Aiming for safer, greener films

Kung Hsing Plastics Machinery usually occupies a huge booth at leading trade shows in Asia. As a sophisticated manufacturer of blown film lines, the company has gained a significant chunk of the market in the ASEAn regin alone.  In 2017, the company’s revenue posted a 15% growth and this year, Kung Hsing expects to retain its growth momentum via new features in its blown film machines. International Plastics News for Asia (IRNA) learns from Mr. Kun-Lin Tsai, Vice President, the potential for further growth and development that the company looks forward to this year.  

 

IRNA: The plastics machinery industry is now on the receiving end of highly-advanced manufacturing technology. What is Kung Hsing’s approach on this trend?  

 

Mr. Tsai: The latest development strategy of Kung Hsing is to target the higher-end food and beverage packaging market and special-purpose packaging that are manufactured with our multi-layer co-extrusion blow film machines. The film manufactured by Kung Hsing’s machines serves as ideal barrier to oxygen and moisture meeting high food-safety standard in terms of prolonging the freshness. The end-products could be applied to down to -40°C frozen beef, seafood, and biscuits packaging. It could be expected that there will be more trading in fresh meat and seafood across the globe with the signing of beef export trade agreements among countries which would create large demands for safer packaging. The films manufactured by Kung Hsing machines have good mechanical property, barrier ability, and good balance between processing and performance 

 

IRNA: What are the strong features offered by Kung Hsing multi-layer co-extrusion blow film machines?

 

Mr. Tsai: At Kung Hsing, multi-layer machines have high production rate with automation features. We exerted effort in upgrading these extrusion machines years for years and the result is a solid jump (30% more) in production output  compared to our previous extruders.  We were able to increase the production capacity while maintaining the energy consumption at the same level. Energy efficiency on top of enhanced performance of our multi-layer co-extrusion blow film machines.

 

IRNA:  What is the response of Southeast Asian market to Kung Hsing’s latest equipment?

 

Mr. Tsai: In Southeast Asia, we experienced the fastest growth in Indonesia while Thailand and Malaysia’s sales have stabilized over the years. The population boom particularly contributes to the surging amount of packaging in food, and industrial packaging. 

Mr. Kun-Lin Tsai, Vice President, Kung Hsing Plastics Machinery

 

IRNA: Does Kung Hsing have plans to alter or create new techniques in response to future trends in plastics machinery? 

 

Mr. Tsai: The next range of products we will promote in the coming year is biodegradable film lines, and extruders that could deal with more environment-friendly materials – such as cornstarch-based, or biodegradable polymers. In fact, these are not new equipment for Kung Hsing since the company had already developed biodegradable film lines 17 years ago. But the main issue was, in the past, there was not enough demand in this type of material because of a number of reasons. Raw materials were cheap then and the consciousness on recycling or greener plastics products is not as prevalent as it is today among the manufacturers and the general public, so there was not much intention for manufactures to invest in biodegradable manufacturing equipment. 

 

Nevertheless, we believe that the timing might soon be right for us to re-introduce this range, while it is important to highlight that there are still real challenges waiting to be solved, such as lowering the cost of this technology and strengthening the biodegradable films.  

 

IRNA: What are the reasons why Kung Hsing stays ahead of competition?  

 

Mr. Tsai: The essential principle we stick to is to ensure the quality of every details in our equipment. We insist in strict supervision on our collaborators, and take back the manufacturing power of parts when necessary. Taking control of the manufacturing status and quality allows us to provide reliable extruders for customers. In recent years, we noticed that customers who in the past insisted to purchase European machineries have begun to use our equipment – an important breakthrough for us. It indicates that we have successfully broke the subjective judgment that geographically embedded in machinery industries and created a niche in a vast market.  IRNA 

 

Kung Hsing Plastic Machinery Co., Ltd.

Tel: +886-5-2374466

Fax: +886-5-2376971

E-mail: ks.sales@kunghsing.com.tw

Website: www.kunghsing.com.tw