Atlas Converting Equipment Ltd has recently commissioned a Titan ER610 compact slitter rewinder at Plastic Connections, Inc (PCi) based in Santa Fe Springs, California, in the US.
Investment in the 1650 mm wide slitter has been made by the company in order to diversify its already flourishing business.
PCi was incorporated in 1996 as a broker supplying directly shipped containers of PET (polyester) films and is a privately-owned, small business that prides itself on a strong sales-oriented philosophy coupled with a vigorous, lean methodology. After several years of successful business, the company entered the converting business and concentrated its activity mainly in slitting and rewinding but also in sheeting and die-cutting of PET film.
‘Three years ago we installed three slitters up to 86 inches wide and a 72 inches wide sheeter,’ explained John Pastor, sales and operations manager, ‘but over the last couple of years, we have realised that to be more competitive, we needed more speed. We needed a slitter that was robust enough to handle large, long runs but also flexible enough to effectively process short runs as well. Downtime was a major issue, which we wanted to minimise, so productivity as well as OHSA safety requirements were a major concern. Finally, the new slitter had to be reliable and easy to operate and the Titan ER610 was the perfect solution for our business,’ he confirmed.
The new ER610 slitter at Plastic Connections will be for materials up to 1650 mm wide with a maximum speed of 450 m/min. Rewind diameters can be up to 610 mm with a minimum slit width of 35 mm. The slitter will also be equipped with laser core positioning and static control systems.
‘We sell PET and OPP films to small start-ups as well as large multi-national corporations and government entities for packaging, electrical, industrial and graphics applications. We believe that the addition of the new Titan ER610 slitter will open up new markets for us and tap deeper in to existing ones,’ Mr Pastor said.
In other news, Atlas Converting has won the C2 European Converting Innovation Award for 2013 at the ICE Europe exhibition in Munich, Germany, for the advanced design and technology of one of its other machines, the ‘next generation’ Titan SR9 Series slitter rewinders. From a list of almost 50 applications for the awards, the Titan SR9 Series was the exclusive winner in the slitting and rewinding category.
