VIDEO: ICEE's prototype machine for flat-moulded EPS box

ICEE's folding EPS box innovation has received global acclaim, but the developers have nevertheless faced some initial challenges around the machinery to produce the boxes.

The company found it difficult to engage machine builders because their concept was new and perceived to have risks attached to the commercial production process. So, even though ICEE are not machine builders, its R&D team built its own machine and succeeded in proving the machine process. Watch the result here (or see the video link at the end of the story).

Here's what motivated this machine development:

A major milestone for ICEE in the evolution of its folding box has been the development of a single cycle process to produce the box with fully integrated hinges.

“This innovation has halved the equipment requirements for the moulding process back to a single moulding machine,” says MD Gary Skinner.

The capital investment in a moulding machine to make the ICEE hinged product is now comparable to the equivalent machine to produce a conventional formed box.

“We have been aware from the beginning of the ICEE project that we had a potential efficiency challenge in moulding a flat form box due to the larger platen surface required,” says MD Gary Skinner. “There are very significant supply chain efficiencies with the ICEE box that will guarantee huge cost reductions in the supply chain post the moulding process. However, this initial moulding inefficiency was troublesome.”

The ICEE team was determined to eliminate any real or imagined deficiency in the folding box concept, so the challenge was to design an efficient EPS moulding machine that delivered equal or better efficiency when moulding flat form boxes compared to conventional boxes.

The resulting machine is an ICEE patented double platen concept designed and built by the ICEE engineering team. As well as being a highly efficient production machine for flat form boxes, it also has a footprint of only nine square metres,so the potential productivity for the factory floor space is very high.

“I can hear all the interested moulding companies saying that a concept machine in the ICEE factory in Melbourne is not going to help them get into early production, but we are on to that problem also!” Skinner says.

“We have had two machine builders visit the ICEE factory to review the ICEE machine. Both have committed to production of machines for the ICEE concept.”

According to Skinner, EGE PROSES in Turkey has a dedicated design team working on a production machine now. EGE expect to have this machine working at the Novapol plant in Izmir by early 2016 and after a suitable testing period producing product at Novapol they will be happy to begin supplying machines for the first ICEE licensees.

“A second machine builder is hot on their heels and we have a number of other expressions of interest from other high profile machine builders that we believe will now be activated by the commercialisation of the ICEE box,” Skinner adds.

“There will still be some skeptics out there that think the ICEE folding box will be flimsy. To be clear on this we have not yet had the opportunity for an extensive testing regime but we have done preliminary crush tests and I can share with you that the equivalent fully moulded 32 litre box failed the compression test at 280kgm.

The ICEE box has consistently failed the compression test at between 360 kg and 400 kg. We are quietly pretty pleased with this and feel that our folding design concept can now be rolled out to a large range of produce style boxes with confidence,” he adds.

The ICEE business model is to licence EPS producers across the globe to use the ICEE technology on a royalty fee basis. The company says since the project is now commercially proven it can be considered to be de-risked.

Skinner says: “The time has now come for us to consider submissions from EPS moulders for ICEE licences and to work with machine builders to get a means of production ramped up to meet what we all expect to be a buoyant demand for the ICEE product in the global packaging market.”