News

With more than 46 years experience providing converters with innovative solutions engineered to improve efficiency, Converter Accessory Corporation (CAC®) has the practical knowledge to help customers improve their sustainability.

A family owned company, CAC vigilantly protects a proud reputation for quality engineering, innovative design and attentive customer service. Nationwide experience with nearly every type of web converting has given CAC a deep reservoir of knowledge and the ability to anticipate industry trends and customer needs and priorities.

Today, CAC is thoroughly engaged with contributing to the move toward more sustainable converting and more sustainable finished products.

Jeffery Damour, CAC Engineering Manager says “In addition to improving the efficiency in nearly every facet of web converting, we can help customers down-gauge material; run faster and smoother webs; run challenging recycled materials and more efficiently handle edge trim waste. Improved efficiency, reduced waste, and energy consumption is definitively a more sustainable operation.”

For example, CAC offers two outstanding product families that directly improve sustainability and may help converters help their customers improve their scores on the influential Wal-Mart Sustainability scorecard. The “scorecard” is a comprehensive system that rates every aspect of a package’s sustainability including materials, manufacturing techniques and shipping, and allows Wal-Mart to give shelf space preference to higher scoring products.

WrinkleSTOP® Helps Down-Gauging; Reduces Waste.

WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls remove wrinkles with no web distortion, offer edge-to-edge adjustability, from 0% to 100% spread, while the web is in motion, require no special tools for adjustment and have a broad range of applications. WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls improve overall versatility by extending the reach of materials that can be profitably run on most web operations. They are effective with laminating, slitting, printing, coating, textiles, paper, film and nonwoven production.

“WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls accept many materials at any wrap angle, even with extremely short lead-in and lead-out web distances, and really shows off its performance with thin gauge materials but works equally well with all materials and thicknesses,” Damour said.

In independent performance evaluation tests, WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls removed all the wrinkles, all the time, under rigorous conditions and proved to be the best performer in a broad field of subjects. WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls offer both standard and custom sleeves to match most applications and features high-quality motor-grade bearings.

Damour added: “Strategically employed WrinkleSTOP® Spreader Rolls not only support down-gauging and thinner gauges while generating less waste, they also allow an overall increase in line speeds. Sustainable practices do not have to require compromises. They can also be good business practices. Our aim is to improve efficiency and increase sustainability without compromises in quality or profits.”

Energy Efficient Trim Removal Systems

The unique design and performance of CAC's FOX TrimAway®, and FOX Runner® trim removal systems can improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption in in-house waste management operations.

FOX systems feature an adjustable venturi and blower system that allows customers to run the narrowest possible trim. In operations where trim is wound, trim widths must be wide enough to be wound in rolls. In the FOX system trim is transported by the blower / venturi to a collection area allowing converters to minimize the excess waste required by trim winding operations.

Additionally, changing from a trim winding-based operation to a continuously operating FOX system makes an operation more efficient, and thus more sustainable, by eliminating production interruptions needed to change trim rolls or the even more awkward matrix rolls.

CAC's employment of frugal energy consuming regenerative blowers in the FOX system allows for a major reduction of energy consumption when compared to systems that use energy gobbling compressors. Since these systems are available in four venturi sizes, with blowers of one to 15 horsepower, CAC is able to customize an entire system to precisely match a converter's requirements by operating continuously at the maximum speed of the web it serves need without resorting to energy wasteful over-sizing.

CAC offers technology designed to perform at every critical point in a web. From the simplest aluminum core cone to the most sophisticated unwind/rewind solutions CAC products improve efficiency, help increase profits, reduce waste and energy consumption, allow reduction of material costs through down-gauging and, best of all, are readily available, cost effective, easy to install and are fully supported by an expert and dedicated team.

“Major improvements do not always come from a single, expensive, dramatic addition. They are often the result of expert tweaking and the sum of several small enhancements. When we take a close look at the big picture of a web's performance we almost always spot a couple of critical spots where a small improvement will deliver a big result. Constant improvement, that's what sustainability is all about.” Damour concluded.