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According to Arjan Welboren, Production Manager, Egmond Plastics would spend approximately three hours to clean the
screw and cylinder manually every time one of its 20 injection moulding machines needed to be purged. With Dyna-Purge E,
it now takes only 30 minutes to purge, reducing downtime by 83%.
By using Dyna-Purge E to purge during changeovers, such as switching from a high-temperature engineering resin to a lowtemperature
resin, Egmond Plastics has gained over 1,100 machine hours annually to produce parts and products for
the aerospace industry and other industrial and consumer applications. The blue-green lids shown above, produced using
PEI, illustrate how effectively Dyna-Purge E cleans.
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Situation:
Founded in 1968, Egmond Plastics B.V., Alkmaar, The
Netherlands is an injection moulder also specializing in
the production of parts using the melting core method.
The company operates 20 machines ranging in size from
25T to 440T. In addition to using standard resins PS, PE
and ABS to mold application side panels, industrial coffee
machines and miniature truck models, Egmond
Plastics processes a variety of specialized materials for
aerospace and other high-technology applications.
These include PEI and PC to make parts for scanner
systems, PEEK to produce fuel pumps for military fighter
jets, and PES to build integrated water boilers.
Purging to change materials, such as switching from a
high-temperature to a low-temperature resin, Egmond
Plastics would have the screw and cylinder cleaned
manually, a three-hour exercise. With nine or ten
changeovers per week, the company was losing 27 to
30 hours downtime every week for purging. Multiplied
over the course of 52 weeks, the cost of lost production
time was calculated at 1,404 to 1,560 machine hours annually.
Solution:
Upon consultation with Paul Hendriks of De Monchy
International B.V., Arjan Welboren of Egmond Plastics
tested Dyna-Purge E, a thermoplastic purging
compound. Dyna-Purge E is a specialized grade
designed to purge the cylinder and screw of cold
runner systems for high-temperature, engineering resins
processed at 310°C to 391°C (590°F to 735°F). De
Monchy International (www.monchy.com) is the
distributor for Dyna-Purge in The Netherlands.
Results:
- Since Dyna-Purge takes only 30 minutes to clean the screw and cylinder, downtime has been reduced by 2-1/2 hours per changeover — an 83% improvement.
- Purging nine times per week with Dyna-Purge E means an additional 1,170 machine hours are available to Egmond Plastics annually to devote to increased production, productivity and profitability.
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