SIPA operates mold refurbishing centers in Vittorio Veneto, Atlanta, Los Angeles, São Paulo, and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. In the next few months, the company will open its next refurbishing centers in Bangkok and in Seoul, its most recent subsidiary in Korea.
“We're a partner who can provide to our customers with a highly cost-effective way of upgrading production without having to make a major investment in completely new tooling,”
says Manfred Lausenhammer, Global Key Account Manager.
“That’s what we aim to provide. SIPA can refurbish hot halves and cold halves made by any major mold manufacturer, not just SIPA itself”.
The biggest call comes from users of large molds, typically with 96 or 144 cavities.
“No customer wants an important mold out of service for any time at all, so we move fast - but with great skill,” says Lausenhammer. “When we are done, the mold is just about as good as new as you can get.”
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Emphasis on energy conservation
The range of solutions benefits from SIPA’s special focus on reducing energy consumption.
With better distribution flow and a higher water temperature (14-15°C instead of 8°C), water consumption is minimized and performance in terms of condensation reduction is improved.
Mold systems also exhibit enhanced cooling performance, resulting in high quality preforms, maximum productivity and reduced production costs.
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The X Factor to preform lightweighting, with XMOULD
XMOULD gives designers the power to create preforms that are longer or wider, for the creation of containers with more suitable stretch ratios.
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Low weight, high performance
XMOULD technology now makes it possible to produce preforms with ratios of length to wall thickness (L/t) close to 60, while applying injection pressure similar to that normally used for preforms with 45 L/t ratios.
This means that the stretch ratio in the final 7.2 g bottle is between 10.5 and 13.6, depending on its design-highly manageable for modern stretch-blow moulding equipment.
Plus, the performance of the bottle, on the filling line and in use, meets all relevant requirements
Pushing back the boundaries
“With XMOULD technology, we are pushing back the boundaries in PET preform injection moulding,” says Laurent Sigler, SIPA’s Innovation Director.
“When it comes to L/t limits, 50 has been the magic number for more than 20 years, so taking it up to close to 60 in one step is a major achievement.
XMOULD is making new preform design opportunities available, and our customers can lightweight their preforms even more and/or further improve their bottle performance
Technology is available to all The advantages of XMOULD technology are being made available across the market.
Injection moulding of the new preform designs can be carried out, not only on SIPA’s XFORM new generation of processing equipment, but also on most existing preform injection moulding machines, regardless of their brand.