All Videos

Displayed chronologically (based on date of posting)

POY 2011: Rodon Group LLC
16th PN Processor of the Year - (February 1, 2012)
Rodon Group LLC of Hatfield, Pa., is a finalist for PN's Processor of the Year for 2011. Rodon, a 56-year-old custom injection molder, is widely known for K’Nex construction toys. But at its heart, Rodon specializes in small precision parts over long runs on 106 injection presses. Rodon proudly waves the American flag with its motto of “We Beat China Pricing.” How does it do that? By taking a disciplined approach of shoot-and-ship molding, eschewing assembly and hiring and retaining a highly skilled workforce. And don’t forget its extensive use of robots. The numbers are impressive: 106 molding machines; 88 Rodon employees. One operator runs 15 injection molding machines.

POY 2011: Bemis Manufacturing Co.
16th PN Processor of the Year - (February 1, 2012)
Bemis Manufacturing is a finalist for the 2011 PN Processor of the Year. Bemis, in Sheboygan Falls, Wis., has earned a reputation as a pioneering technological leader — especially in coinjection molding and its use of six-axis robots. And your head certainly does spin after a plant tour: On nearly all presses, a large, articulating-arm ABB robot removes parts from molds and does finishing operations such as degating, trimming and sanding. In many cases, that robot passes the part on to another six-axis robot for assembly right at the press, or part stacking. The company is known for large parts. Running a massive, 6,600-ton Milacron will generate that kind of attention: What is believed to be the world’s largest coinjection molding press turns out hoods for John Deere farm tractors and other big parts.

POY 2011: Steinwall Inc.
16th PN Processor of the Year - (February 1, 2012)
Steinwall Inc. of Coon Rapids, Minn., is PN's Processor of the Year for 2011. Owner Maureen Steinwall has become an expert on training and motivating employees to be better plastics workers and better people, too. She takes a holistic strategy to the custom molding business. For Maureen Steinwall, who bought the company from her father in 1985 and is the sole owner, it all boils down to people working together. She developed her own management style, balancing all stakeholder groups: the owner, customers, employees, communities and suppliers. The company pioneered video work instructions right at the press — and now is replacing looped videos with iPads running PowerPoint presentations.

Material Insights: Jan.30, 2012
Material Insights - (January 30, 2012)
A bounty of commodity resin pricing action is featured in this week's Material Insights video. North American prices for PP and PET bottle resin both fell in December, with PET tumbling 5 cents and PP ticking down 2 cents. Regional PVC prices jumped 3 cents per pound in January, while things were a bit more complicated in PS. Prices for all grades of PS fell an average of 2 cents in December, but in January prices for general-purpose PS moved up 5 cents while prices for high-impact PS climbed 7 cents. Weak demand played a role in the price drops, while changes in raw material prices factored in to the increases. A legal battle between Dow Chemical and Nova Chemicals also is featured in this week's video. A U.S. appeals court recently awarded Dow almost $62 million in damages from Nova for violating Dow patents used to make enhanced PE. With interest, that amount could be more than $76 million. Nova officials said they will determine what to do next in the case. The video wraps up with news of Eastman Chemical's $3.4 billion purchase of Solutia. Both firms are active in plastics and specialty chemicals, while both also have histories in materials they no longer produce - eastman with PET and Solutia with nylon. Eastman still generates about 20 percent of its annual sales from copolyester and other specialty resins, while about 60 percent of Solutia's sales come from plastic products such as performance films and interlayers.

Yo-yos big business in China
Breaking News & Features - (January 26, 2012)
The classic American plastic yo-yo is becoming big business in China. With savvy promotion by Chinese toy companies, the market has grown from barely a blip six years ago to one of the largest, with one U.S. firm saying China is now the world’s top selling yo-yo market. As with cars, where China rose quickly to become the biggest market worldwide, the new popularity of yo-yos is getting noticed by foreign companies. The largest yo-yo maker in the United States, Duncan Toys Co., recently launched its first products for China and the company sees significant opportunity. Duncan — a division of Baraboo, Wis.-based plastics firm Flambeau Inc. — set up an office in China in 2009. It hired former Chinese national yo-yo champion Luo Jianbin for market development and last year received a China sales license.

Material Insights: Jan. 23, 2012
Material Insights - (January 23, 2012)
The ongoing battle between Georgia Gulf and Westlake Chemical is featured in this week's Material Insights video. Officials with Georgia Gulf in Atlanta have rejected Westlake's $30 per-share acquisition offer, saying it undervalues the company. The total value of the offer is slightly more than $1 billion. Plasticolors' purchase of several non-urethane pigment dispersion products also is featured in this week's video. Production of those products will move from a Milliken plant in Pennsylvanai to Plasticlors' site in Ashtabula, Ohio. It's Plasticolors' 5th acquisition since 2000. The video wraps up with news of a $300,000 financial aid package going to Oxford Performance Materials from the state of Connecticut. Oxford is the first recipient of aid from the state's Small Business Express program. Oxford - which makes polyetherketone ketone resin - used the aid to fund its recent moved from Enfield to a larger site in South Windsor.

Ford pickup truck gets EcoBoost
Breaking News & Features - (January 19, 2012)
Ford Motor Co. has put a lot of engineering and marketing into its EcoBoost engines, especially when it comes to one created for its F-150 pickup truck. The EcoBoost use turbocharging, lightweight materials and other technology to get better performance out of a smaller engine — a 3.5-liter V-6 for the F-150 —tempting buyers to opt for the EcoBoost for better fuel economy compared to a V-8. The EcoBoost is also a boon for plastics, with key components like the cam cover, ducts, hoses and engine cover all made from high temperature thermoplastics. Molder Miniature Precision Components Inc. added equipment during the auto industry’s slowdown to launch production on several parts on the engine. EcoBoost has been a success story for Ford. The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker hoped to convince 25 percent to 30 percent of buyers to opt for it, paying an extra $1,000 for it. Instead, an average of 41 percent of buyers has been adding it since the engine went on sale in March.

BASF execs talk material science
Breaking News & Features - (January 18, 2012)
Car buffs cruising the North American International Auto Show in Detroit may admire a sports car’s sleek design or the fuel economy in a compact car or a pickup truck’s torque. Few recognize the material science that goes into those vehicles, though. James Peterson, market development manager for polyurethane systems with BASF Corp., noted that urethane skins are becoming more common on instrument panels and door panels, where tooling and production breakthroughs give interiors a softer touch. BASF engineers and executives with the Wyandotte, Mich., office are also working on a variety of future programs to decrease vehicle weight through strategic use of forms and multi-layer panels. Developments in continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastics are also key in creating thin seats – similar to those on multiple concept cars on display in Detroit – with structural plastic replacing steel, said Lawrence Alan Berkowski, senior vice president of engineering plastics. The BASF executives talk about the plastic under the skin and plastics in future development in a video from the auto show in Detroit.

Material Insights: Jan. 16, 2012
Material Insights - (January 16, 2012)
An unexpected year-end price hike for polyethylene resins in North America is featured in this week's Material Insights video. The 5-cent hike took hold even as buyers as late as mid-month expected prices to be flat. Producers cited lower inventories and stronger-than-expected December demand as a reason for the move. PE makers now have announced increases of 6 cents per pound for January, with some announcing hikes of 7 cents per pound for February as well. Archer Daniels Midland's split with Metabolix also is featured in this week's video. The two firms had worked together to commercialize Matabolix's Mirel-brand PHA bioresin, but ADM officials decided the venture wasn't delivering sufficient results. The video wraps up with a pair of news items from the resin distribution world. Ravago Americas has bought distributor and compounder Amco Plastic Materials of Farmingdale, N.Y. Amco president Gary Metzger is expected to remain with the firm, which opened in 1955. Meanwhile in Northbrook, Ill., resin distributor M. Holland announced that it's now distributing engineering resins for global plastics and chemicals leader BASF Corp.

Hong Kong molder debuts airline seats
Breaking News & Features - (January 11, 2012)
One of Hong Kong’s largest plastic injection molding companies, Vigor Precision Ltd., is leading an effort with the Hong Kong government to develop what they say will be China’s first locally owned airline seat manufacturing business. The project recently unveiled its first seat, for the Airbus A340, and hopes to expand that to seats for Boeing and other commercial jetliners, and to other non-critical aircraft parts, including trolleys, crew seats and toilets, all of which use plastics components.

Material Insights: Jan. 9, 2012
Material Insights - (January 9, 2012)
Updated North American sales total for polyethylene and polypropylene are featured in this week's Material Insights video. The sale of Spanish ABS maker Elix Polymers also is featured in this week's video. Styrolution -- a styrenics joint venture between BASF and Ineos -- sold Elix to financial firm Sun European Partners for an undisclosed price. The video wraps up with a pair of news items in the plastics-to-oil sector. In Boston, JBI Inc. CEO John Bordynuik has been charged with reporting false financial information regarding the firm, whoch operates a plastic-to-oil unit in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Plastics-to-oil firm Agilyx Corp. has fared better recently, receiving $25 million in additional investment funding, primarily from Keating Capital of Menlo Park, Calif. Agilyx operates a plastics-to-oil unit in Beaverton, Ore.

Material Insights: Jan. 3, 2012
Material Insights - (January 3, 2012)
A tough year for U.S.-based materials firms is reviewed in this week's Material Insights video. Plastics News took a look at 15 publicly held materials firms and found many impacted by lower consumer demand and slower economic growth. An expansion at Italian TPU maker API SpA also is featured in this week's video. The video also includes news of Hexpol's acquisition of German TPE maker Horst Muller Kuntstoffe.

Material Insights: Dec. 27, 2011
Material Insights - (December 27, 2011)
A prediction of a healthy 2012 for North American resin distributors is featured in this week's Material Insights video. Several resin distribution executives who recently spoke with Plastics News said they anticipate higher sales volumes for their businesses in 2012. This week's video also features news of PolyOne adding production of Stan-Tone paste colorants at its plant in Shenzhen, China. The materials are used in thermoset polymers for the building and construction market. A $2 million damages verdict givent to a former plastics worker also is included in the video. Gerald Failing worked for Durez Plastics in North Tonawanda, N.Y., in the 1960s and 1970s and was exposed to raw asbestos fibers supplied by Canadian firm Hedman Resources. The video wraps up with a look at the opening of a pilot plant at Sabic Innovative Plastics' site in Mount Vernon. Ind. The new pilot operation will allow the firm to more rapidly produces customized runs of high-performance polymers.

Material Insights: Dec. 19, 2011
Material Insights - (December 19, 2011)
A big polyethylene expansion in Texas from Chevron Phillips is featured in this week’s Material Insights video. Chevron Phillips plans to build two new ethylene units with combined annual capacity of more than 2 billion pounds. The $5 billion project — which also includes a new ethylene unit — is expected to create 400 permanent jobs and as many as 10,000 temporary engineering and construction jobs. Recent price decreases in North American prices for solid polystyrene and PET bottle resin also are covered in this week’s video. The video wraps up with a prediction of a stronger year in 2012 for the North American PE market. That prediction comes from Dow Chemical executive Mauro Gregorio, who told Plastics News that both volume and margins could improve for PE in 2012, with the packaging market playing a major role in that comeback.

Material Insights: Dec. 12, 2011
Material Insights - (December 12, 2011)
A $40 million ethylene improvement project from Westlake Chemical is featured in this week's Material Insights video. Westlake will make the investment at its plant in Calvert City, Ky., to reduce costs and energy consumption at the site. News of injury accidents at two materials firms also is included in this week's video: Four workers were injured in a Dec. 7 fire at compounder Polymer Partners in Henderson, Ky. Three of the workers remained hospitalized as of Dec. 9. At Teknor Apex's compounding plant in Pawtucket, R.I., a Dec. 8 accident resulted in the amputation of one of the hands of a 20-year-old male employee. This week's video wraps up with news that BASF plans to build a plant making its Ultrason-brand polyethersulfone resin at a plant in Yeosu, South Korea. The plant is expected to open by early 2014 with about 50 employees and annual capacity of more than 13 million pounds.