Graham Engineering to Demonstrate Next Generation Wheel Technology at NPE 2012

YORK, PA--(Marketwire - Jan 20, 2012) - Graham Engineering Corporation (GEC), the York, PA, USA-based manufacturer of extrusion blow molding equipment, will feature expanded capabilities of the legendary GEC wheel at the National Plastics Exposition (NPE) 2012, from April 1-5, 2012. GEC will be located at booth 2702 in the West Hall of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

GEC plans to feature an expanded portfolio in its rotary wheel line, which includes its latest high-speed rotary wheel offerings, and the MINI™ wheel, which adds the capability to handle small and medium production volumes. GEC will also explain the latest advances to its proprietary and award-winning XBM Navigator™ machine process control system.

On display in its booth will be a next-generation "G-Series" high-speed rotary wheel machine. These "G Series" wheels add both flexibility and higher speed capabilities to GEC's rotary wheel product lines. A key feature of this design is greater flexibility -- by changing out a few parts, processors can add or reduce clamp stations; thus cavitation or mold sizes are adjustable if the product mix changes over time. This flexibility helps processors "protect their investment"; if the product size changes over time, the wheel can be more easily modified to keep an optimum production profile.

The addition of the MINI wheel has made the legendary GEC wheel technology available to small and mid-sized blow molders. Due to customer requests, GEC has recently expanded the MINI wheel line from 12 stations to include 9, 10, 15, and 18 station versions. This gives customers the option of running larger containers and higher outputs than those that could be accommodated on the original 12-station MINI wheel.

GEC developed the MINI Wheel specifically to produce co-extruded plastic containers in high growth areas such as flavored milk, organic drinks, coffees, teas, nutraceuticals, yogurts, probiotics, packaged fruit, smoothies, fruit juices, drinks with fruit chunks, specialty milks (Lactose reduced, Omega 3, Acidophilus), as well as ketchup, jellies, salsa, and other oxygen-sensitive food products that have to be packaged in barrier plastics.

GEC will also be displaying additional advances to its award-winning XBM Navigator PC Control system. Control Design Magazine recently named Graham Engineering recipient of its third annual Innovator Award for its innovative and effective approach to machine control.

GEC developed the new control system as part of a system-wide upgrade of control technology among all of its machinery platforms. The proprietary industrial PC-based system incorporates GEC's equipment manuals as a valuable added resource for customers -- they can be accessed as cross-linked PDFs offering helpful photos, schematics, and parts lists. To enable fast, easy troubleshooting by GEC's technical support team, the XBM Navigator also features remote diagnostics via Ethernet connection.

About Graham Engineering Corporation: Graham Engineering has benefitted from over 50 years of stable, family-owned operation. Its core business is the manufacture and sale of high-speed plastics processing machinery, primarily for the packaging industry.

Graham Engineering offers a complete line of monolayer and multilayer extrusion blow molding equipment: shuttle machines up to 10 L capacity; reciprocating screw and shot pot machinery for lightweight HDPE containers; multi-cavity, single and dual parison, rotary wheel blow molders for up to 30 L packaging applications; single and dual head accumulator machinery from 5 to 50 lbs (3 to 30 liters) capacity, and multi-parison shot pot technology for smaller industrial applications.