Modern Plastics Worldwide - March 2010 - dae uptlax

MODERN EXECUTIVE
O fficials
An “Xten-sive” look at life as an
American molder: Chapter 1
By Clare Goldsberry Did the recession slow the pace of progress at your company? Likely it did,
at Xten Industries, a custom
injection molder and contract
manufacturer in Kenosha, WI, believe
that sustainability and profitability are
not competing goals. They also are out
to prove that profitable manufacturing
and “Made in the U.S.A.” are not mutually
exclusive terms.
“Sustainability is about making
responsible choices that help the environment
and ensure that your company will
survive the business pressures it faces,”
says Mark Dirr, Xten’s director of engineering.
“Ultimately, this is how you
must approach your efforts to be a more
sustainable operation—the two go hand
in hand. When you find ways to responsibly
use less of anything, you reduce
your expenses, and that goes directly to
your bottom line.”
Xten Industries, formerly Hauser
PlasTech, experienced strong growth
over the past few years. During this
recession the company saw some drop
in business early on, but by September
2009 things had picked up substantially.
Because of this growth, explains Xten’s
president Matthew Davidson, the company
was reaching the limits of its elec-
Quick facts:
Xten Industries
Where? Kenosha, WI
How big? 78,000 ft 2 of manufacturing,
office, and warehouse space
Who’s there? 80 employees; Matthew
Davidson, president
What machines? 30 injection molding
presses, 85-880 tons; all hydraulic
except for a 400-ton electric
but that does not mean you still aren’t striving to improve. In this, fi rst in a
four-part series, MPW will be tracking one company’s efforts to be sustainable
and profi table.
Xten’s director of engineering, Mark Dirr, is helping the company pursue a number of
different approaches to more sustainable, and more profitable, plastics processing.
trical capacity. It was time to think about
energy use and ways the company might
save on electrical costs.
Xten’s local utility, Wisconsin Energy
(WE), offers a program in which it
will evaluate a company’s current energy
usage and estimated future needs.
“Beyond saving money, we had the incentive
of finding a solution to our upcoming
capacity limits,” says Davidson. “Unless
we became more efficient with the equipment
we had, we’d have to invest heavily
to expand our electrical capacity, which
would cost us over $100,000. Our goal
became cost avoidance and learning to
live within our kilowatt means. The fact
that we were helping to cut overall electrical
consumption was an added benefit.”
Xten began its sustainability effort
with small steps—from the installation
of energy-efficient lighting and motion
sensors for turning lights on and off
in offices or infrequently used warehouse
bays, to employee training and
working with the community. The com-
pany also purchased an Ingersoll Rand
Nirvana VSD rotary-screw air compressor
and installed a variable-frequency
drive (VFD) on its cooling tower system’s
pump. These steps coincided with
research on possible future projects such
as reducing inline air pressure settings,
heater bands, and potentially the purchase
of an electric press.
If at fi rst you don’t succeed . . .
Not everything Xten tried worked out
well. One of those missteps was the
Power Factor Correction. The company
installed a capacitor bank to reduce its
peak power demand and improve its
power factor, which is an evaluation of
the unused power being returned to the
electrical provider, measuring the number
of degrees the current and voltage are
out of phase with the power company.
The better the alignment between these
curves, the more efficiently the power
plant can operate, explains Dirr.
Sounds good, but the process failed
8 MARCH 2010 • MODERN PLASTICS WORLDWIDE plasticstoday.com/mpw