Brampton, Ontario, Canada: Award-winning injection mold manufacturer StackTeck Systems Ltd., received the 2014 Gold Award for ‘Best Thin Wall Package’ at the recent In-Mold Decorating Association’s Parts Competition. Developed for brand owner Kentucky Fried Chicken, the 64 oz. carry-out pail utilized StackTeck’s proprietary thin-wall innovation called “Thin Recess Injection Molding” technology. The TRIM pail, molded by SriThai Superware of Bangkok, Thailand for KFC, uses In-Mold Labeling (IML) to enable high quality decoration.
StackTeck’s General Manager Business Development and Marketing, accepted the award along with Mr. Pongsak Katirantanawong, Marketing Director – Packaging Products for Srithai Superware. The TRIM pail for KFC marks StackTeck’s first commercial application of their proprietary (Patent Pending) TRIM technology. The customer, SriThai Superware, challenged StackTeck to find a way to reduce the weight of a 64 oz. round pail being used for popcorn at movie theaters, that was already at the limit of conventional thin-wall packaging, Robertson explained.
With this award-winning product, “it has been demonstrated that conventional lightweight parts with L/T ratio up to 300, (flow length/thickness) can be made thinner with additional light-weighting of over 40% by weight,” Robertson explained. “By pushing the TRIM part design to the limit, covering approximately 90% of the part with ultra-thin panels, a weight savings of approximately 40% was achieved. Most of the surface of this part has a wall thickness that corresponds to an L/T ratio of 550.”
StackTeck’s ‘TRIM’ technology gives the pail a wall thickness that is about half that formerly considered possible with conventional thin-wall molding technology. TRIM technology also allows for a light-weight, yet strong pail. The full wrap label provides extensive coverage on the container, and also acts to give this TRIM container added stiffness.
This is the fourth IMDA Award that StackTeck has won since 2009. The company won two awards in 2009 and another in 2010. Additionally, a larger number of IMDA awards have been won for applications molded on StackTeck molds, for which the mold maker was not named. Considering all of the awards for parts from StackTeck molds, it includes 40% of the injection molded packaging awards won over the past eight years of the event. “Compared to our market share worldwide, which we estimate at 25%, our projects are winning more than their share of awards,” Robertson said.
StackTeck Systems Ltd. is a global manufacturer of multi-cavity, high-volume production molds for packaging, thin-wall packaging, closures, medical, and mold bases. The company has built more than 300 IML molds in recent years, and over 80 of them were supplied as part of an integrated IML system.
StackTeck not only designs and build the molds, but has extensive capabilities such as in-house mold qualification and process validation and full system integration (robotics and automation), with the ability to perform system evaluations in house using state-of-the-art injection molding machines. The company also offers in-house training of its customers in the set-up and operation of these complex systems.
StackTeck: Manufacturing Systems & Solutions for Global Packaging OEMs
