Plastics News - Design

Friday, July 04, 2008

Design

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Green design can bolster bottom line
CHICAGO (July 1, 5:15 p.m. EDT) -- “Going green” will demand changes in how people live, design products and operate businesses, but also can more than pay for itself. That was the message from a pair of sustainability experts at a "Greenstorming" workshop June 26 in Northbrook.

Teamwork paying off big for BASF in furniture
CHICAGO (June 30, 1:10 p.m. EDT) -- A team consisting of a designer, a material supplier and a molder collaborated successfully to produce a breakthrough product: an all-plastic cantilevered chair. The Myto chair made its North American debut recently at NeoCon World’s Trade Fair in Chicago.

Molder, designer Madison buying Bunch
PRAIRIE DU SAC, WIS. (June 3, 4:25 p.m. EDT) -- Madison Group plans to boost its plastics analysis consulting capabilities by acquiring the business operations of Bunch Engineering of Prairie du Sac. Bunch specializes in injection molding analysis, especially through the use of Moldflow software.

PN , SPI sustainability conference set for Nov.

WASHINGTON (May 30, 3:15 p.m. EDT) -- The Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. and Plastics News Global Group will co-sponsor “Sustain ’08: Plastics Business Summit,” to be held Nov. 5-7 in Chicago.

Schools, businesses team up for competition
DANIELSON, CONN. (May 28, 10:40 a.m. EDT) -- Cinch and tote bags with 90 percent recycled content helped earn Killingly High School top honors May 16 at the Quinebaug Valley Plastics Institute and Quinebaug Valley Community College Plastics Expo in Danielson.

Kimberly-Clark creates absorbent PS foam

Absorbent mat

MILWAUKEE (May 15, 6:50 p.m. EDT) -- Kimberly-Clark Corp. makes things that consumers use to clean up around the house, including paper towels, tissues and diapers. Its products are in households all over the world, but the company also wants to expand its offerings beyond its normal lines of paper-based products — so it has created flexible, absorbent products using thermoplastics.

Despite challenges, SPE says it´s solid
MILWAUKEE (May 15, 6:35 p.m. EDT) -- The Society of Plastics Engineers is holding its own, despite what executive director Susan Oderwald called “a very slow, but steady” decline in membership, to 18,500.

Autodesk acquiring Moldflow for $297 million
SAN RAFAEL, CALIF. (Updated May 2, 5:30 p.m. EDT) -- Autodesk Inc., known for its AutoCAD design software, has signed a deal to buy Moldflow Corp., a maker of computer-aided-engineering software for plastics, for about $297 million.

Design savvy helps LG Electronics grow

Kim

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (May 1, 9:55 a.m. EDT) -- South Korean conglomerate LG Electronics Inc. wasn´t a household name in the world of mobile phones 10 years ago, but today it is situated to become one of the world’s five biggest. The firm could not have accomplished that leap without a sustained commitment to industrial design, said Kim Jin, one of LG’s top product designers.

Card makers look at eco costs, developments

Target´s alligator card

ORLANDO, FLA. (April 28, 10:40 a.m. EDT) -- Bill Crawford has a bit of advice for plastic card makers trying to go green. “No material is all of that,” said the vice president of sales at Waytek Corp., a Franklin, Ohio-based supplier of adhesive coatings for plastic films. Crawford spoke at the recent International Card Manufacturers Association’s expo.

ICMA honors innovative designs, technology
ORLANDO, FLA. (April 28, 9:40 a.m. EDT) -- A key-tag card with embedded security won the Judges’ Choice award in the 2008 Élan competition conducted by the International Card Manufacturers Association. A spring gift card for Apple Inc.’s iTunes digital music and video service won the Best “Free Form” Design.

Design expert: Be in China to assure quality

Fletcher

DULLES, VA. (April 22, 2:45 p.m. EDT) -- Tim Fletcher, a design industry veteran with extensive experience in the United States and Asia, is the international liaison officer in Asia for the Industrial Designers Society of America. He also teaches at the School of Design of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He recently answered Plastics News’ questions, via e-mail, about design trends in Asia and the U.S.

SPE partnering on publication
BROOKFIELD, CONN. (April 22, 11:40 a.m. EDT) -- The Society of Plastics Engineers is outsourcing publication of Plastics Engineering magazine and reducing its frequency to 10 times a year.

Companies garner environmental awards

ORLANDO, FLA. (April 11, 4:05 p.m. EDT) -- Eight firms received environmental awards from the Plastics Environmental Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers at the Global Plastics Environmental Conference in Orlando. Winners include closed-loop recyclers, a railroad tie maker, automakers, an injection molder and others.

Mexican architect envisions plastics in space
MEXICO CITY (April 4, 4:20 p.m. EDT) -- If there’s one architect in Mexico who deserves the title of the plastic industry’s friend, it’s Juan José Díaz Infante Nuñez. His plastics-dominated designs include a house he developed in the Mexican state of Durango, an observatory in Tijuana and 4,500 houses designed for, and sold to, Saudi Arabia.