editorial

02/2014

THE BEST WAY TO PREDICT THE FUTURE IS TO INVENT IT

I was looking through a book of quotations that other day. Here is one from Alan Kay: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” We at SIPA strongly believe that our task is not only meeting our customer’s demands, but also anticipate them and—just as important, if not even more important—meeting ones they never even knew they had. We see it as our job to get inside a customer’s head (without losing our own), to see how it feels to use preform molding equipment, stretch-blow molding equipment, filling equipment, packaging equipment, day-in, day-out—and to try and find a better way of making things happen. Because there is always a better way.

This edition of SIPA MAGAZINE is full of examples of how our experts have created new ways to solve problems at our customers, to avoid them before they arise, and to create new futures. Probably our most startling development is the XTREME injection-compression molding system, which now makes it possible to produce preforms that are up to 10% lighter than even the lightest injection molded preform. And as visitors to our stand at the BrauBeviale exhibition in Nuernberg will be informed about, we are now extending the philosophy behind this technology to its logical conclusion downstream too.

For those of our customers happily married to more traditional injection molding technology, we continue to extend the possibilities here too. SIPA has for example created new designs of ultra-light “BottLess” bottles, based on preforms with extra-high length-to-thickness ratios that can only be achieved with its highly innovative XMOULD mold technology.
On the bottle production front, meanwhile, SIPA has developed a preferential heating system for preforms that is ideal for stretch-blow molding systems producing non-round bottles, for such applications as beauty & cosmetics, squeezable sauces and salad dressings. Customers producing containers for household products that have integral handles will also benefit from the new system.

There is even a completely new unit in SIPA’s range of linear stretch-blow molding machines, the SFL 1/1, which meets a growing need among processors involved in small- and medium-scale production of containers anywhere from 15 to 30 liters in size, and who are looking for the most cost-efficient and reliable equipment on the market today.

And finally, SIPA is reinforcing its position as a total system provider with the introduction of the Flextronic W weight filler, a piece of equipment characterized by outstanding accuracy, precision, and speed, and perfect for numerous high-value products in food and non-food applications. SIPA is the only company in the world today offering fully complete turnkey systems for such products, all the way from the conception and development of the preform and bottle, to forming and filling, and onto packaging and pelletizing. Its experience in plant engineering and systems integration is unrivalled, and continues to grow of course.

All these examples are further proof of SIPA’s ability to innovate—and innovate for a purpose, which is to make its customers more successful. Other companies can do this too, but I believe makes SIPA special is that it can do it on so many different fronts, and in a coordinated way that is not just in tune with expectations, but which exceeds them and, as I said at the beginning, makes you think: “I didn’t know I needed that –but I did!”
I shall conclude with one of my favorite quotations of the moment, this time from another rather well-known physicist and philosopher, Albert Einstein: "The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before." If you enjoy the spirit of innovation, stay with SIPA!