December 2020 – “This is a game changer for Unicorr—and for our customers,” Charlie Pious, President of Unicorr’s Protective Packaging Division, said about their latest acquisition of comprehensive, state-of the-art, high-speed equipment for production of protective foam packaging.
Located at the company’s production facility in Putnam, CT, the totally automated equipment includes a high productivity die cutter; a high-speed foam slitter that provides 100 percent accuracy with greatly reduced foam dust; and a 2-station foam welder that is up to 10X faster than handheld welding guns and creates precision welds that eliminate over- or under-welding of parts. In addition, the equipment will allow for much faster turnaround times than previously available.
“The die cutter alone exerts 150 tons of pressure, which out-produces our former equipment by as much as four times,” Pious added. “The increased tonnage allows us to cut more parts with each impression, which is greatly beneficial for longer runs.” The die cutter is also oversized—58” x 33”—so Unicorr machine operators can cut large parts and multiple outs in a single piece, which reduces the overall production cost—another benefit to customers.
The advantages of these machines are especially significant for Unicorr’s medical, defense, and electronics customers. According to Keith Bianchi, Operations Manager for Unicorr’s Protective Packaging Division, “The products that these customers manufacture are exacting; it is essential that their protective packaging be exacting, too.”
Bianchi further cited that the growing e-commerce industry has created a demand for foam packaging inserts for a number of market channels. “Today, customers present us with a wide variety of projects, and they oftenneed to have them produced faster than before. We can now meet these expectations with superior results.”
Unicorr’s protective packaging professionals frequently meet with customer engineering teams; together they develop the most effective, most efficient product for their specific needs. “This new equipment outperforms any previous Unicorr machinery,” Pious said. “It simply makes things bigger, better, faster—and, most importantly, possible.”