SIPA offers new services for China market

SIPA’s mold refurbishing and conversion services in China are an important element of its complete PET preform and bottle mold offering, and these services will be the company’s highlights at CHIINAPLAS 2016.  

These services provide customers with the option of having some components replaced by new ones in order to improve preform quality (refurbishment), or having the mold converted to produce a completely new (and quite often lighter) design of preform.

The advantage of mold conversion over buying a brand new mold lies in the lower capital investment involved. The existing mold shoe is reused, and return of investment is faster. Customers can choose which is best for them by having a mold audit carried out by SIPA experts in the field. The state of wear of mold components can be assessed in their own plant, and different options on refurbishing or conversion can then be proposed.

The mold refurbishing and conversion services complement SIPA’s extensive in-house capability to develop and produce brand new high performance molds and hot runners in-house. The hot half of each SIPA mold requires maintenance only after five million cycles, and it is possible to maintain components such as piston, flange O-rings and pin valves without opening the whole mold.

The company’s 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.

The smooth, polished, rounded profiles on SIPA hot runners reduce stress on material, resulting in better preform quality and a reduced acetaldehyde (AA) level. Mold systems also exhibit enhanced cooling performance, resulting in high quality preforms, maximum productivity and reduced production costs.

Expanded service center in China

SIPA’s service center in Hangzhou, China, complements two others in Italy (Vittorio Veneto, the company’s headquarters) and the USA (Atlanta). The China service center has been in operation since 2004. Having started out as a support operation for existing customers in China that SIPA had previously handled directly from Italy, the Hangzhou operation has rapidly expanded its portfolio.

Recently enlarged production capacity in Hangzhou means that SIPA can now produce 300 cavities a month for blow molding and 800 cavities for injection molding. With mold plate manufacturing as well, a 144-cavity cold half can be created in six weeks. SIPA continues to add new machines every year, and has a strong focus on lean manufacturing to improve efficiency and reduce lead time.
SIPA is the only European firm providing Chinese customers with locally designed and produced preform molds and bottle molds. Its experts in Hangzhou can design molds, preforms and bottles, and perform lab tests.

A sophisticated testing laboratory houses equipment for carrying out a wide range of tests including pressure, heat sinking, tensile strength, top load, and mold quality.

SIPA
Tel:  +39 0438 911 511
Fax:  +39 0438 912 273
E-mail: Sipa@zoppas.com
Website: www.sipa.it
Booth: E3K01