United Way: An Americhem Community Service Tradition

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” At Americhem, we make it a point of practicing this philosophy in order to live out our company principles, which have a special section devoted to the communities in which we do business. Among other community related principles, we promise to, “Maintain positive relations in our communities,” and, “Within financial means, contribute to worthwhile charities and encourage employee participation in community service organizations.”

One of the ways we practice our principles is our company’s involvement in the United Way. For over a quarter of a century, Americhem’s management and employees have pledged time, money and effort to the United Way and its partner organizations at each of our locations in the U.S. Americhem employees are encouraged to pledge a portion of their paychecks to United Way and our corporate office also contributes funds to the local chapters where our plants are located. In some cases, the level of giving is phenomenal. At our Dalton, Georgia facility, 90.9% of our employees contribute to United Way and they were recently mentioned in a UW newsletter for their commitment to increasing their investment year over year.

Americhem Dalton (Georgia) Plant Manager Gary Dale (center)
 receives the employee participation award from the Northwest
Georgia United Way.

For the first time in 2015, our Ohio locations will participate in the United Way Day of Action, which mobilizes over 1,400 corporate volunteers to work on nearly 100 health and human service agency projects in Summit County. Twenty-eight of our employees will participate next month, and we anticipate that, beyond the good we’ll do, this activity will foster teamwork within our organization.

We also hold other events during the year that benefit United Way beyond our annual pledge drive. Employees donate money to participate in casual dress days and participate in food and clothing drives to benefit agency partners.

We believe that our commitment to the United Way and other worthwhile charities is a great way to make our communities better places to live and work. Our contributions go to support peoples’ basic human needs of food, shelter, health and safety. We feel fortunate to work for a company that encourages us to give of ourselves to help support people that are less fortunate than ourselves. After all, we realize that we could be just one life-changing event away from needing the services that our local United Way chapters help to provide.

We encourage our suppliers, our customers and all businesses to support the United Way to the extent that they can. Working together, we can help provide vital direct services to our communities and make them better places to live and do business.

Scott Blanchard

Corporate Marketing & Communications Manager

The Future of Commercial Interiors On Display at NeoCon 2015

This year marked the 47th annual NeoCon, America’s largest commercial interiors show, at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. NeoCon differs from many traditional tradeshows in that exhibitors occupy enclosed showrooms as opposed to typical tradeshow booths. Attendees have 12 floors and over 700 exhibitors to browse through thousands of new products that cover a spectrum of vertical markets including workplace, healthcare, hospitality, retail, education, public spaces, and government. Commercial interiors products range from floorcoverings and wallcoverings to furniture, seating and technology.

Americhem’s commercial team visited the show this year and three trends were very evident throughout:

1. Many designs, particularly for floorcoverings, were derived from nature and art. Bringing natural elements to enhance indoor spaces is a growing trend, from faux hardwood finishes to naturally occurring patterns and colors in carpeting.
2. The majority of floorcovering producers interspersed luxury vinyl tile (LVT) with carpet, particularly in transitional spaces such as between a hallway and a kitchen. The displays were attractive and fresh, and the different flooring types complemented each other quite well.
3. To continue a growing trend, most producers displayed eco-friendly products and services. Sustainability was the name of the game.

Another trend was specific to producers of commercial carpet tiles. Many manufacturers have introduced tile systems that are meant to be shown together in a continuum, particularly in groups of three. For example, there were several examples where tiles went from one light colored pattern to a second transitional tile to a third darker tile. When seen together in a space large enough to give the effect room to breathe, the patterns were more characteristic of broadloom than they were of carpet tiles.

The general mood at the show was upbeat, and several companies reported that Monday had been one of the busiest days for this show in recent memory. You can see show highlights on the NeoCon website and from various social media sources.

Did you attend NeoCon this year? If so, what were your favorite trends?

Pilot Lines and Product Simulation: How Americhem Helps You Get to Market Faster

Time isn’t always on your side when it comes to bringing new products to market. Proper testing can be a time-consumig, but necessary, ordeal, interrupting the flow of production in the name of quality.

With Americhem, however, you can do product testing without interrupting your whole process. We’ve raised the bar on what you can and should expect from your masterbatch, additive, and custom compound supplier, as Americhem has invested in numerous pilot lines, allowing you to do process simulation on our equipment without changing your workflow.

Product Testing without Interruption

Thanks to dozens different pilot lines located across the globe, Americhem can offer you the flexibility to trial runs for color and additive masterbatches for new products when you need to. We can effectively simulate many production methods, including:

• Injection molding
• Injection blow molding
• Blown film
• Film and sheet extrusion
• Siding co-extrusion
• Profile extrusion
• Composite board extrusion
• Fiber spinning
• False twist & air jet texturing
• Knitting

Need to test how Americhem’s masterbatches will work with other materials? Not sure how an additive will mix with specific resin? You can bring us a sample or we can order some to test it out, providing the trial and error process you need without having to tie up your facility. 

Working with Americhem’s Scientists

Not only do our pilot lines and process simulations help you get your product to market faster, they also give you access to Americhem’s scientists. That means that the people behind all of our custom color and additive masterbatches will be able to apply their knowledge to making sure your products come out just like they should.

The Value of Value Engineering

Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it to. With Americhem’s pilot lines and process simulations, you can test your products without interrupting your own workflow, helping you get to market faster.

Give us a call at 1-800-228-3476 or contact us online today to see the benefits of our value engineering for yourself.

How to Improve Your Products Using Films

If a product is going to be outside, it has to be able to withstand the sun. Extended exposure to the sun’s rays can cause your product to fade, or worse, break down, which is where industrial films can help. Still, standard industrial films can use a boost to protect your product, with color and additive masterbatch solutions from Americhem.

Our color and polymer additives for films can be made to meet different performance levels. That allows us to customize a product to meet your needs, whether it’s a film for photovoltaic (solar) cells or a cover that will go over an outdoor label.

Beat the Sun with nDuramax®

The sun poses a threat to your products, so something needed to be done to protect them. That’s why Americhem developed nDuramax, a special UV stabilizing masterbatch for polymeric films that will help block the harmful effects of natural light and provide the following benefits:

• Lengthened service life and retention of mechanical properties
• Extended aesthetic life of end products
• Maximized performance of many outdoor products
• Protection against color fading and UV degradation
• Maintaining light transmission across a wide spectrum

Even More Solutions for Films

UV stabilization is a big part of how Americhem can benefit your industrial films, but it’s not the only way. We provide that improve the way your products look, feel, process, and endure the elements, including:
several different solutions

• Anti-block and slip agents
• nShield™ Antimicrobials
• nBalance™ Sustainable Solutions
• Flame Retardants
• Specialty Products

Don’t settle when it comes to improving your outdoor products. With nDuramax and other Americhem technologies, you can make your industrial films even stronger than before. Give us a call at 1-800-228-3476 or contact us online today to get started on your custom Americhem solution.

Is vDesign® the right tool for you?

Our vDesign®color and property matching software has evolved over the past decade to become a powerful tool in developing new colored products for the plastics industry. The web-enabled software makes lots of color and property decisions easy and even includes pricing for the color formulas it generates. Our customers can even request evaluation masterbatch samples from Americhem through vDesign. The program is ten times faster than the previous version and now possesses the ability to design true spectral matches.

While vDesign has made life a lot easier for product designers, it’s not necessarily the right tool for everybody. Although vDesign matches are designed for dozens of polymers and end-use applications, it doesn’t work for every technology. While it can generate matches, property data and alternatives for everything from nylon automotive carpeting to transparent PET bottles, vDesign doesn’t have color solutions for PET films. But don’t let that stop you from requesting your technology, as vDesign is adaptable and capable of accommodating infinite technology solutions.

 

vDesign has multiple solutions for the packaging industry, but it doesn’t spectrally match special effects. However, vDesign does allow you to run searches for over 1.5 million special effect formulas such as metallics and pearlescents through an add-on software module that features improved searching capabilities.

 

Because of the vast and infinite nature of color, vDesign can’t match every color. But on most general purpose matches, the software can get within 0.5 ΔE_CMC of the color you desire. For very chromatic colors, the amount of colorant required may cause the colorant to migrate from the final article. We are working toward developing technical solutions to address this for vDesign. But if that exact match is extremely important, we employ highly qualified and tenured color designers in our labs that can help you get to the color you want. For example, extremely chromatic colors are typically best matched by a highly experienced color designer, who can also take into account cost and physical properties.

 

Although vDesign does allow color selection by physical properties, it doesn’t predict masterbatch processability. So to assess spinnability of PET fiber colors, for example, vDesign might not give you the information you’re looking for. But the beauty of the ongoing evolution of vDesign is that we’re adding features and functionality all the time. And the best way for us to improve the program is with input from people like you. Customer input has helped evolve the program to where it is today and will continue to help us add features now and well into the future.

 

If you haven’t tried vDesign, we encourage you to take a look. The program even includes colors from Americhem’s annual color trends forecasts, which can help you introduce trend-setting colors to your products. Contact your Americhem sales rep or email me at rbeck@americhem.com to learn if vDesign is the right tool for you to take your colored products to the next level. We think, you’ll discover, as fashion designer Donna Karan said, “It’s really easy to get colors right.”

 

Ron Beck

R&D Manager – Americhem Inc.

About Our Sister Company: Infinity LTL Engineered Compounds

You know Americhem for our color and additive concentrates and now, our sister company, Infinity LTL Engineered Compounds extends that product line with highly innovative engineered compounds to maximize the physical properties of your products. As you may know, Americhem acquired LTL Color Compounders and merged it with Infinity Compounding to create Infinity LTL Engineered Compounds in December of 2014.

“With the creation of Infinity LTL Engineered Compounds, these two respected entities will be run as a single company which will offer one of the industry’s widest product lines,” said Carlos Carreno, president of Infinity LTL. “The combined Infinity LTL business will offer customers a broad product portfolio of engineered thermoplastic compounds.”

The merger has meant a combination of two respected brands, each focusing on highly engineered, specialty compounds. Infinity’s expertise lies in structurally reinforced, internally lubricated and electrically active compounds while LTL produces world-class precolored compounds and polymer alloy products. Infinity LTL exhibited with Americhem at NPE 2015 in March, and the new company will be exhibiting at MD&M East in New York this June along with the SPE Thermoforming Conference in Atlanta at the end of the summer. 

Infinity LTL will continue as a market leader in thermoplastic technologies for dozens of engineering base resins. They serve a wide variety of end markets such as medical devices, computer & business machines, aerospace & military, automotive, consumer products, recreational vehicles and many more. The company also produces several proprietary brand-named products focusing on their areas of specialty.

Be on the lookout for their new website at infinity-ltlcompounds.com in the near future. In the meantime, you can learn more about the new company at americheminfinity.com and ltlcolor.com.

Aubrey Barto
Marketing Assistant, Americhem Inc.