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NPE

SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association has announced that "it's official", NPE2015's exhibition space has surpassed every past outing in the event's history.

Based on the number of exhibitors set to take their place on the show floor so far, booths will fill over 106,000 m sq of space - the amount used at NPE2000 - the largest NPE on the books until now.

More companies than this are anticipated to join the party, however, and SPI anticipates an additional 930 m sq to be occupied before the show throws wide its doors on March 23rd.

Gene Sanders, SPI’s Senior Vice-President of Trade Shows and Conferences commented: "With so many exhibitors operating equipment, the show floor will be a dynamic panorama of manufacturing in action. Visitors will encounter a host of opportunities to see demonstrations of the latest technologies and materials up close and to interact with equipment and product experts. It will offer buyers the rare opportunity to test before they invest."

Companies set to exhibit at NPE2015 have cited the success of NPE2012 and the ongoing growth of the plastics industry on an international scale as their reasoning behind investing in this year's outing. Machinery and equipment companies have reserved larger booths in which to display and operate more of their hardware, with Milacron Inc. taking on 2,285 m sq of space - the largest stand NPE has ever seen.

 Overall, more than 600 organisations will have machinery on their booths, with some 400 of these being operating systems, which will be running live to demonstrate their real-world capabilities. 

SPI recently surveyed the equipment companies that have taken on the 50 largest booths at NPE, this is what some of them had to say:

Absolute HAITIAN will have a 25 per cent larger booth and more machines on display than at NPE2012, said Glenn Frohring, President. Four injection moulding machines will be in operation, including a high-speed all-electric unit for cap and closure production.

Branson Ultrasonic will have at least 21 fully-operating materials assembly stations for a cross section of end markets, incorporating vibration, ultrasonic, laser, infrared, and spin welders. "Due to Branson’s success at NPE2012, we made a commitment to expand on our footprint at NPE2015 to introduce the latest technologies to the world stage," said Jeff Frantz, North American Director of Marketing and Product Development.

Engel will have one more moulding cell than at NPE2012 and operate eight in all, showing solutions for automotive, medical, packaging, teletronics and technical molding applications. One of the systems on show will be for moulding a geometrically optimised, stress-resistant brake pedal based on a new process developed in partnership with ZF-Friedrichshafen. Using a vertical insert molding machine with a multi-axis industrial robot and infrared oven, a continuous-fibre-reinforced thermoplastic semi-finished product (known as thermoplastic fabric) will be heated, preformed in a mould and immediately overmoulded with polyamide. The system produces ready-to-fit components; no cutting is necessary.

KraussMaffei Group has taken a bigger booth than in 2012 to demonstrate a broader range of innovations. Its KraussMaffei brand will include a process combining injection moulding and thermoforming of composite sheets. At the booth, the company will produce glass-reinforced nylon airbag housings in cycle times of 45 seconds. Showcasing the Netstal brand will be a moulding line producing 44-oz stadium cups and another producing 16-oz containers with cycles of 5.5 seconds on a 4 + 4 cavity mould.

Sumitomo (SHI) Demag will demonstrate nine machines, including one with which the company will attempt to beat the world speed record for production of water bottle caps. The machine will be running a 96-cavity hot runner mould. “Each hour, the machine will be producing over 180,000 lightweight 1.3-gram HDPE water bottle caps with tamper-evident band moulded by mechanical slides,” said Vice-President and COO John F. Martich III. “The sub-two-second cycle, the waterfall of 96 caps out of the mould, and the caps literally flying by on the IMDvista vision inspection system— it will definitely draw a crowd.”

UBE Machinery will show more equipment at NPE2015 due to the “great attendance and excellent response to NPE2012,” said David Bernardi, Senior Sales and Marketing Manager. Shown in operation, dry-cycling the clamp in 4 seconds, will be a 1,000-ton, fully servo hydraulic moulding machine, equipped with a SmartHeat barrel from Nordson Xaloy, that offers 70 per cent savings in electricity.

Wittmann Battenfeld has expanded its total show footprint by 10 per cent over NPE2012, said David Preusse, President. Shown in operation will be fully integrated, turnkey injection moulding cells. Also new will be a smartphone app that enables molders to monitor the status of all of their production cells and robots. “Most NPE2012 attendees remember Wittmann Battenfeld for out ‘Basketballer Robots,’ as still seen on our You Tube channel,” added Mr. Preusse. “This March there will be a no less spectacular and attention-grabbing event from our USA team!”

Yushin America will have about 30 per cent more space than in 2012 and double the number of injection moulding machine, said Ronald Bryant, equipment sales manager. “Attendees have requested more running cells versus static displays, so we have increased the overall number of robots operated by partner OEMs throughout the West Hall.”