high-speed printing and conversion.
Danafilms, Inc., has been manufacturing polyethylene films since 1970. Today it supplies converters with both monolayer and multi-layer coextruded films. With plants in Westborough, MA and Franklin, KY, Danafilms provides custom films designed to process well and to stand up to the rigors of laminating, printing, coating and converting.
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