Reduce Costly Issues In Blow Molding Applications
Defects and slowdowns in the blow molding process can hurt converter profits and lower productivity if they go unchecked.
Consistent Resin Keeps Productivity High
Inconsistent resin batches or resin that is not properly analyzed can lead to numerous defects and challenges for blow molding converters. For starters, contaminated resin or wet resin can lead to unacceptable products due to defects including warpage and bubbles.
When issues like these occur, there is a need to shut down machines and understand the cause. These shutdowns immediately affect productivity and can last from minutes to days depending on the root cause. There is less of a need to adjust machine settings when working with consistent resin and defects are less frequent as well.
Shutting down a machine leads to a direct hit when it comes to profit margins as products are not being made at the desired output. This is also true for on-site testing when that becomes necessary. Off-site testing offers converters a way to keep their machines running while troubleshooting. Plus, consistent resin batches help alleviate these defects and optimize operations for converters moving forward.
Eliminate Blow Molding Defects at the Source
From parison curling to bottle blowouts to inconsistent melt strength, there are a number of defects that can occur during blow molding. Most of the time there are multiple variables that can be addressed to reduce and eliminate blow molding defects.
Our in-depth white paper goes through ways to address these variables and ultimately reduce defects. Some of those tips include routine maintenance, appropriately sized head tooling, and using the recommended heat profile.
The Polymer Pros at our plant can also help troubleshoot customer issues. Our team understands resin and how it can best run through a converter’s specific system. They can also run troubleshooting tests on our machines, getting a better idea of what is going wrong and how best to fix it for customers.
Converters can work with Shell Polymers team members at our Monaca, PA polyethylene plant so we can fully understand the issues affecting your production and ensure our resins run properly on your equipment. That 1-1 understanding is key to the new kind of customer experience our team aims to drive each and every time they work with a converter.
A 1-to-1 Understanding of a Converter’s Setup
Sometimes general tips are not enough to solve specific problems. In those moments, it’s best to fully understand and replicate the issue a converter is having. And it’s those times that make it important to have the latest equipment on-hand with the ability to mimic a customer’s environment.
The industry-scale blow molding equipment we have at our polyethylene plant will help us do just that. By selecting advanced equipment, we can match what many customers are running so we can better understand their issues. This also removes the need for a converter to shutdown their lines and run trials, an often time-consuming and costly process.
Our machines will run in a similar fashion that a customer’s machine does, helping us recreate the problem at hand. This gives our technical experts a more detailed understanding of the problem and helps cut down on the frustrations of trying to explain issues without being in person.
Plus, for those customers looking to upgrade their equipment, our machines can aid in creating that business case. Seeing the machines working firsthand will help customers understand their benefits and bring those benefits directly to their decision-makers for future investments.
Listening to Blow Molders and Adapting
Eliminating defects helps converters maximize their resin usage and helps us understand what problems to look for in the future. By understanding key process conditions, we can avoid production delays and lower project costs.
We start with tested, qualified, and consistent resin to help converters get a head start and avoid common issues that result from poor resin quality. We then go the extra mile to assist in troubleshooting issues in our Applications Hall, recreating converter conditions if needed.
By listening to our customers and learning from their challenges, we can begin to build new processes and best practices into the work we do at the plant for the converters we work with. Together, we’ll be able to overcome key blow molding challenges and eliminate blow molding defects.
