Printpack Inc. is buying a KIEFEL (Booth 2763) Thermorunner KTR 6 L Speed machine that is forming polypropylene drinking cups at NPE2012.

(By Roger Renstrom | PLASTICS NEWS CORRESPONDENT, Posted March 30, 2012)

“The machine will be located in our Williamsburg, Va., plant,” said Matthew Piercy, engineering manager for Printpack’s rigid plastics division.

Printpack needs more capacity and wants “additional functionality in our manufacturing process,” Piercy noted.

The machine’s key selling points for forming yogurt cups, drinking cups, cups with snap-on lids or plant pots are “size, speed and rigidity,” said Markus Zlotosch, vice president of sales and service with the KIEFEL division of Brückner Group USA Inc. in Portsmouth, N.H. The KTR top-of-the-range 6 L can use high-cavity molds, achieve up to 40 cycles per minute and incorporate downstream equipment for complete packaging solutions.

Printpack decided in October to make the purchase. “We conducted a review of available larger trim-in-place tilt table thermoformers,” Piercy said. “After considering technical factors such as forming area, linear trim, potential throughput and level of innovation and non-technical factors such as customer service, technical service, willingness to customize the equipment and our history with the vendor, we selected KIEFEL’s KTR 6 L machine.”

In the Orlando exhibit, KIEFEL uses a 50-up cup-tool in the automatic pressure former and KIEFEL’s own integrated KIST 78/56 inline stacking system.

Printpack, however, won’t use that stacking system in Williamsburg and, for now, declines to disclose whose stacker they have acquired.

Atlanta-based Printpack thermoforms PP food packaging but is more widely known as a manufacturer of films for numerous end markets.