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Rhino Plastics of South Africa Reports that Maguire® Blenders, Networking Software, and Extrusion Yield Control Provide 'Precision, Control, Peace of Mind'
PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA, November 5, 2007: A producer of blown film and pipe for international agricultural and construction markets credits Maguire® blenders and software with reducing raw material costs, enhancing quality, and providing accountability for every gram of resin, regrind, and additive metered into the process.
The South African company Rhino Plastics tested other blending systems before deploying 13 gravimetric blenders from Maguire Europe to dose polyethylene resin, additives, and high levels of recycled and off-spec polymer. The company's six film and six pipe lines have a combined annual output of 17 million lb. (7,500 metric tons), including products for greenhouses, vapor barriers, silage wraps, irrigation, and other end uses.
Managing director Brian Van Niekerk reports on these breakthroughs achieved with Maguire blender-based technologies:
1) The Weigh Scale Blenders meter all ingredients within exceedingly small batch-to-batch tolerances, maintain this consistency with each repeated run of a job, and generate systematic data on material consumption. This has enabled the company to eliminate over-coloring, reduce additive loadings from supplier-recommended letdown ratios to levels of 3%, 2.5%, or less, and increase loadings of recycled material without compromising product quality.
2) Maguire's blender-based Gravimetric Gateway™ (''G2'') networking software enables Rhino Plastics' manufacturing, financial, and other managers to monitor production, analyze material consumption, control and schedule inventory, and identify potential cost-saving process improvements. ''The information now available on a plant-wide basis enables us to achieve 100%-accurate costing of all of our products,'' Van Niekerk said.
3) Maguire's blender-based LineMaster™ AC extrusion yield control, installed on a line that produces heavy-duty, extra-wide film, saves at least 3% on material costs through improved control over roll weight. Because the LineMaster system uses feedback from the haul-off to adjust extrusion speed, it maintains target roll weight in spite of the wide variation in bulk density that often occurs in recycled material.
''In the past we were forced to generalize about raw material ratios and consumption, making assumptions because we lacked adequate information,'' said Van Niekerk. ''The Maguire blenders and software provide precision, control, and, quite simply, the peace of mind that comes with knowing that we are doing things accurately and can document that accuracy job by job.''
Blender Technologies Are Especially Valuable in Rhino's Business Environment
The typical Maguire blender batch-to-batch accuracy of +/- 0.1% provides processors with improved control over raw-material consumption and opens opportunities for reducing material costs, according to Chris Crittenden, Maguire Europe sales manager. ''The accuracy of the Maguire blender puts an end to such wasteful practices as 'over-coloring' to compensate for process variations or for the unreliability of alternative feeding equipment,'' said Crittenden.
The control over raw material consumption provided by Maguire blenders takes on added importance in South Africa. ''As with many other high-volume extrusion operations, raw material accounts for practically two-thirds of our operating cost,'' Van Niekerk said, ''and in South Africa, resin, masterbatch, and other additives are in tighter supply and cost more than in most other industrialized regions. This includes recycled material.''
In addition, the construction and agricultural applications served by Rhino Plastics are ones that often include high levels of recycled and off-spec material, and sometimes loadings of recyclate are substantially greater than those of virgin resin, according to Van Niekerk.
The accuracy of the Maguire blender facilitates use of recycled material in two ways, noted Maguire Europe's Crittenden. First, the ''gain-in-weight'' process by which the blender measures doses of each ingredient eliminates the batch inconsistencies often encountered with recycled materials, whose bulk density shows wide variation. Second, because the blender doses colorants and additives in accordance with their weight as percentages of natural resin and automatically adjusts for the presence of these materials in regrind, it eliminates ''double-dosing.''
''By precisely controlling the regrind levels in each batch, the blenders may make it possible to use higher loadings of regrind or to safely incorporate regrind from a shipment that is of lower than usual quality,'' Crittenden said.
In fact, the accuracy with which the blender incorporates recycled material has saved Rhino Plastics from having to re-process shipments of particularly inconsistent recyclate, Van Niekerk reports.
RHINO PLASTICS (PTY) LTD. Address: P O Box 4241, Korsten, Port Elizabeth, 6014
South Africa. Tel.: +27 41 451 3197. Fax: +27 41 451 2223. E-mail: rhino@rhinoplastics.co.za.
Visit www.rhinoplastics.co.za.
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MAGUIRE EUROPE supports a network of distributors throughout Europe, as well as in Africa and the Middle East, with sales and technical support, customer service, and an extensive inventory of Maguire® equipment systems and parts. Maguire Italy, a Padova-based Maguire Europe business unit serving customers through sales agents in five regions of Italy, can be contacted by telephone at 39-049-970-5429 and by email at Robert@Maguire-Europe.com. Maguire Europe is headquartered at Vanguard, Tame Park, Tamworth, Staffordshire B77 5DY, United Kingdom. Tel: 44-1827-265-850. Fax: -855. Email: Paul@maguire-europe.com.
MAGUIRE PRODUCTS, INC., headquartered in Aston, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is the world's largest supplier of gravimetric blenders and liquid color pumps and also manufactures loading systems, dryers, auger feeders, and related equipment and software. Its customers include injection, blow, and rotational molders, extrusion processors, and compounders. Founded in 1977, Maguire operates five manufacturing facilities in Aston and Smithfield, Rhode Island, U.S.A. The company maintains a network of distributors in the Americas and overseas and has two sales and service subsidiaries: Maguire Europe, which supports customers throughout Europe and operates a distribution center in Tamworth, Staffordshire, United Kingdom; and Singapore-based Maguire Asia, serves customers throughout South Asia and the Pacific Rim. Visit the Maguire Products web site: www.maguire.com
blown film bubble, with Maguire loss-in-weight hopper at left in background
blenders installed at Rhino Plastics
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