Flexibles

Purchasing moves 'slow speed ahead'

Pharmaceutical/medical and beverage markets will drive packaging machinery spending this year, says a PMMI study. U.S. domestic equipment sales are expected to rise 2% to 3% in 2000 to $4.9 billion.

September 30, 2000

Additives, coatings & inks: Page 51

Blisters/clamshells/skin packaging

Positively different battery packaging (sidebar)

A tubular Leap

September 30, 2000

Flexibles

Hardware products renovate with packaging

Packaging seen at the National Hardware Show ranged from consumer-friendly packaging for data comm products to innovative film cubes for potting soil. The softer side of hardware was seen in a trend toward products packaged for females and light do-it-yourselfers.

September 30, 2000

Closures

Relocations, expansions

Tetra Pak (Vernon Hills, IL) announced the opening of its new pilot plant in Denton, TX.

August 31, 2000

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Milestones

eWinWin(www.ewinwin.com), an enabler of group buying, achieved its first transaction in the packaging field. In the eWinWin group-buying model, the more buyers that sign up to buy from a given supplier in a specific transaction, the lower the price based on a discount schedule worked out in advance by the seller.

August 31, 2000

Additives, coatings & inks

Used machinery: Offline help drives online purchase

Building a good relationship plays a major role in buying equipment regardless if it is transacted offline or over the Internet. When lubricant manufacturer American Specialty Lubricants decided to invest in a used capper for its Knoxville, TN, facility, it found this to be true.

August 31, 2000

Converting equipment

Materials Purchasing: Grocer buys into online shopping

Grocery retailer H.E. Butt Co. procures packaging materials through the INC2inc Internet marketplace. Now it’s persuading its vendors to climb aboard.

August 31, 2000

Conveying & accumulation

Notable web sites

Materials MarketplacesB2BPKG.com (www.b2bpkg.com) is a packaging materials marketplace that allows users to constuct a private catalog of vendors for online procurement.

August 31, 2000

Converting equipment

Fewer vendors in manufacturers' plans (sidebar)

Internet ordering proves as easy as H-E-B

August 31, 2000

Flexibles

Growth accelerates in flexible materials

Volume of flexible packaging materials continues to outpace growth in both the overall economy and for all of packaging. FPA report does identify some potential problems, however.

August 31, 2000

Converting equipment

Pasteurizable PET bottles

KoSa has developed a PET copolymer packaging resin that may make it possible to bottle and pasteurize beer in plastic.

July 31, 2000

Protective/transport packaging

HP cushions for B2C sales

Hewlett-Packard Corp., Palo Alto, CA, is using a new grade of Arcel® moldable foam from Nova Chemicals (Pittsburgh, PA) for protective cushioning for LaserJet™ Model 4050 printers distributed worldwide.

July 31, 2000

Additives, coatings & inks

Product catalog

Matrix Packaging (Lancaster, NY) has released a new full-color product catalog. A quick overview of stock containers with line drawings, available finish sizes and resins are all provided within the catalog.

July 31, 2000