SITUATION OVERVIEW

When looking to upgrade existing equipment, it's important to strike a healthy balance between performance, quality, efficiency and flexibility. Husky’s customer, a leading thinwall packaging producer in the Middle East, was looking to upgrade their existing equipment while improving productivity and the quality of their industry-leading in-mold label (IML) food containers and lids. The challenge was doing so while also reducing cycle time and part costs. 

HUSKY SOLUTION

To produce this customer’s 200ml and 300ml containers and lids, Husky’s solution was their Hylectric^® H300 and H225 machines. The Hylectric machine’s unique Reflex™ platens provide uniform clamp force distribution, enabling the reduction of scrap and tonnage requirements, improvement of part quality and extension of tool life. The system’s high-performance injection units create a wider process window, with fast injection and recovery, increasing overall throughput capability and operational flexibility.

Husky also tailored the machine’s configuration, further optimizing performance and efficiency, with the system’s high-performing clamp helping to reduce cycle time and part cost.

RESULTS

Husky’s high performance molding systems have yielded several significant, ongoing performance improvements for this customer, including: 

• The production of an additional 2.4 million parts per year
• Improved part quality
• A 10% reduction in cycle time
• Increased mold longevity

What Are IML Graphics?

IML graphics feature a pre-printed film or label that is applied to a container before injection molding. The film or label is then fused with the plastic during the molding process, resulting in a vibrant, high-quality, and long-lasting graphic that won’t scratch or fade. This process is widely used for consumer goods packaging and has been shown to increase the shelf life of products while enhancing visual appeal.

Why choose a Husky injection molding machine?  

Husky machines are designed to support aggressive cycle times for a wide range of applications, like thinwall food packaging, pails, closures, and medical devices. 

They are equipped with Husky’s distinctive three-platen clamping unit. The Reflex™ platen is designed to enable uniform clamping force distribution across the entire molding surface, for part-to-part consistency and quality.

Superior tonnage distribution helps to reduce clamping force and mold wear. Combined with wide tie-bar spacing, large platens and a stiff clamp base, Husky systems are ideally equipped to run heavy, high cavitation molds that would typically require larger conventional machines. 

To meet growing demands for performance flexibility, Husky offers high performance molding machines from 120 to 1200 metric tons with a broad selection of injection units. Longer versions of the clamping unit are available for large shut-height tools.

NEXT STEPS

Speak with a Husky packaging expert to learn about how our latest technologies can address your packaging needs.