Added Pfeffer: “The digital-ecological character of the innovation leads to resource-efficient, transparent production based on real-time data — a real added value for the realization of a sustainable digital transformation."

The SKZ Plastics Center has entered into a partnership with Sonotec GmbH for non-destructive in-line testing of foamed plastics. The effort is part of the Digiress program, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUV) that is pursuing innovative solutions in materials testing.

In February, Atalys announced that it is tripling the size of its existing facility in the Dominican Republic from 15,000 to 47,000 square feet through the addition of a new 32,000-square-foot building. The company said that the new building will be dedicated to manual assembly with complementary injection molding, pad printing, tool repair, and warehousing. The existing facility will become the company's primary plastics processing site focused on cleanroom injection molding as well as secondary operations such as testing and packaging.

"Our acquisition of Schnipke was driven by a focused strategy to deepen our capabilities, capacity, and technical superiority across the entire manufacturing process for medical device components,” said Vinc Ellerbrock, president and CEO of Atalys. “The addition of Schnipke adds two manufacturing sites for scalable growth, broadens our geographic presence and reach, enables us to serve a wider array of customers, and significantly augments our technical capabilities,” said Ellerbrock.

SKZ Plastics Center is a leading research and development institute in the field of plastics technology and part of the Zuse Association. The institute is pooling its expertise in response to the increasing demand for efficient testing methods for foamed plastics.

Stephen has been with PlasticsToday and its preceding publications Modern Plastics and Injection Molding since 1992, throughout this time based in the Asia Pacific region, including stints in Japan, Australia, and his current location Singapore. His current beat focuses on automotive. Stephen is an avid folding bicycle rider, often taking his bike on overseas business trips, and a proud dachshund owner.

Earlier this week, another medical injection molder made news when Total Molding Services announced that it has been acquired by Haartz Family Holdings, changing its name to Moldgenix in the process.

Plastics injection molder Atalys LLC announced yesterday that it has acquired Schnipke Engraving Co. LLC. Both companies provide injection molding and related services to medical device OEMs. Atalys, based in Rochester, NY, said the acquisition will enhance its manufacturing capabilities, technology, and geographical footprint.

Schnipke has tooling and plastic injection molding operations at its headquarters in Ottoville, OH, and operates a second manufacturing facility in Tucson, AZ. The company is FDA registered and is certified to ISO 13485:2016.

Direct and automated measurement offers many benefits, including savings over current time-consuming manual processes, linking measurement data to process and system data, and developing models for predicting failure.

Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

Founded in 1967, Schnipke has established a reputation for building tools in-house and designing and engineering molds that meet the medical device industry's stringent requirements for precision at extremely tight tolerances, said the news release. The company claims on its website that it can mold within tolerances of +/-0.001 inches and as small as 0.02 grams in weight. Even smaller dimensions can be accommodated upon customer request.

Together, the partners are establishing advanced testing technologies based on ultrasound. This will enable accurate and reliable evaluation of foamed plastics, benefiting industries ranging from automotive to packaging as lightweight and efficient materials become increasingly important.

In addition to its headquarters in Rochester, Atalys has manufacturing facilities in Asheboro, NC, and the Dominican Republic. The New York and North Carolina plants have multiple Class 8 cleanrooms for molding and assembly on site; the Santo Domingo site in the Dominican Republic offers cleanroom assembly and automation. The company said it adheres to scientific molding principles and is equipped with presses ranging in size from “near micro molding” to 1,400 tons.

"Beyond the current project, there is technological potential to sustainably design production processes in the manufacturing industry for a wide range of materials and components," concluded Pfeffer.

“We are correlating a number of ultrasonic signals attributable to the bulk density and the cell size of the foams,” said Pierre Pfeffer, senior scientist in the field of non-destructive testing at SKZ Plastics Center. “Our previous research with terahertz and microwave radiation also proved quite reliable for the surveillance of foam parameters during production.”

The measurement technology employs innovative air-ultrasonic transducers to record specific measurement data. This data is then correlated with relevant foam parameters. Further, an artificial intelligence–driven neural network, is created, trained, and optimized for this purpose. This enables reliable and reproducible in-line process monitoring.