Complete solutions and not just machines

The company Plastic Systems, which in 2014 celebrated its first twenty years in business, has always concentrated not just on supplying its own solutions to machine manufacturers, but also on developing turnkey systems. In addition to its Italian-based headquarters, research and development centre and production unit, the company also has three production plants abroad - in China, Brazil and India. It has  250 employees, 160 of whom are in Italy, and a turnover of 50 million euros; it recently established a company operating in the field of industrial refrigeration. These are the facts and figures highlighted by Plastic Systems during its participation at Plast 2015. There, Gianfranco Cattapan - the company’s founder and president - specified that 50% of the turnover is generated by the construction of machines and standard devices, and the other half by the construction of turnkey systems in response to specific orders. A dual role that, according to Cattapan, has been, for the company, a strategic and successful choice.

At the international fair in Milan, Plastic Systems unveiled Blauwer, a new company specialising in the design and construction of machines for the industrial and civil refrigeration, offering, in both sectors, cost savings and energy recovery. This category embraces the new EA226 chillers and the innovative Heatwer heat pumps, which are designed to raise the ambient temperature through a process guaranteeing extremely low power consumption. Blauwer also presented a heat pump combined with a drying hopper, able to preheat the granulate before it is melted in the screw.

For PET processing, it offered the new DW1500-I rotor dryer, designed with a bigger rotor capable of reaching production capacities of up to 1200-1500 cubic metres per hour. Remaining on the subject of energy saving, it also introduced the CRN crystalliser combined with a heat pump (new technology from Blauwer).

A considerable amount of space was devoted to the new gravimetric blenders for extrusion  technologies, available in three versions: single-spiral for granulate and powders (up to 4 components) or double-spiral for non-flowing materials (up to 4 components); DVM vibrating channels, for materials in flakes and regrind (up to 8 components); gravimetric batch blender and weighing system (up to 6 components), allowing hourly outputs of between 60 and 440 kg and featuring an instantaneous productivity control device. The weighing system is able to communicate with the extruder thanks to a dedicated interface. The company also presented its new VLP blenders for powders, which feature capacities of 10, 20 and 50 litres and an updated design.

For the injection sector, it exhibited its automatic sorting unit and two DWC dehumidifiers, featuring a more innovative design and improvements to the dehumidification valve and suction valve, which are easier to clean, and to the measurement precision and colour touchscreen monitoring.

Situated at the heart of the area devoted to feed technologies was the MWS weighing system, which is able to monitor, in centralised systems, the consumption of each receiver. Finally, the company also introduced the new DG10 gravimetric blender, designed to work with two dosing units in synchrony, monitoring their performance on a single colour touchscreen.