PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2015

MOULD MAKING 10 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 12/15 www.petpla.net R&D/Leverage opens new Product Solutions Laboratory by Ruari McCallion October 15 2015 saw the official opening of R&D/Lever- age Europe’s new Product Solutions Laboratory (PSL) at its European HQ in Sutton in Ashfield, near Nottingham, England. The official opening ceremony was performed by Gloria de Piero, the local Member of Parliament (MP) and “Shadow” (Opposition) Minister for Young People and Voter Registration. Elisabeth M. Köpke and Ruari McCallion attended on behalf of PETplanet Insider. They undertook a tour of the factory and interviewed Managing Director Alan Tolley about the need for and purpose behind the new PSL, as well as the company’s activities more widely. “Brand owners and plastics con- vertors now require much more from their tooling suppliers,” Alan Tolley said. Things have changed dramati- cally since the company was founded as DK Moulds in 1984. For a long time, its role was to take instructions and specifications from customers, build tools to their precise specifica- tions and send them back, without any significant input at all. R&D/Leverage is now involved from the very earliest stage as Robert Schiavone, Global Marketing Director for R&D/Leverage, observed. “R&D/Leverage now provides the total solution, from pre-sales evalua- tions, product design, prototyping and tooling design, through manufacture and process validation, prior to ship- ping the production tooling to the cus- tomer,” he said. It could not have done so without significant investment in facilities, equipment and training. The PSL facility was originally purchased in 2012, with the intention of providing a secure research and development environment, which could confirm the feasibility of bottle and jar shapes, effect market evaluations and under- take short-run production for line, filling, labelling and capping trials, as well as tooling qualification an pro- cess validation. All of which means that it has to have similar equipment to its customers. Its latest moulding machines include a Nissei 12M and Nissei 70DPW. They sit very comfort- ably among the latest generation of auxiliary equipment including robot- ics, chillers, dryers and compressors. The visit to the compressor room was something of a surprise, as it was a lot quieter than tends to be the case in manufacturing environments – and not because the equipment is in any way lightweight; R&D/Lever- age makes sure it is aware of what its customers are using and upgrades if necessary. “We have the best in the market,” said Tolley. “We have them at two different levels: the shop operates at 8bar; the compressors supply air at 10bar and it can be boosted to 40 bar.” Compressors at that level are needed in order to blow-mould the bottles the company works with its customers to design and develop, a process that also includes rapid prototyping – or 3D printing, as it is now more commonly called – which it undertakes on its own 3D printing machine. The tour of the factory provided us with an insight into how far this facil- ity of R&D/Leverage has grown from its pure toolmaking roots. It makes its own moulds, has its own inspec- tion equipment and facilities, and is equipped with some very sophisti- cated laser welding tools. “Laser technology has revolution- ised the repair department,” Tolley explained. “In the past, when you were working with aluminium, you had to heat it till it was nearly molten and you had to make individual blow- moulds, for example. Now, you make it from one block. If one cavity is damaged, you simply cut it out and laser weld a replacement in place.” He indicated where a join was on what looked like a completely solid, single- piece unit. It still looked solid; the join was invisible to the naked eye. He took us through the steps necessary to make a screw thread, suitable for a neck of a bottle. Gloria de Piero (left), Member of Parliament for Ashfield, officially opens R+D/Lever- age’s new Product solutions Laboratory, along with Managing Director Alan Tolley.