493K Presents ‘K-Face’ To Chicago

493K, fresh from Rotoplas' 08 in Chicago, continues to promote its new range of products and services for the roto-moulding industry. 

Dr Gareth McDowell, 493K Managing Director, told EBX: “We were delighted to present our new ‘K-Face’ product in Chicago and, earlier this year, in Belfast. It has attracted a lot of interest; we’re confident that it will prove to be a great asset to many rotomoulders. We also recently launched the latest version of our software, ‘K-Kord’ which is available to download from our website – www.493k.com  

“This version offers a range of additions. Its new displays and features make it both easy to operate and it provides invaluable information to the industry in the current competitive environment.” More information on all 493K products is available at www.493k.com, or email: office@493k.com.

CEED Events - Regional Meeting in Ukraine, Kiev.

Central and Eastern European Association of Rotational Moulders recently organized a Regional Meeting in Ukraine, Kiev. The meeting took place on the 1-2 October, 2008 in Hotel Riviera on Podol. It included presentations by international experts from the rotomoulding industry and information from suppliers about their latest products and offers. In the evening, there was entertainment and a chance to network with others from the industry.

To register for future events, contact:

Ms. Malgorzata Tarlowska
Administrator
Association of Rotational Moulders
Tel. +48 607126004
Fax +48 618588611
www.rotomoulding-europe.org

NOVA Chemicals expands M.Holland Company’s distribution agreement to include rotational molding resins

NOVA Chemicals has announced an agreement with M.Holland Company to expand their distribution partnership with NOVA Chemicals to include polyethylene resins for rotational molding applications. A current distributor of NOVA Chemicals’ polyethylene resins, M.Holland added rotational molding resins to their portfolio of NOVA Chemicals’ products on October 1.

Martin Yaffe and Fisher-Price Team Up for Outdoor Play

U.K.-based toy maker Martin Yaffe International has signed a licensing collaboration with Fisher-Price to produce an outdoor play collection for toddlers and preschoolers from its rotomolding facility in Manchester.

The collection launches for autumn ’08 and includes a range of scooters, trikes and outdoor play equipment.

XJF Plastics Buoyed By £1m Investment

XJF Plastics is hitting the recruitment trail after moving to Barlborough, near Chesterfield, from Worksop, investing more than £1 million in new equipment and doubling its capacity.The firm , which was founded 17 years ago and has enjoyed significant success recently, following its development of lightweight marine buoys, is creating ten new jobs. XJF Plastics' new equipment includes one of the largest moulding machines of its kind in the UK, which can make a broad range of plastic products, including mortar tubs and plasterers' buckets, environmentally friendly marine buoys, playground equipment and products for the renewable energy industry.

ECS Introduces Carbon Fiber and Carbon/KEVLAR Military Cases

ECS Composites, a leader in providing the most innovative rackmount and transit cases for the military, announces the release of it Carbon Fiber and Carbon/KEVLAR Military Cases. The Carbon/KEVLAR composite is highly compacted, very light weight, averaging 30% weight reduction, and adds ballistic characteristics to ECS' nearly indestructible rackmount cases. ECS also designs and manufactures custom molded parts and specialized tooling for diverse applications. ECS uses advanced thermoset and thermoplastic composite technologies, rotational molding techniques, and metal fabrication methods to make thousands of standard and custom designed products.

ARMO 08 - Belfast

What You Said...

A Great Moment

"ARMO 2008 in BELFAST was a great moment of technical improvement, friendship and fun. Thank you very much to the BPF and IRMA teams for their brilliant organization! We will work to build an ARMO 2012 in Lyon at the same great level! - Jean Martin, AFR

Forward Thinkers

7th - 9th September saw the ARMO 2008 Conference visit Belfast. The event brought over 400 forward thinking rotational moulders from across the Globe. The Conference programme was packed with leading edge presentations on the latest development in rotational moulding and was based around the theme of Water. Many exciting opportunities that water can provide the Industry in the resource management and leisure sectors were explored.

Running in parallel to the Conference was a Trade Exhibition where delegates had the opportunity to network with over 30 leading suppliers to the industry and view their new products. 

This year Gala Dinner was held in the traditional Victorian St.George’s Market, delegates and their guests were treated to traditional Irish fayre and entertainment.

The main Conference programme was preceded by two successful technical seminars held at the world-renowned Queen’s University of Belfast organised in conjunction with the British Plastics Federation Rotamoulding Group.

Overall the Conference was a great success and the feedback received has been excellent.

The ARMO Team wished to thanks the Sponsors for their kind support and all those who took the time out of their busy schedules to attend the Conference. We hope you found it as enjoyable and useful as we did. - The ARMO Team

Latest Research Tools

The ARMO Belfast conference provided a range of information and experiences for all delegates.  We were privileged to spend half a day at Queens University where Mark Kearns gave us a tour of the Polymer Processing Research Centre, which of course includes their world recognised Rotational Moulding facility. While I have read about it many times, seeing the facility first hand and meeting the staff working with Mark gives you a significantly better understanding of their capabilities.

While many projects Queens are working on are not in the public domain, we were shown one of the latest research tools which they just had delivered. In simple terms, the tool is used to characterise powder, using image processing technology developed for the oil exploration business. While the technology has been around for many years, it is only now being applied to the rotational moulding industry. We hope to get our Materials Committee involved in this potentially exciting technology, which could bring analysis of powder quality into the 21st century.

The primary reason for our visit to Belfast was to attend the ARMO Board meeting, which included representatives from ARMI. ARMO (Alliance of Rotational Moulding Organisations) founding members are British BPF, Ireland IRMA, Central Europe ARM-CE, Italian AISR, French AFR, South Africa ARMSA, and of course ARMA.  Also at the meeting were representatives from Central Eastern Europe CEED, South Asia Region (India) SARD, and North America ARM-I. 

Principal discussions centered on how all the rotomoulding organizations can work together, while still retaining their local independence, as a worldwide force. It was agreed that the next ARMO Board meeting will be held in Thailand, Rotomould 2009, 24-27 May.

This will provide an opportunity to strengthen these relationships. While we are a long distance from each other, we also recognize that the world is becoming a smaller place.  One of our specific subjects discussed in general business was the adoption of the new dry flow funnel specification as a world wide standard.

The new specification was agreed by our own Materials Committee at our Gold Coast Conference, and we are pleased to advise that the ARMO Board agreed that this new specification should be adopted. While this needs to be ratified by each individual organization, this was a great example of how we can improve our industry, both within our own region, but also around the world.

At our September Board meeting we were asked to nominate 3 most interesting presentations from the 30 given during the conference. The theme of the Belfast conference was water. To choose only 3 was a hard task, as everyone always has different personal interests, but we came up with the following.

1. Use and Verification of Silver based Biocides, by David Wells, from Addmaster
This discussed the use of silver ions to attack microbes that may form in the water. Apparently silver was a traditional method used to treat infections before the development of modern antibiotics. This may have some potential in the urban water tank market to address concerns by health authorities on drinking water from tanks.

2. Avoid the Quality traps of Rotomoulding Part 2, by Ronny Ervik, from Norner
This was an almost frightening presentation on the 10 most frequent causes of product failure, visualized with microscopy. It was suggested that often they are caused by basic mistakes. The final message in this presentation was that we need to improve our quality to ensure that we can compete with other plastic processes.

3. Looking to the Future of Rotational Moulding, by Prof Roy Crawford, from Waikato University
It was suggested that our reliance on polyethylene as the material of choice was going to create significant problems for the rotational moulding industry in the future. This presentation challenged the industry to learn to use more materials, or let other plastic processes encroach on our traditional markets.

Finally I would like to offer my very sincere thanks and congratulations to the organizers, BPF, Allan Joyce and Martin Spence for the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication they showed in putting the event together.

Ian Hansen
President, ARMA.