Extrusion, a method of forcing material through a die to make a certain shape, is the process NewAge® Industries uses to make plastic tubing and reinforced hose. The extrusion equipment produces hundreds of thousands of feet of tubing every month.
“We stock a lot of inventory here – millions of feet – so our supply for our customers is in good shap,” noted John-Paul Deitz, NewAge’s Manager of Manufacturing Engineering. “But we don’t want to be down a production line if a piece of equipment fails. That would eventually put our inventory and our customers’ needs in jeopardy.”
Deitz added, “The availability of replacement parts was starting to come into question. So we decided that upgrading and replacing the extruders before any potential failure is just smart business.”
The new machinery passed testing and qualification stages and is now being used to produce braid reinforced PVC hose and braid reinforced polyurethane hose. Other extruders at the facility are used to manufacture unreinforced PVC and polyurethane tubing, thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) tubing, silicone tubing and braid reinforced silicone hose.
Courtesy of NewAge Industries.