When you have products to package, it costs a lot less to manufacture your own 5-gallon buckets than it does to buy them.

Leadership at Smitty’s Supply Inc., a Roseland, La.-based oil, lubricant and chemical manufacturer, saw an opportunity to reduce expenses by doing just that – but they needed reliable, fast-cycling injection molding machines with no downtime.

Working with Milacron, the company installed two all-electric machines – a POWERPAK® to make the buckets and a POWERLINE® unit to make the lids – and estimate a total cost savings of $50,000 to $100,000 annually.

Cost Savings Opportunity

“We’re not in the business of selling buckets,” said Robert Killebrew, blow mold operations manager for Smitty’s. “We wanted to manufacture enough to cover our in-house needs for packaging our products.”

Relying on Milacron’s experience and expertise, Smitty’s chose to use Milacron’s POWERPAK® all-electric machine, having had unfavorable experiences with other hydraulic equipment in the past.

The POWERPAK provide a number of advantages, including:

• 17.5-second cycle times
• Cleaner, safer shop floor
• Elimination of oil-related hazards and related insurance costs
• Fast-acting clamp and injection units (through patented rack and pinion clamps and roller screw configurations)
• Low torque necessary to accelerate the clamps or injection axis
• Reduced contamination risk from greaseless tie bar
• Less warehouse space required to store empty buckets

Significant Energy Savings

One of the most noticeable benefits of the new machines was the bonus to Smitty’s bottom line. The company estimated an initial ROI on the machine, but they also realized an astounding level of energy savings.

Many molders in the packaging industry continue to find that hydraulic models are necessary to meet their needs for force and speed. But one of the major drawbacks to this approach is low energy efficiency, an issue that is increasingly on the minds of today’s lean manufacturers.

The energy-saving benefits are a key reason packaging producers have been shifting to electric in recent years. Electric-based injection molding machines deliver a minimum of 45 to 65-percent energy savings. With the high volume capabilities of these machines, the savings can add up to $25,000 to $50,000 per year per machine - a total savings of $50,000 to $100,000 annually in the case of Smitty’s.

“The most impressive startup I’ve ever seen …”

The setup of the equipment went more smoothly than Smitty’s expected. Both machines started performing flawlessly right from the start — so well, in fact, that the operators had to temporarily shut them down because they ran out of supplies.

“We allocated some extra time into the installation process because we expected it to take a while to sort out the kinks and get everything up to speed,” Killebrew said. “That ended up being completely unnecessary. Instead, we couldn’t keep up with the machine.”

Fast Color Changeovers

Smitty’s was also pleasantly surprised by the simplicity and speed of color changes. Often with an injection molding machine, when an operator needs to make a color change, they purge the material through until they get the right color and then have to discard the purge.

With their POWERPAK® electric machine, Smitty’s can do a color changeover in as few as 40-50 buckets. The process takes minutes, instead of the hours a standard purge might take. Smitty’s even uses the off-color molded buckets for label setups and tests and then regrinds them afterward.

“I am extremely impressed with my experience with Milacron and the POWERPAK® all-electric machine. From here on out, I won’t even look at anything besides electric machines. We have very high expectations moving forward.”

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