For Sekaran Murugaiah, Vice President - Business Development, Asia-Pacific of Davis-Standard, Chinaplas retains its importance as venue for the promotion of the company’s range of products and services for the Asian market. At this mega exhibition, Davis-Standard highlighted its global aftermarket services and equipment technology for sheet, foam, thermoforming, pipe, profile and tubing, elastomer, cast film, extrusion coating and liquid coating. These capabilities support critical end-use segments in food packaging, medical packaging, tubing and automotive. Specific examples include electric vehicle battery packaging and separator film technology.
As doing business in the COVID era requires creativity and flexibility due to evolving protocols and safety requirements, Davis-Standard’s teams have rallied to provide an exemplary aftermarket response in regard to parts, rebuilds, equipment upgrades and emergency breakdown services
When asked on how these products and services would benefit the Asian market, Mr. Murugaiah states: “Specific to China and Asia, Davis-Standard’s high-output systems for medical tubing, cast film, blown film and extrusion coating have been essential to medical and packaging applications. The company’s installed base continues to grow as do vertical opportunities in aftermarket upgrades and optimisation of lines to improve performance.”
Mr. Sekaran Murugaiah
Current industry trends lean towards more efficient processing, reduced waste, and long-term sustainability to support profitability and better products – all of which Davis-Standard are meeting through its products. One example is the dsX flex-pack™ 300S which was presented at the exhibition. This single station extrusion and lamination line is a collaboration between Davis-Standard’s design teams in the U.S., Germany and China, and is built at the Suzhou facility to meet the requirements of the Asian flexible packaging market.
As a platform, Chinaplas remains an important venue, although this year, expectations vary. As Mr. Murugaiah explains: “Clearly we expected fewer visitors, but I am hopeful about the quality of leads and prospects. As anticipated, sustainability and solutions for newer technologies generated a lot of interest.”
With Davis-Standard moving forward in Asia, advances are also being planned in its product range. “Specific to Asia, we hope to introduce integrated Davis-Standard control systems that will enable processors to connect and communicate with multiple lines and service personnel simultaneously. This supports our efforts in advancing Industry 4.0 technology, and includes remote access for gathering information from equipment sensors for troubleshooting and maintenance. Our DS Activ-Check™ system is a step in that direction, providing continuous extruder monitoring to support better processing and reduced downtime,” according to Mr. Murugaiah.