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ASI Welcomes GBIG and the 5P Industries for a Company Tour

Tour Date: March 24, 2022 at 2:30 p.m. 

Location: 1031 Ontario Road, Green Bay, WI 

ASI, Division of Thermal Technologies, Inc., designs and manufactures custom drying, curing,  and cooling equipment for the converting and continuous process industries, including coating  and casting lines, pressure sensitive adhesives and release liners, construction materials, and flexible packaging. We are based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and have been designing and building drying equipment for over 36 years. We specialize in forced air convection dryers that  transport the web or product using air flotation, roll support, or a belt/conveyor. We build lab line  dryers as small as 36 inches to dryers more than 200 feet long. 

We currently have several dryers on our shop floor in various stages of fabrication, including a 25-foot, single-zone downdraft style dryer for a vinyl casting line and an 83-foot, four-zone roll  support dryer for a battery line. We also have drying systems on our floor for an EPDM rubber  roofing line, as well as an integral plenum dryer system for a digital printing and coating  customer. 

If you are having any drying issues with your current lines or have any upcoming projects, ASI  would love to learn about your processes and how we can help with your drying needs. We  have a dedicated service team that is available for preventive maintenance visits,  troubleshooting, spare parts, installation supervision, startups, and upgrades and retrofits. 

To learn more about ASI and our drying, curing, and cooling systems, visit our website at www.asitti.com or our YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLReNB9PlJAY2Ftu60LFk9A

Visit www.greenbayinnovationgroup.com to register!

Foreign conflict driving disruption in Cyber

As tensions escalate, cyberattacks, threats and uncertainty around the availability of everything from our banking systems, utility services and supply chains are being questioned.  Fears of further escalation is real.  For businesses that fail to plan and take protective measures, the financial fallout can be swift and destructive.   

There are a number of key steps an organization can take for additional protection: 
•    Double check all of your critical security updates
•    Implement Multi-factor Authentication 
•    Strengthen your email protection features
•    Re-fresh employee training on “phishing” and Social Engineering Scams
•    Purchase Cyber Insurance – to mitigate the impact to your business, should a cyber-attack cripple your business

Proactive steps to mitigate these cyber threats are key.  R&R Insurance can help your organization create a Cyber Continuity Plan and offer products and services that protect your business, your assets and your employees from these any many other cyber threats. 

To learn more about these cyber risks, employee training programs and leading insurance solutions, look to R&R Insurance as your cyber solutions provider.  We have included a link to a framework for a Cyber Continuity Plan to get you started.  .  Look for more resources in the coming days!  For more information email us at cyber@rrins.com

Setting up a cyber-security consultation is easy. Please give me a call directly and we can plan our cyber discussion.

Matthew Prickette | R&R Insurance Services, Inc.

Commercial Insurance Consultant

Matthew.Prickette@rrins.com | MyKnowledgeBroker.com

Phone: 920-585-6022

Industrial Automation Solutions, Products and Services to Keep Plants Growing and Running Smoothly

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Anniversaries are often a Celebration of successful relationships — ours is no different. This year, Tech4 celebrates its 25th, and as a founding member of the organization, I feel fortunate to have been a small part of many of those relationships.

Read the Article

Coating and Laminating Offer Converting Benefits

A View By Susan Stansbury

Wisconsin converters look to coating or laminates separately for their specialized benefits. Yet, there are times when, for example, less costly coated materials can take the place of laminating. Or, laminating is selected as a superior option.

Decisions around these choices start with the product design. What are the desired product attributes, aesthetics and deliverables? What are the regulatory and testing requirements? 

Aesthetics centered around the “look” of the product may drive developers in a certain direction. On the other hand, they will specify certain performance characteristics. These product characteristics are examples where the plan may demand:

• A shiny, gloss surface effect, or velvety matte, often seen in packaging.  
• Transparency or package windows for viewing interior contents.
• Smooth, soft or other touchable attributes that draw consumers.
• Drapable, or stiff, or “quiet” (not crinkle-annoying) for food or other usage.
• Barrier to liquids, on one or both sides, seen in various medical products.
• Absorbency, such as a dental bib’s absorbent front side and barrier back side.
• Strength, including tear, burst and other measurements.
• Features designed around immediately disposable, or reusable products.
• Minimal performance for economy; and alternately, maximum for premium items.

When an attribute such as a barrier property is a necessity, there is still a range of definition to be determined, such as:

• Barrier to what…water, chemicals, other fluids.
• Barrier-protective coatings or layer to minimize “scratch” or other degradation.
• Product life cycle…length of use or amount of reuse.
• Ability to recycle. Laminates pose recycling issues. Food and other packages combining paper or plastic and foil as a barrier-to-moisture have had disposal challenges.
• Products with barrier properties meeting food-grade, EPA or FDA acceptance. 
• Level of barrier properties. In some cases, barrier films that are laminated to tissue, nonwovens or other materials require a very high level of performance. Even the film to be coated or laminated may need to be qualified as “pinhole free.” And the converting process used must optimize results.
• Choices of barrier materials may also represent other needs such as ability to heat seal or assuring temperatures the final product may be subject to (such as in the microwave oven).
• Adhesion properties for both dry and wet applications and matched to type of adhesive.
• Challenges when converting uneven materials or porous surfaces.

Today’s coating techniques offer more potential to compete with laminating two or more materials.  

Coating may be accomplished on the flexographic press, with a gloss or matte or light barrier property. A converter’s saturation technique can be used to apply a fragrance or lotion to a tissue or nonwoven substrate. The lotion can make the material softer, smoother or provide other consumer benefits. Slot die systems with pre-metered coating are also options.

Laminating offers the best opportunity to combine disparate materials such as a nonwoven and polyester or film or foil and tissue. Today’s lightweight incontinence or sanitary napkin pads are easily converted using an absorbent material combined with a film barrier backside.

Certain products, such as medical, with a pinhole-free, non-leaking barrier backside may also need to be breatheable and drapable. Additionally, a minimally adhesive-laminated combination allows manufacturers to interfold products like tissue-based towels. 

Certain coatings, such as for silicone coated pressure-sensitive release backings run the range of emulsion, solvent and solvent-less silicones. Various papers and films are coated for tapes, labels, signs and adhesive combinations plus especially demanding products such as transdermal medicine-delivery patches and wound care specialties.

Whether the choice is to laminate or coat via various means, product concepts should drive decisions. Developers working with converters can optimize both cost and performance, rather than locking in specifications too early. Working with converters and suppliers like Press Color in Appleton to develop special coatings allows product designers better performance possibilities.

Converters working with developers to offer new, unforeseen properties to attract buyers – are emblematic of the great Wisconsin “Converting Corridor.”

Stansbury’s experience includes many years in the paper, printing, nonwovens and converting industries in corporations and as a consultant

GBIG NEWS PAPER UPDATE CRISIS FOR WISCONSIN 5P and the Converting Industries!

The total U.S. Printing-Writing Paper Shipments increased 3 percent in January 2022, and we anticipate the demand growing over the next quarter. Simply, the U.S. paper mills can’t provide the paper, and the foreign paper mills are on strike or choose not to ship paper to the USA.  

The printing paper mills’ response is shutting down production, due to the decline in printing paper markets or converting paper machines to packaging papers! No, the real answer is to maximize PROFIT without supporting their customer base!  

The paper industry for printing papers has created its own problem over the years with low pricing for its products and lack of investment into its paper mills. Wisconsin has lost ownership of its valuable resource for paper production, along with shutting down capacity. 

We need to support the remaining paper mills in Wisconsin with incentives to reinvest in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin’s top economic development official recently renegotiated a $2.85 billion incentive package with Foxconn down to $80 million, and we forget that paper built Wisconsin. Thank you, Missy Hughes, of WEDC! 

The Wisconsin 5P and Converting industries have a huge demand for these papers, and it is vital for their survival. Wisconsin needs to support these industries with an estimated 98,000 employees with many other industries supporting the 5P and Converting Industries.

Unfortunately, the remaining USA Paper Companies are looking short term, and the demand for printing paper has allowed them to increase prices and put end users on allotments to maximize their profits. However, this short-term effect will force consumers to move more to a digital platform away from using paper. We have seen over 2,000 newspapers close down in 15 years and more and more publishers are going to digital editions for their publications. Why would trade Printing and Packaging Publications cease the production of printed editions?  

SPL Consuluting The power of TRIPLE E

The Power of TRIPLE E in supporting Strategic and Lean Initiatives

As I work with Leadership Teams across the country, we often talk about experiences and concerns of not being able to create and sustain lasting change through Strategic and Lean efforts.  When SPL Consulting, LLC. works with clients, this is a primary focus of conversation on how to drive transformational change.  Achieving lasting change and the performance improvement that comes with it, comes from a culture that has a number of core leadership principles consistently required of and applied by leaders.

I’ve recently been summing many of these behaviors into what I call The Power of TRIPLE E: 

• Engagement
• Empowerment
• Execution 

Let’s break it down.  First, there is Engagement.  What does that mean?  There are many approaches to achieve this end, but here are a few examples you can apply in your business.  Spend time with your team in their work environment and ask them how the machine is running or if there are any issues causing them grief.  Listen to them and capture their thoughts, then, now this is important, take some action.  When leaders hear their team and do something based upon their input, team members are more likely to be engaged in not only the daily tasks involved in their role but helping improve them.  Another important step to propagate Engagement that is often lost in the shuffle is to close the loop.  Be sure to let team members know when you’ve acted on their ideas.  I’ve heard from numerous client team members that “we bring things up, but nothing is ever done”. When I share this feedback with the leaders, I often uncover action has been taken but the team was unaware.

Next is Empowerment.  When leadership teams master this, great things are destined to happen.  The challenge is to create guidelines on what your team can do on their own and still control risk to the business.  In one of the businesses I led, we established three basic criteria for when anyone could take action.  If the change cost less than $500, only affected the department they were in and didn’t create a safety or quality issue, they could make the change without approval.  We required they close the loop and share results of a change so it could be validated and become part of standard work.  As the great Dr. Deming used to say, “In God we trust, all others bring data.”  When the team began to trust we really meant what we said, many incremental improvements began to happen that didn’t require leadership oversight!  This freed up more time for leaders to lead and resulted in improved performance.  By establishing and developing this culture you are building an army of problem solvers.

The final element in TRIPLE E is Execution.  This can be the one of the bigger challenges for many companies.  It is key to setting the example and expectation for what you want from other members of your team.  Leadership always, always, always…starts at the top.  Said another way, establishing a culture of doing what you say you are going to do even when it is hard, or you get busy, is a leadership responsibility that sets the stage for others.  Do what it takes to follow through.  Leader Standard Work (LSW) is a great tool in the Lean toolbox to help your leadership team maintain focus on executing and sustaining key actions over the course of time.

Are you effectively harnessing The Power of TRIPLE E?  If you want to explore this approach further, please feel free to reach out.
Brian Van de Water, CEO, SPL Consulting, LLC.
vandewaterb@outlook.com