Page 56 - Food & Drink Magazine April 2021

MEMBER NEWS
FOUR DECADES OF PUTTING PEOPLE AND RELATIONSHIPS FIRST
Having started his journey at Nordson decades ago as a technician, applications
manager Don Mills, celebrates 40 years with the adhesives
experts this March and continues to place a high emphasis on people and
building strong relationships. “It’s said there is no substitute
for experience, however, experience is nothing
without self-motivation, an open mind to continued learning, self
improvement and change, and a desire
to help customers achieve their goals. Don has all of those qualities in bucket loads,” says Jonathan Williams, Nordson northern region manager.
Mills completed a fitter machinist apprenticeship in 1981 before his employee had to shut down operations, forcing him to find opportunities elsewhere. This eventually led him to finding a technical role in the adverts for Nordson.
“Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work with many great people, customers and Nordson employees. These long-term relationships continue today and are a constant highlight of my career,” explains Mills.
Mills highlights several achievements as standouts, including a number of international sales installations and commissioning projects; designing
and fabricating microwave UV light curing chambers, and the commissioning of a solar farm adhesive dispensing system in Las Vegas.
“Today, customers understand pro-active service products, and they realise the impact on their business when a line stops, so they are prepared to invest to minimise downtime.
“Many manufacturers have moved their operations offshore to be more profitable, however, there is a steady move to stop this exit. Also, the food sector is experiencing solid growth due to the pandemic, and this trend means packaging will only soar.
“My task is to support the customer to integrate technology in their business and provide control and monitoring of their processes to rebuild profits and turnover for the future.”
OPTIMAL PROTECTION FOR NORD DRIVES
To protect its drive systems from corrosion, chemicals, wear, scratches, impacts and moisture, Nord Drivesystems offers a wide range of different methods for each application – from environmentally-friendly paint to long-life high-performance coatings.
This includes Nord’s nsd tupH surface treatment, which provides corrosion protection for gear units, smooth surface motors, frequency inverters, and motor starters in wash-down optimised cast aluminium housings.
For paint finishes, Nord uses the latest generation of high-solid paints, which reduces the emission of solvents far below the legally required limits.
For the electrical sector, Nord offers robust and long-life powder coatings. The treated surfaces are resistant to impact, scratches, and wear. It is resistant to weather and chemicals and are even more robust than conventional Nord paints.
The anti-static properties of the electrically conducting powder paints prevent static charging of the drive technology, and so downtimes are reduced to a minimum. A further advantage, according to Nord, is that powder coatings are free from solvents and make an important contribution to protecting the environment.
KRONES JOINS EU’S CIRCULAR ECONOMY INITIATIVE
Krones Group has joined the EU’s Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, an initiative set up to progress the establishment of a circular European economy.
The platform brings together like-minded companies with a unified goal of closing material cycles to put in place firm foundations for a more sustainable future.
As a member of the platform, Krones has entered into a self-imposed commitment to eight targets:
rPet compatibility: By 2025, it will be possible on all new PET bottling lines to handle bottles made of up to 100 per cent high-grade recyclate without any impairment to production quality, efficiency or efficacy.
Plastic-free secondary packaging: By 2022, Krones will offer alternative secondary- packaging solutions containing no single-use plastics whatsoever for all multipack formats in common use.
Support for recyclable packaging design: Krones uses its technological expertise to support clients in designing forms of packaging that are optimally suited for recycling.
Changing over from linear production to circular economy: Clients get the support they need in order to achieve optimum results on existing lines when handling recycled and/or renewable materials.
Permanently attached closures: Equipment is already available that enables tethered caps (closures permanently attached to the bottle) to be used.
Sustainable labelling: For optimum recycling results, Krones’ portfolio includes packaging solutions where labels can be removed from the empty container without any problems. The long-term goal is to recycle the labels together with the containers, or done entirely without a separate material for container decoration.
Investing in recycling: Upgrading Krones’ solutions for material recycling of packaging plastics (solid/flexible, PET, polyolefins and PS) by continually investing in relevant R&D projects.
Beyond PET packaging: Above and beyond conventional PET solutions, Krones is proactively pursuing development projects connected with disruptive technologies that take beverages to the consumer in innovative ways.
4 MARCH-APRIL 2021 MACHINERY MATTERS