One of Argentina’s leading extruders of mono- and multi-layer PE films, Dinpe SA, has installed Vetaphone corona technology at its plant in San Juan, in the west of the Argentina Republic.
The family owned and managed business, which was established in 1987, specializes in the co-extrusion and printing of PE film for bags, wraparound labels, and synthetic stoppers for wine bottles. The company has a modern production facility that includes 8-color printing presses, fabricators, and laminators for high-quality work that is meets ISO 9001:2015 standards. The end products are sold and marketed under the brand name Flexibles Plastinos.
It was the issue of quality that first led Dinpe to contact Vetaphone. Mr German Gonzalez, the Plant Manager in San Juan explained: “We pride ourselves on the quality of work we supply to our customers and were having difficulty with this because of the poor reliability of the corona treaters fitted to our extruders.” After meeting Carlos Sanchez of Conexsud, Vetaphone’s representative in Argentina, and reviewing both the background of the Danish manufacturer and its support network as well as the technical performance of its technology, the decision was made to retrofit a Vetaphone corona treater to one of Dinpe’s extruders.
The Vetaphone technology installed at the San Juan plant includes a VE2C-A (PF4-5) corona treater station of 2320mm width powered by an iCorona 2UL 10kW generator fitted with an iHP300 transformer. The system is controlled via Vetaphone’s iCC7 operator panel, and the system is ventilated by an RD65UR blower fan.
“The result has more than met our expectations – it has way surpassed them, and we can now produce our coextruded polyolefin films with confidence that the quality will not vary. In fact, we are so impressed that our forward plan is to fit Vetaphone technology to all our other extruders,” said Mr Gonzalez. With the company’s declared plans for an ambitious growth target, this will translate into good business for Vetaphone, as Ted Wolski, the company’s Sales Manager for South America noted.
“It is always great to hear compliments like these and especially when it’s a retrofit – this highlights the comparison between Vetaphone technology and that of other corona manufacturers and makes the case for production efficiency based on quality. We are delighted to hear that Dinpe has confidence in Vetaphone products and support, and much of this is down to Carlos and his team at Conexsud,” said Mr Wolski.
With its products used for various applications including soft drinks, beers, mineral water preserves and heat-shrinkable sleeves for pallets and demijohns, Dinpe has built up a diverse customer portfolio over the past 35 years. Its blown film extruders produce a range of shrinkable polyethylene films, classifying each type of film according to customer needs in a variety of widths, thicknesses, shrinkage conditions, in glass tone or color, and with or without printing.
The plant in San Juan, which covers some 3,000sqm, produces about 5,000 tons/year and employs around 60 people, uses only top-quality virgin raw material (generally low-density polyethylene), which, when subjected to a tubular blown extrusion process, produces films of optimum quality, gloss, transparency, resistance, and constant thickness.
As Mr Gonzalez concluded: “We are very proud of our company and the work we produce here. Our business philosophy is based on satisfying all our customers’ needs and adapting and growing our capacity to new requirements. We recognize our people as our greatest asset and invest time and money in training, teamwork, and self-management. If you add in the best technology, like Vetaphone, you have a recipe for success.”
