Custom extruder saves over $2,700 per purge and eliminates die teardown using Dyna-Purge®

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Situation:

Premier Material Concepts (PMC), a Rowmark company based in Findlay, Ohio, is a full service manufacturer of custom sheet and roll stock materials used for thermoforming, die cutting and fabrication, POP and signage, and non-skid materials applications. With a focus on speed, flexibility and delivery, among the products that PMC produces are acrylics, ABS, HIPS, TPO, TPE and specialty compounds.

When PMC needed to purge its sheet extruding machine, the company had to shut down the extruder, tear down the die and clean the machine manually. The cost for labor and lost time per changeover was calculated at $3,850.00. The company wanted to reduce both the time and costs required to conduct its purging.

Solution:

Use Dyna-Purge X, an engineered purging compound recommended for profile and sheet extrusion running at 320° to 575°F (160° to 302°C). Going from black to white cap on textured material, the company purged the main and satellite extruder for 30 minutes with prime resin while shutting down the line. This was followed by another 10 minutes of prime and completed by using Dyna-Purge X.

Results:

• After the purge, both breaker plates were so clean "they looked as if they had just come out of the oven," according to PMC.
• The cost of the purging was $1,071.72 - a savings of $2,778.28 over their previous method - or a 72% cost reduction.
• The purging operation took just one hour and 35 minutes. Dyna-Purge reduced purging downtime by nine hours and 25 minutes - an improvement of 85%.