Three things. The first being our service, we can be on site with personnel, equipment, and parts anywhere in North America within 48hrs. Second, our inventory allows our customers to keep their maintenance and production teams furnished with the resources they need to keep their machines running and producing top quality material. Lastly, being vertically integrated grants TPEI a tremendous amount of agility which enables those first two qualities.

There have been two tracks for innovation with TPEI mixers. The first is adding sensors and data logging for everything from predictive analytics to increased QC. It’s amazing how many different data points can be measured and analysed within these processes, and of course it varies from one customer to another depending on what their individual demands are. The second is finding ways to incorporate materials that were thought to be outside of the machine processing window. Whether it’s a base resin or a unique additive, TPEI is finding ways to push the boundaries of what can be made in a CM.

What are the biggest challenges facing the industry today and how can this be overcome?

Labor and material shortages are affecting everybody right now, hopefully it’s temporary, but it is a significant challenge right now.  You can’t talk about challenges without talking about sustainability. Finding ways to reuse material and divert it from landfill is probably 20% of the projects we encounter.

How do you see the sector developing in the next five to ten years?

The mature masterbatch and concentrate market will grow proportional to consumer demand in the 3%-5% range. The most dynamic sector is high performance resins for light weighting and all the high-speed low drag applications. That is driving the innovations we are bringing to our products.

What are you most looking forward to at this years’ show? 

Seeing people face to face and discussing how we can help solve there compounding needs.