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April 7, 2015 by UniAdmin

Dangers of Heat Illness

HEAT ILLNESS CAN BE DEADLY. When employees are exposed to hot temperatures, maintaining a safe work environment can be more challenging than you think. As summertime temperatures continue to rise, it becomes increasingly important for employers to focus on providing workplace conditions that are safe from the excessive heat.

OSHA Heat Illness Fatalities

Heat Fatalities 2008-2014

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA), thousands of workers become sick and even die as a result of exposure to heat each year. In the United States, an average of 400 deaths per year are directly related to heat, and an estimated 1,800 die from illnesses made worse by heat.

Many industries face challenges when it comes to providing a cool working environment, particularly in heat-susceptible areas such as industrial plants, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities. When surface temperatures on pipe and equipment routinely exceed 140° F (60° C), measures should be taken to improve the working environment. Without adequate cooling or precautions, workers are put in danger while equipment and manufactured products are at an increased risk of failure, which can impact worker safety and productivity, and certainly, a company’s bottom-line.

So how can you protect your employees from heat exposure while also ensuring that the work is accomplished on time?

According to OSHA, “The best way to prevent heat-related illness is to make the work environment cooler”. However, the dilemma now becomes how to efficiently and economically cool large, open areas where high ambient outdoor temperatures and heat-generating machinery are factors.

OSHA Touch Safe, Ambient Air temperature

The radiating heat of a running barrel affects the ambient temperature.

Fortunately, the use of industrial insulation on process equipment and piping not only saves money and energy, but also reduces the potential for heat- related illnesses. As insulation is added to systems, the surface temperature of these systems is dramatically reduced. This provides a cooler work environment that yields higher productivity, as workers do not require as many breaks and are less concerned with the potential for burns from hot surfaces. Furthermore, insulation helps reduce the amount of work your machine has to do by decreasing the amount of energy used without sacrificing quality or performance. Learn more about the energy saving benefits of insulation.

The use of UniTherm’s UniVest® and ISOCOVERS Insulation Systems product lines provide easy and efficient ways to save energy and money while creating a cooler and safer work environment. Additionally, these product lines can be purchased online because they now are available in standard “off-the-shelf” sizes, which drastically reduces the time and costs often associated with custom insulation jobs. For all of our heat prevention products, view our online shopping cart here.

UNI-ISO

For additional tips on how to keep your facility cooler and your workforce happy and motivated, click here for more information about preventing heat-related illness.

Share your stories about dangers of heat illness and let us know how you are preparing for the coming summer months on our social media pages:
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Filed Under: Energy Efficiency, Manufacturing, Plastics Industry, Safety Tagged With: energy efficiency, Heat Illness, ISOCOVERS Insulation Systems, lean manufacturing, Personnel Protection, piping, plastics, plastics industry, protect, safety, save energy, thermal insulation, UniVest® Insulation Systems

March 17, 2014 by UniAdmin

Check Out Our New Website!!!

UniTherm Insulation Systems, manufacturer of insulation blankets for high temperature applications, is excited to announce the launch of its redesigned website this week at: www.unitherm.com.

The design, e-commerce software platform and infrastructure of UniTherm.com have been completely reengineered. The goal is to provide a more personalized and simplified user experience on the website and e-commerce site. The revamped site also boasts ad units and integrations that are larger, more effective, and newly optimized for mobile users. Visitors of the site can now enjoy a seamless experience across all screens — desktop, mobile and tablet.

With the launch of the e-commerce website, the company’s President, Dan Sherrill, explains that, “In today’s market the launch of a new website may not be seen as groundbreaking, but within our niche, we recognized a need for and developed an e-commerce site that provides clear-cut, detailed information (such as delivery, product care, common FAQ’s, technical specifications etc.) on every product or part we sell.”

The new website includes a clean design, with brand new content that enables customers to easily search for new products and services. It is fully integrated with the company’s social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and its blog, and has an integral customer relationship management system to ensure that UniTherm’s sales and after-service professionals are fully informed of its customers’ needs.

Furthermore, the new web site showcases UniTherm’s pioneering efforts in offering a standardized product line –including product specifications for a broad range of available sizes and levels of performance– to make it easy for customers to order our products. This product line, along with the instant quoting, has eliminated the need for each project to receive a custom estimate and allows all orders to be instantly placed and processed.

“I couldn’t be more pleased with our new website. It’s well-designed, streamlined, and easy to use – just like our products,” according to Sherrill. “Our goal was to create a website that meets the needs of both our customers, who need easy access to our information, and the UniTherm staff, who need to be able to update the content easily to keep our customers informed. What we ended up with is a web site that looks great, is loaded with features, and has the ability to grow.”

Filed Under: From the Marketing Team, UniTherm News Tagged With: manufacturing, plastics, plastics industry, UniTherm

June 4, 2013 by Kendal White

Plastics & The Human Body (Infographic)

plastics-in-medical-field

 

 

  • Plastic Cast: heat-moldable plastic is shaped around a patient’s limb using rivets.
  • Plastic Foam: polyurethane foam could stabilize trauma patients.  Foam expands inside the body to prevent blood loss, and conform to the shape of injured tissue.
  • 3-D Body Part Printing: 3-D printed implants are being created from living cells and polyester plastic; example is an ear.
  • 3-D Printed Plastic Splint: a 3-D printed tracheal splint was implanted into a baby made from polycaprolactone, a medical plastic.
  • Artificial Cornea: these silicone corneas treat eye injuries or chronic inflammations.  They can restore vision and are similar to a natural cornea.
  • Hearing Aids: a new implant directly stimulates the auditory nerve: microphone, microcomputer, stimulator, and an electrode carrier.
  • Spinal Implants: a cervical interbody fusion system made of machined polyetheretherketone (PEEK) rods has been approved by the U.S. FDA.
  • Absorbable Heart Stent: blood flow to the heart can be restored with a plastic heart stent, which can later dissolve into the body.
  • Vaccination patches: a skin patch containing plastic “micro needles” could possibly deliver vaccinations painlessly, replacing injections.
  • Plastic Heart: plastic tubes mimic heart valves to let blood in and out of plastic ventricles in an artificial heart.
  • Artificial Blood Vessels: these are made by coating a biodegradable, plastic mesh tube with human or animal muscle cells.
  • Plastic Knee Replacements: a new ceramic and plastic knee implant is to last 20 to 30 years longer than traditional knee replacements.
  • Hip Replacements: metal-on-metal hip replacements are declining due to new technologies and materials: ceramic polyethylene (a medial-grade plastic).
  • Self-healing Prosthetics: this plastic skin recognizes injury and is self healing.  It has the sensitivity and flexibility of human skin and can restore its electrical and mechanical properties.
  • Prosthesis: plastic orthopedic devices align, correct, and support deformities, and can improve the function of movable body parts.
  • Plastics in Medical Implants: ethylene vinyl acetate, Proniva self-reinforced polyphenylene (SRP), Veriva polyphenylsulfone (PPSU), Zeniva (PEEK)
  • Bacteria-Resistant Plastics: these nonstick plastics can help ward off disease and contamination.
  • Polycarbonate Medical Devices: transparent medical tools are being manufactured from polycarbonate.

Filed Under: From the Marketing Team Tagged With: human body, medical, medical devices, plastics, plastics industry

May 18, 2012 by Kendal White

Manufacturing Matters: 5/18 Weekly Wrap Up

DuPont announces prestigious packaging awards that recognize leaders in innovation, sustainability, and cost/waste reduction. Top honors went to FreshCase Packaging for its new vacuum seal that keeps meat looking and staying fresh longer than conventional packaging.

Packaging award winners, image from dupont.com


MITnews
recaps “The Future of Manufacturing and the US” conference, which emphasized the importance of innovation from the manufacturing sector. MITnews highlights the fact that the US added 50,000 manufacturing jobs in January alone, and big manufacturers like Ford continue to move overseas plants back home.

Plastics News announces the DME Plastics University Scholarship Program, which will offer $1,000 awards to students enrolled in plastics manufacturing-related programs. This incentive is one of many intended to boost the number of skilled workers in the plastics industry.

The Brookings Institute discusses how location impacts manufacturing plants and the industry as a whole. In the report, “Locating American Manufacturing: Trends in the Geography of Production,” Brookings examines the advantages of clustering.

US manufacturers, image from brookings.edu

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: education, employment, manufacturing, packaging, plastics industry

May 11, 2012 by Kendal White

Manufacturing Matters: 5/11 Weekly Wrap Up

The New York Times reports that manufacturing is “one of the few bright spot of the recovery, restoring 489,000 jobs since the beginning of 2010.” The article also describes geographic distinctions in growth, with half of the most manufacturing-specialized metropolitans now located in the Midwest.

Plastics News reports that in California a controversial pro-plastics lesson has been removed from a new statewide curriculum on the environment. After the EPA looked over the proposed curriculum, the section titled “Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags” was replaced with recycling statistics in an 11th grade textbook.

image from flickr


ICIS
News announces that researchers at technology company Siemens have developed an alternative to ABS plastic. The new material—made with 70% renewable content—is the result of a three-year project funded by the German Research Ministry and was successfully used to make a vacuum cleaner cover.

image from icis.com


GreenBiz
examines the Sustainability Leadership List, which recognizes environmentally-conscious companies each year. But because some criticize the results, they also discuss plans for the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings that would develop a standardized method of measuring and ranking sustainability performance.

Plastics Today recognizes Dignity Health, the founding sponsor of the Healthier Hospitals Initiative, as one of the first hospital groups in the country to start using pigment-free patient plastics. This California-based healthcare organization is a leader in sustainability efforts to reduce hospitals’ impact on the environment by adopting innovative alternatives.

 

Filed Under: Manufacturing, Plastics Industry Tagged With: energy efficiency, manufacturing, plastics, plastics industry

May 7, 2012 by Kendal White

Opportunities for Greater Efficiency in Custom Molding

As more and more manufacturers see significant energy savings after insulating their machines, insulation jackets are becoming priority number one in many energy management strategies.

UniTherm has been supplying insulation jackets in the plastics industry for over 30 years, and with each new product and custom service, UniTherm strives to address a specific processing need. With this innovative mentality, UniTherm can provide opportunities for greater efficiency, as it has with its new product called QuickCool.

QuickCool is an insulation jacket with an additional feature—it is designed to open easily so that machines can quickly cool as they are prepared for different processes. QuickCool wraps completely around the barrel and insulates as well as UniTherm’s other jackets, but it has high-temperature straps on the inside to hold it in place while the top flap opens to release heat when necessary. Otherwise, the top flap velcros tightly to the rest of the jacket to keep machines working at high efficiency with minimal heat loss. This way, barrels and heater bands are always easily accessible without having to remove the entire jacket, and machines can reach and maintain different desired temperatures as needed.

QuickCool closed to insulate

QuickCool open to release heat

 

Barbara Arnold-Feret, custom molding expert and new addition to UniTherm’s sales team, calls QuickCool a “flexibility enhancer.” QuickCool, she explains, “offers all the advantages of insulation along with the ability to change temperatures quickly. It allows great flexibility for molders looking to cool their machines for whatever reason, including material changes.” No longer do custom molders need to worry about insulation encumbering their access to the machines or their ability to switch processes involving different materials. “It is especially convenient when working with polyolefins and perfect for molders that make a little of everything,” says Barbara.

In fact, a custom molder with 3,000 molds running short runs with PolyPro and ABS installed QuickCool blankets on its machines and found that the product allowed them to cool from 550˚F to 350˚F in the time it took to change the mold.

UniTherm has been supplying insulation for over 30 years, and the Research and Development team continues to explore new energy-efficient solutions. They are excited to offer a product that will not only save energy but also adapt to the alternating processes in custom molding.

Filed Under: Energy Efficiency, Plastics Industry Tagged With: custom molding, custom products, custom services, energy efficiency, energy management, plastics industry

February 8, 2012 by Kendal White

NPE 2012—The Event of the Year, Are You Attending?

We find ourselves asking this question what seems like a hundred times every day. With less than 2 months until NPE, the buzz is really building about how this year’s show in Orlando will go and who will be attending.

There’s no doubt that for anyone in the plastics industry this is the show to attend. We’re promised more machines, more innovation, and greater access to our counterparts around the world.

It is an important show, without a doubt. And the new location certainly makes travel and accommodations more affordable than ever before. But we’re still hearing quite a bit of uncertainty from our customers and partners about making the investment to attend.

Simply put, you need to attend this show to learn about new technologies, network with your peers in the industry, find new resources, and maintain a cutting-edge on your company’s competition. We want to see you make it to the show, and so we’ve written a form letter to help you get the conversation started with your decision makers about sending you to NPE 2012. This letter includes the costs for transportation, meals, hotel, and the show itself. Just download the letter and fill in the projects and initiatives you’ll focus on benefiting through NPE. We’ll also get you into the EXPO for free—register here and save $80 with your free EXPO pass. The show begins April 2nd, so you’ll want to make your NPE plans asap.

I hope to see you at the show. Come by and see the new innovative technologies we’re working on in booth #3883!

Filed Under: Plastics Industry, UniTherm News Tagged With: attend, event, industry, innovation, international, machining, NPE, participants, plastics, plastics industry, show

October 4, 2011 by Kendal White

6 Steps to Building a Plastics Manufacturing Safety Program You Can Be Proud Of

Plastics is one of the most massive manufacturing industries in the US. According to Bonnie Limbach, chief communications officer with The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), “The industry accounts for more than $330 billion dollars in annual shipments with another $89.5 billion generated by upstream, supplying industries, bringing the total annual shipments to nearly $421 billion. Nationally, the plastics industry employed more than 1.5 million workers in 2000. Another 843,300 persons were employed by upstream suppliers of the plastics industry, bringing the employment impact to nearly 2.4 million – about 2 percent of the U.S. workforce.” It does not seem that economic downturn or global recession will severely diminish consumer and OEM demand for plastics in all shapes, sizes and formats. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Manufacturing, Plastics Industry, Safety Tagged With: building plastic, health, industrial hygiene, labor, manufactures, manufacturing, manufacturing industry, manufacturing safety program, occupational safety and health, occupational safety and health administration, plastic, plastic industry, plastic manufacturers, plastic product manufacturing, plastics, plastics industry, plastics manufacturing, prevention, safety, safety engineering, safety program, safety programs, society of the plastics industry

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UniTherm Insulation Systems

711 Jones St.
Lewisville, TX 75057
Toll Free: 800.657.9542
Phone: 972.436.1401
Fax: 972.436.0112
info@unitherm.com

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