Unique Design In The Can

From the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology

For immediate release

UNIQUE DESIGN IN THE CAN

Lower Hutt company Impact Manufacturing has designed an award-winning aerosol can that it believes has exciting export potential.

With a grant from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, the company has developed and tested a world-first prototype "very different from the standard cylindrical object", says Impact's plant manager, Les Wong.

"The project has resulted in a major technological breakthrough combining innovation and engineering excellence," he says. "We have produced a can that has an indent or profile in it giving it a three-dimensional appearance."

The indent differentiates the can from other products, allowing a marketer of personal care products, for example, to make its brand stand out. The indent can be used to display a product name quite distinct from competitors.

Impact won the best new product prize for the "innovation can" at the Australia-New Zealand Aerosol Industry Awards last year.

"The investment from the Foundation, through Technology New Zealand, has allowed us to carry out the experimental development work and use consulting engineers to develop our ideas and review its progress. We are pleased at the way it has worked out," Mr Wong says.

Tricky technical and engineering challenges needed to be overcome to allow artwork to be registered with pinpoint accuracy on the irregular shaped can. Fibre-optic sensors and a program logic controller showed that the new shape could be manufactured at a viable cost and at an efficient processing rate of about 70 cans a minute, or 25,000 a day.

Mr Wong says the company is now refining the product to better fit requirements in lucrative overseas markets. "That means making the can bigger and improving the mechanics related to the manufacturing process."

Impact Manufacturing specialises in aerosol cans for a niche market, mainly personal care products such as deodorants, body sprays and shaving foams. It exports 80 per cent of its products, which include aluminium and laminate tubes. -ends-

Contact: * Les Wong, Impact Manufacturing, Lower Hutt. Ph: (04) 567-0027, Fax: (04) 567-0024. * Tony Hadfield, Technology New Zealand at the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, (04) 917-7800 or 025 494-095. Website: www.technz.co.nz

Prepared on behalf of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology by ID Communications. Contact: Ian Carson (04) 477-2525,Email: ian@idcomm.co.nz

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