JANESVILLE, WI—June 3, 2008—Prent Corporation, the global leader of custom medical thermoform packaging, walked off a winner at the recent Society of Plastic Engineers (SPE) Parts Competition during the 6th European Thermoforming Division Conference in Berlin April 3-5, 2008. Prent’s “2007 Holiday Ornament Package” won the “General Packaging—Thin Gauge” category.
The competition focused on originality, creativity, mold complexity and technical ability to promote advanced design and development from a structural innovation perspective. Judges were looking for design-orientated application of materials, the successful combination of technical innovation and design quality, expansion of the bounds of materials application, presentation of new application opportunities, and new combinations of the traditional with the innovative.
“Our design goal for the Holiday package was to not only protect a fragile glass ornament in an esthetic manner,” explains Joe Pregont, Prent President & CEO, “but to also showcase the plastic roll stock including its characteristics and forming capabilities. Our design utilizes the elastic properties of plastic to create a “spring effect” to cushion the ornament against shock during transit.
“We used the same mold for both halves of the package by forming a male designed part in a completely female mold. The two package halves were secured without the use of undercuts. Instead,” he continues, “we developed cut-to-cut interlocking features to allow ease of assembly but—by design—it does not come apart easily.”
In addition, a new trimming process dramatically reduced production costs. Packages with 180 degrees of 3-D trim were previously created by making expensive multiple action dies. “But, for this package,” notes Pregont, “we designed a two-stage match metal trimming process resulting in a 400% cost reduction over a multiple action die.”
ABOUT PRENT CORPORATION: Prent is the world’s leading designer and producer of thermoform packages for the medical industry. Headquartered in Janesville, WI, it has over 1,000 employees worldwide at its operations in Wisconsin, Arizona, Singapore, Malaysia, Shanghai and Puerto Rico. Prent is ISO 9001:2000 certified, manufactures in Class 100,000 production and secondary clean room environments, and utilizes Six Sigma lean initiatives, process excellence and continuous process improvement.
For more information visit www.prent.com or contact Vicki Damron, Prent Marketing, at 608-758-1150 or vdamron@prent.com