13 April, 2010

2010 without a doubt is Ceramicx’s year. Founder and director Frank Wilson is on a mission that takes him to Korea, Chinaplas, the USA and all other points leading up to the company’s centrerpiece exhibition at the world-renowned K 2010 plastics exhibition in Dusseldorf this autumn. Ceramicx is a world leader in infrared heat technology for plastics. The greater part of the company’s output goes into heaters for thermoforming and platen systems for plastics. The client machines and the plastic processor needs vary greatly and the heating systems and expertise must provide both for fast cycling thin walled containers and also for the thermoforming of the largest of components. At the helm of the company is founder and managing director Frank Wilson; supported by a talented core team of players that includes his son Cathal Wilson, an engineering graduate, currently completing a doctorate in business studies. A wave of Ceramicx expansion on a broad range of fronts is planned for the next five years. Wilson says that ‘at Ceramicx after twenty plus years of investment and development we are confident that we have created the best kind of ceramic heating element for the thermoforming industry – period. Our view is that the world will continue to strive to build a better machine in a bid to improve thermoforming line efficiency– and our ‘heat work’ and our engineering will be featured as the best among the best.’ Wilson says that ‘Ceramicx is now kitemarking and badging all our heaters and elements as indicators of true quality for the plastics thermoforming industries. We intend to have 75% of our output identified as such by the time we exhibit at the K 2010 plastics exhibition in Dusseldorf this October. We now have a formidable body of proprietary know-how that needs more protection -  and we also need to communicate its existence more completely to the 63 countries that we export to worldwide.’ Ceramicx was set up in 1992 and in 1994 moved into its new premises in Ballydehob, Ireland on a site previously owned by Infrared Internationale. The current wave of Ceramicx developments and expansion includes higher value jobs supported by increased levels of automation and production know-how. Ceramicx also aims to harness and factor alternative energy sources into its production mix – driving down energy cost and also – critical in today’s environment – the carbon footprint of all its products. Manufacturing the best products and systems is one thing – but delivering them on schedule – worldwide - is another. The company’s trade and logistics abilities are the envy of many and Ceramicx co-founder Grainne Wilson delivers this service to customers. Says Grainne, ‘the Transport and Logistics industries are always in development. At Ceramicx we are duty bound to stay on top of all the trends and get the best from a constantly changing picture.’ Every day Ceramicx ships its goods to many different locations and by different methods - from the smallest carton of around 6kgs to full pallets and containers. The company ships by road, sea and air and the requirements vary greatly for different countries: Destinations outside the EU for instance require import documentation such as movement certificates and export documents, Certificates of Origin, Invoices and other documents. Ceramicx pays great attention to the packaging and safety of its goods in transit. Says Grainne,’All Ceramicx goods are very carefully wrapped and packed. Most of our production is made from ceramic and glass and has to survive the handling throughout the route. This can mean being loaded and unloaded several times until final destination – and so our packaging is of the very best quality and function.’ Ceramicx design and manufactures all of its products and bespoke systems in-house. Over the past five years the company has invested in a large machinery shop, with Hurco CNC milling machines and Safan metal cutting, shaping and finishing machinery in order to ensure the continuing independent manufacturing success of the company –‘no dependence on outsourcing,’ points out Wilson, ‘and full control of the innovation and materials used. Much of what do here,’ says Wilson, ‘is to engineer bespoke solutions and systems for new customers. Each of these infrared-heating solutions needs designing and testing before full production. And because we made the investment in CAD, CAM, metal fabrications, milling and tooling, we have been able to upskill our workforce.’ Frames, reflectors, mounting and ancillary equipment;  ‘all of these,’ says Wilson, ‘need designing, testing, machining and fabricating and constructing together with the ceramic, electrical and quartz elements. And then the likely heating processes and in-service parameters must be predicted and factored in.’ The new metal fabricating and milling systems at Ceramicx not only offer failsafe accuracy, the fact that they are programmable ensures identical repeatability of the job, regardless of scale, and also allows the business to machine parts at volume with no loss of quality. Thanks to the investments, the speed and throughput of each new bespoke job has been greatly increased – as has the consequent time-to-market. Wilson says that ‘it gives me immense satisfaction to say to machine builders or to thermoformers of plastics that “we make it here”. Not only are we independent from the changing fortunes of the sub-contracting market, in this way we guarantee our design, quality, innovation and our speed of delivery.’ Wilson says that the quality of the resulting products has been extensively validated in the company’s marketplaces worldwide: Ceramicx infrared products have been tested by independent laboratories in Europe and in Asia and also by builders of plastics thermoforming machinery equipment worldwide. The feedback shows that Ceramicx leads the pack in terms of product performance, reliability and quality. ‘This international feedback is something that we intend to make more of – and raise the standards bar for the industry generally.’ One current project – joint with the University of Limerick  - is therefore seeing Ceramicx integrate a failsafe system of quality assurance and product identification that will have each individual heater both traceable -and with the data for its actual heat performance available online from Ceramicx. The core of the new quality assurance (QA) work centres on developing systems of more closely specified nominal wattage tolerances for the proprietary-designed ceramic and quartz electrical elements. Wilson says that ‘we have decided that our thermoforming machine builders and all our thermoforming heaters need the security of this data and also full systems of product traceability. This will include infrared performance parameters that can be accessed numerically and visually – online and offline – via the serial numbers on the heating product.’ The Ceramicx concern for the thermoforming industry extends well beyond delivering superior thermoforming replacement heaters at best prices. Wilson notes that the industry can often be its own worst enemy when it comes to managing issues of what he calls ‘heat work’. ‘Heat work’ for plastic thermoformers ‘Any thermoforming production system,’ says Wilson, ‘has its areas of opportunity and weakness  -  high-speed packaging lines even more so. Thermoformers often forget that the thermal systems installed are the engine of production. Without maintenance and without sufficient analysis, production output and quality will suffer. One area commonly neglected, says Wilson, is the temperature and humidity of the sheet plastic feed before it’s even loaded onto the line. All thermoformers should ensure, wherever possible, that this material is not just brought out from a cold store and deployed into production straightaway. However it is achieved (and a period of days may be necessary since plastics is such an unconductive material) the material feed should be established at the room temperature of the production line.’ Wilson explains that ‘in typical thermoforming production, systems of preheating serve to even out temperature across the raw sheet feed before it enters the main heating system proper. Infrared preheating systems are preferred, owing to the greater degree of temperature control possible. The goal at preheating is the complete elimination of temperature variation later in the processing cycle. An effective heat ‘soak’ will also pre-empt flaws such as finished difficulties appearing in the form of pearlesence on the finished product or lack of gloss.’ And when it comes to the main heating phase in thermoforming, the build and quality of the infrared platens have a decisive part to play.  Given this, Wilson says that ‘it is somewhat strange that the principles of Infrared heating are so little understood by its users in packaging and thermoforming production.’ According to Ceramicx, the essence of Infrared heating involves a ‘Holy Trinity’ of three factors – absorption; transmission and reflection. The misunderstanding of these principles can lead to the misuse of the thermoforming equipment and the consequent expense in energy, cost and capital plant.’ The key to a good infrared heating system is one in which incoming electrical wattage is converted into infrared output more quickly and efficiently. In plastics thermoforming, for example, a number of infrared ceramic heaters are then mounted on reflectors which are then arrayed upon a platen – or two – which is part of the production line; typically after pre-heating and before the ‘trauma’ of part forming and then sheet cutting prior to product stacking at the end of line. The performance of the background reflectors -  their material composition - and the performance of the platen in general is vital in directing the infrared heating to its the target material – namely the sheet plastic. According to Wilson, many thermoformers end up all too often fighting the demands and design of their machine in order to get some efficient heat work done. ‘For example, stainless steel is not an adequate material for use in infrared reflection work. It will absorb a high percentage of the emitted energy and will therefore over time cause burnout of the electrical wiring behind the reflector. Polished aluminum on the other hand is in most cases the best reflector for ceramic infrared heating but > 500 C it also will start to fail. The business of thermoforming thin and clear plastic sheet needs some installation of passive ceramic tiles in the base of the platen in order to reflect back the heat.’ The Ceramicx experience is to note that as a thermoforming platen system starts to discolour and degrade under use – with dirt and process plastic and other materials – so the reflectivity will be compromised and the machine operator will then typically be involved in a vicious circle of increasing the temperature in order to achieve the same performance. Regular review and maintenance could pre-empt the bother; the increasing lack of control and the extra cost. Wilson says that ‘we see time and again that a 30-40% improvement in operational efficiency of most packaging thermoforming systems can be achieved through this single and simple step of reviewing and renewing the infrared heating platen. The ideal control for this situation is to mount a thermocouple on the existing reflector system – keeping a temperature watch. When this starts to rise – taking more and more energy – the user should be alerted to take action.’ The packaging and thermoforming industries could do a lot worse than to review their use of heat – infrared systems in particular – and understand the principles a little better. It could improve savings and overall performance no end. Infrared – underused and misunderstood In truth, however, the misunderstanding of infrared heating technology is not something simply confined to the plastics or thermoforming industries. ‘The IR knowledge gap in industry generally is actually very wasteful,’ says Wilson. ‘Most new projects for us usually begin with a search for a foothold on some IR expertise within the client company and then we can create some common ground of understanding – and some solutions. The problem and the issue leads back to the IR teaching – or lack of it – within universities and within engineering generally. IR is like a toolbox of options but unfortunately most engineering departments don’t know how to open the box – let alone use what’s in it.’ Frank Wilson points that infrared radiation is a lot closer than we think: Beginning with our solar system, infrared radiation (IR) is emitted from all everyday objects in our world – ‘in fact,’ he says, ‘from anything with a temperature above absolute zero.  Infrared radiation has many uses in everyday life but at Ceramicx our focus is on its ability to heat objects without direct contact with the heat source.’ In scientific terms, Infrared is electromagnetic radiation, similar in nature to light but in a longer wavelength range. Infrared elements are generally classified into three categories according to their peak energy or peak emission wavelength. These are : Long wave: Ceramic elements; Medium wave: Quartz elements; and Short wave: Quartz Tungsten elements. All of these elements offer an immense range of heating types and heating performance: Ceramicx makes Ceramic and Quartz emitters which range in surface temperature from 150°C (302°F) to 730°C (1346°F) and the Ceramicx Tungsten bulbs are capable of reaching in excess of 2400°C (4352°F). That’s a pretty broad palette of heating options – and part of the Ceramicx success has been to mix and match these in the best interests of the customer. Outside of plastics thermoforming, key applications for Ceramicx infrared know-how include curing of various resins via ovens and ambient systems; industrial non-contact drying, spot heating, warming food, infrared saunas and numerous other industrial processes. Wilson says that ‘at Ceramicx you will find a company that is not satisfied with the established standards for the industry. We have developed many new products that better fit the needs of today's manufacturer who has no choice but to be reliant on process heating. In the case of plastics, we work hard to give our thermoforming customers – processors or machine builders – the quality, repeatability and the cost savings that they need.’ Frank