2nd Plastics for Life Global Parts Competition winners announced

THE Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) has recently announced the winners of its second annual Plastics for Life global parts competition.  

 

The awards consisted of four feature-based categories, namely Protecting Life, Quality of Life, Improving Life, and Sustaining Life. The first emphasizes preservation, safety, containment, and protection, while the second category highlights mobility, communication, luxury/comfort, recreation, and entertainment. 

 

The Improving Life category covers education, energy, opportunity, and health, and the Sustaining Life category focuses on the environment, conservation, sustainability, recycling, and reduction. 

 

A People's Choice category is a new addition to the awards. The Grand Award is given to the nominee that got the most votes. 

 

The winner in the Protecting Life Category was the Rescue Backboard nominated by Profile Plastics Inc. of Lake Bluff, Ill. The nomination was the Silver winner of the 2014 Heavy-Gauge Twin-Sheet category at the 23rd annual SPE Thermoforming Conference.

 

In the Quality of Life Category, the Nissan GT-R Composite Decklid nominated by Tokyo’s Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd grabbed the top award. It was also a Body Exterior winner at the 14th annual SPE Automotive Composites Conference & Exhibition and a Body Exterior finalist at the 44th annual SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Competition. 

 

In the Improving Life Category, the winner was the 40-ml Triangular Shaped Precision Products Bottle nominated by W. Amsler Equipment Inc. of Richmond Hill, Ont., Canada. The nomination was the overall First Place winner of the Packaging Division category at the 30th annual SPE Annual Blow Molding Conference.    

 

The Foam Core Parking Stop, which was nominated by Pinnacle Plastic Products of Bowling Green, Ohio, and which won both the Industrial-Other category and the People's Choice-Industrial categories at the 30th annual SPE Annual Blow Molding Conference, was the top choice in the Sustaining Life Category.

 

The Bowling Pin Elevator led in the People’s Choice Category. Nominated by QubicaAMF of Mechanicsville, VA, U.S.A., it was both the Gold winner of the Twin-Sheet Heavy Gauge category and the People's Choice-Thermoforming category winner at the 23rd annual SPE Thermoforming Conference.   

 

Meanwhile, the Single-Collimator Molded LED Headlamp Lens nominated by Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co. won in the Grand Award Categories. It previously won the Process, Assembly & Enabling Technologies category at the 44th annual SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Competition. 

 

The results were announced at a press conference held on March 25, the last day of SPE's Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC (R) 2015), the world's largest plastics technical conference held in conjunction with the National Plastics Exposition (NPE (R) 2015).  

 

Nominated entries to the global parts competition must have previously won a category or a competition at an SPE topical conference (TOPCON) or mini conference (Minicon) held between January 2014 and January 2015. A blue-ribbon panel comprising members of the media, past SPE presidents, SPE Fellows, and industry experts reviews all nominations. 

 

 

The People's Choice award was selected from more than 200 ballots submitted by ANTEC attendees who had not participated in the earlier judging and were not SPE employees or leadership volunteers.  

 

Jon Ratzlaff, technical services manager at Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. and creator of the parts competition during his term as 2013-2014 SPE president, noted the constant and continuous pace of innovation in the plastics industry. 

 

According to Mr. Ratzlaff, "With our new Plastics for Life global parts competition, SPE hopes to highlight innovative technology that has recently won awards at our various division- and section-level events and thereby inspire industry and educate consumers about just how many ways plastics can be used to benefit life on this planet. This year's friendly competition was more than double the size it was in 2014. Fortunately we had the help of a diverse team of 20 Blue Ribbon judges drawn from the media, past SPE presidents, SPE Fellows, and other SPE members who are industry experts in their field. These judges did an outstanding job selecting our 2015 award winners and we hope they enjoyed the experience enough to come back to judge at ANTEC 2016."