Novel plastics process up for grabs
A
Plasticomp product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jun 10, 2003
Plasticomp and Woodshed Technologies have reached agreement on a business relationship to market and sell Woodshed's D-LFT direct long-fibre thermoplastics manufacturing process.
Plasticomp and Woodshed Technologies have reached agreement on a business relationship to market and sell Woodshed's D-LFT direct long-fibre thermoplastics manufacturing process.
Steve Bowen, President and CEO of Plasticomp, and Ron Hawley, Woodshed President and inventor of the D-LFT technology, announced the partnership today.
Plasticomp will hold exclusive global marketing rights for Woodshed's D-LFT process, and sell the technology and knowhow as well as offer strategic consulting services on its uses in thermoplastics parts manufacturing.
Bowen and Hawley rejoin forces through the Plasticomp-Woodshed relationship.
The two previously worked together to make Polymer Composites, a world leader in the long-fibre thermoplastics market segment in the 1980-90s.
In Woodshed's D-LFT process, raw material formulation ingredients are compounded and moulded in a single operation.
This eliminates the need for precompounded pellets, resulting in improvements in production efficiency and reduced material costs.
The Woodshed process is completely inline.
Fibre is combined with molten polymer and fed directly into the injection-moulding barrel while still hot.
Moulders can maintain longer fibre lengths, improving product performance.
Inline compounding eliminates a major link in the supply chain - the precompounded pellet supplier - resulting in reductions in raw materials costs.
The Woodshed technology is compact and retrofittable for conventional injection moulding machines.
"Woodshed's D-LFT technology will revolutionise the injection moulding industry.
The process offers a compelling economic advantage to moulders", said Hawley.
"Ron and I are already in discussions with polymer suppliers, fibre suppliers and OEM moulding equipment manufacturers to form business associations to bring the Woodshed technology to market", said Bowen.
"In addition to licensing the Woodshed technology, Plasticomp will offer business consulting for applications and materials development related to long fibre materials.
Within the next two years we intend to build Plasticomp into the market leader in long fibre materials and direct compounding technology", continued Bowen.
"This relationship is important because it will bring D-LFT quickly to the global market", said Hawley.
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