New Era Converting Machinery, Inc

01/04/2022

To keep up with its growth, Jessup has undergone recent expansions both to its Lake Bluff and McHenry, IL facilities. To keep up with customer demand for its products, the company recently partnered with New Era Converting Machinery, Inc. on the purchase and installation of a new, world-class coating and laminating line.

Now fully operational, the New Era line was installed at Jessup’s Lake Bluff, IL facility in late 2020. Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the purchase, construction, FAT and onsite installation of the new line was anything but ordinary. In a recent interview Rob Jessup, President and CEO of Jessup Manufacturing, and John Looser, Vice President-Sales Engineer of New Era Converting Machinery, discussed how their two companies collaborated during extraordinary times to not only build and install the line, but to do it ahead of schedule and under budget.

The Jessup/New Era partnership started ordinarily enough, as many business partnerships do, with an inquiry and an RFP in 2018. Jessup was experiencing capacity constraints and needed to expand its manufacturing operations and increase production in order to include new specialty products. In addition, the company had been outsourcing some of its manufacturing and wanted to bring it in-house.

Rick Brizek, Vice President of Operations who led the team that selected New Era, said that after an exhaustive search, New Era was their choice. “We were impressed with their commitment to quality. Our site visit was quite impressive…as were their engineering staff and top management. From our first meeting to interviewing their references to when we signed our contracts, New Era made us feel confident in our decision,” he said.

Rob Jessup mentioned that during the initial visit to New Era, two key things really stood out. “They were the only supplier we talked with who asked probative questions, really listened to our needs, and offered great advice and creative solutions – everyone else simply wanted to sell us their existing machinery,” he said. “Also, we were really impressed with their internal commitment to workforce development. They are developing a pipeline of talented engineers who will be able to service not just our existing needs, but our future needs as well.”

Given this machine was installed during the Covid-19 pandemic, both companies got creative with their approach. “We leveraged video technology to collaborate and keep the project on track,” said Rob Jessup. “Weekly calls were held to review everything, and the new coating and laminating line was built on that. In the end, the line was shipped and installed under budget – the communication between both companies was outstanding and probably enhanced due to the need to connect virtually.”

“The value New Era provided us extended to helping us succeed with the integration of the heater, chiller, and dual inline corona treaters, products that were not their own,” said Steve Blackowicz, Jessup’s Vice President of Sales. “Their project management during the manufacturing of the equipment was tremendous, and it’s pretty amazing that the line was delivered and installed ahead of schedule, and under budget, during the most challenging year any of us has ever seen.”

The New Era coating and laminating line is helping Jessup to commercialize new specialty products that they previously couldn’t run on their old equipment. “We also have successfully transitioned many existing constructions to the new line, and we have experienced improved productivity and quality, which ultimately increases value for our existing customer base,” said Rob Jessup.

In addition to commercializing the New Era coating and laminating line in 2021, Jessup built a new warehouse and distribution facility in McHenry, IL and is also completing a new corporate headquarters that they will move in to later this year. For its future machinery and equipment needs, the company continues to expand its in-house converting capabilities with more slitting and laser cutting, and is already in discussions with New Era about its next adhesive coating line.

“For us, it’s all about meeting the growing and expanding needs of our customers,” said Rob Jessup. “This new line from New Era gives us a strong competitive advantage and allows us to deliver a level of product innovation that gives our customers true differentiation in their markets.”

As for working together with New Era, “It’s the People”, says Rob. “A lot of companies can make good machinery, but it’s the people that make the difference, and that is most definitely the case with New Era.”

09/22/2021

This video shows a proprietary turret winding system capable of making a zero fold-over cut and transfer to a new core while maintaining extremely light tensions on a variety of substrates. The unit features automatic core loading, auto core glue application and automatic full roll ejection. The turret winder has shaft-less chucking and is capable of chucking a wide range of core widths. The cutoff knife system is a specially designed crush cut blade capable of cutting a wide range of materials and thicknesses. The control system was designed and programmed by New Era. Following the factory acceptance test in which this video was taken, this machine will be installed and started up at the customers facility.

04/16/2021

Check out our new article “How New Era Built and Installed a and Line for Jessup Manufacturing During a Global Pandemic” - to see how we’ve adapted and thrived through the challenges and changes of the last year!

Paterson, NJ (March 12, 2021) . . . 2021 marks a big milestone for Jessup Manufacturing Company, as it celebrates its 65th year in business. Jessup was founded in 1956 by Paul Jessup in a 2-car garage in McHenry, IL. Today, the company has 110 employees worldwide and is run by Paul’s grandson Rob ...

02/04/2021

3D equipment designs from New Era make life easy for our customers, particularly with most design reviews, risk assessments and other meetings taking place in a remote work environment.

01/19/2021

Hear what Joe and Ron from Maxpro Window Films have to say about New Era and their state-of-the-art clean room coating and laminating line.

01/13/2021

Hear what Jay and Brent from Evergreen Packaging have to say about New Era and their state-of-the-art, high-speed, wide web automatic splicing unwind systems.

01/04/2021

Nicholas and John Guzzo of Polykote Corporation and Virtual Graphics LLC discuss their 62" wide coating and laminating line from New Era Converting Machinery, Inc. that allows them to go 3 times faster with larger roll diameters, and gives them FOUR TIMES better efficiency than they were previously capable of.

12/30/2020

This video animation depicts a a variant of slot die coating known as offset slot die. The substrate can be seen entering the coating station, wrapping the coater backing roll and subsequently being coated with a solvent based, water based or hot melt coating prior to exiting the backing roll and entering a drying, curing or cooling system. In this case, rather than coat the substrate directly, the slot die applies coating to a transfer roll, which subsequently transfers the coating to the substrate. The offset feature introduces another variable for controlling the coat weight being applied to the substrate. Additionally, with offset slot die, you can coat onto the transfer roll wider than the substrate, allowing the transfer to coat the full web width, something not possible with direct slot die coating. The slot die itself is mounted on a positioning assembly which enables a variety of adjustments for angle of attack, roll to die gap and position about the offset roll. Depending on the coating application, there are many different configurations, and the slot die position on the offset roll might vary greatly. Similar configurations can be used for hot melt slot die coating. An added feature of this setup is the ability to alter the web path such that the substrate wraps the offset roll position (coater rolls can be made interchangeable) to allow direct slot die coating. Additionally, a simple web path can be added to allow tensioned (unsupported substrate) slot die coating. Slot dies can be used to apply coatings from a range of 1 micron thick (wet) up to 50 mils. In conjunction with the solution delivery system, slot dies can perform patch coating as is common in the battery and energy industry, as well as utilize shims to allow for lane coating. With a wide viscosity and speed range, excellent temperature control and coating thickness accuracy, offset slot die coaters are an extremely effective coating method for many processes, one such being barrier products with thick adhesive coatings such as waterproofing membranes or roofing membranes.

11/30/2020

In the saturation coating process, a substrate is completely immersed in a dip tank filled with aqueous or solvent based coating. The dip tank could simply have a single roll as in our representation, or multiple rolls that work to control or even vary the residence time. A multitude of factors affect this coating application method, including permeability of the substrate, dwell time in the dip tank, and the coating rheology. As with similar coating methods like dip coating, metering devices can be added at the exit of a saturation coater, such a doctor blades, smoothing bars or metering rolls to remove excess coating.

11/23/2020

A typical squeeze roll coater has two rolls, a steel applicator roll and a rubber backing roll, held together at a controlled pressure or gap. The substrate passes between the rolls and the coating is applied at the nip formed between the application roll and backing roll. As shown in our representation, the steel application roll resides in a pan which contains the aqueous or solvent coating fluid. As the roll rotates in the coating pond, it delivers coating to the nip which in turn transfers coating to the web. These coaters can be built in either a vertical or horizontal configuration. A pond of coating forms between the rolls and this pond contains the coating. The amount of coating transfer to the web is based on a variety of factors including but not limited to the substrate, applicator roll speed, nip pressure and coating viscosity/rheology. These coaters are inexpensive relative to other traditional coating methods, straightforward to operate and easy to maintain. Conversely, they have a limited working window for coating viscosity and application thickness.

11/20/2020

In a continuous dip process, a substrate passes under an applicator roll that is partially submerged in a pan of the coating fluid. As the substrate wraps the applicator roll, it is dipped into the coating solution. Dip coating has a large operational range, is easy to run and is inexpensive in comparison to other traditional coating methods. The wet thickness of the coating is determined primarily by the exit angle of the web, coating fluid properties and web speed. The thickness of the coating increases with viscosity and coating speed. The nature of this coating methods makes it effective for coating a range of continuous substrates which may have irregular surfaces. Oftentimes metering devices are added at the exit of a dip coater, such a doctor blades, smoothing bars or squeeze rolls to further influence the thickness or appearance of the coating.