Cascades invests $31.8-million in two-day flurry
By Canadian Packaging staff
Automation General Corrugated Flexibles BHS Cascades Cascades Inopak Corrugator Norampac Pastiques Cascades Pulp & Paper Canada thermoforming lineHuge investment made by Cascades at its Norampac - Drummondville corrugated board conversion plant and at Kingsey Falls.
DRUMMONDVILLE, QC—Cascades Inc., a leader in the recovery of recyclable products and manufacturing green packaging products and tissue paper, announced on November 3, 2015, that it is investing $26.4-million at its Norampac corrugated board conversion plant in Drummondville, Que., to install a new corrugator to increase production capacity.
A corrugator assembles linerboard and medium to produce a rigid corrugated sheet.
According to Pulp & Paper Canada editor Cindy McDonald, the unit supplied by BHS—and similar to the one show in the photo above—has an innovative quality control system, and machine width of 110 inches. It can manufacture board at a rate of 450 meters/min.
This investment will consolidate the 214 jobs at the plant, and will enable Norampac – Drummondville to continue working toward modernizing its equipment in order to gain in efficiency and improve the quality of its products.
As well as increasing capacity, the new equipment should provide Norampac with the ability to produce higher quality packaging with greater speed of execution. Adding new equipment at the cutting edge of technology will also help reduce operating costs, the company states.
The project was made possible particularly thanks to an Investissement Québec loan guarantee, for a maximum amount of $6-million.
“Today’s announcement is part of our strategic plan aiming to focus our efforts and investments in the packaging and tissue paper strategic sectors. This process is beginning to show results,” explains Cascades president and chief executive officer Mario Plourde. “This announcement is a sign of confidence in the future, and we are especially happy to be able to make this investment in Drummondville, in the region where Cascades was born.”
Norampac chief operating officer Charles Malo says: “Norampac is the second-largest producer of containerboard in Canada and the sixth largest in North America. This project is an opportunity to reinforce our leadership in the market and show our dedication to our clientele. Our customers are the reason for our existence and, now more than ever, we wish to improve our service offer with innovative products that meet the highest industry standards.”
The 45,000-square-foot building expansion will be completed in mid-November and the new corrugator will be operational as of January 2016.
On November 2, 2015, Cascades had more news, with strategic investments amounting to $4.5-million in its Plastiques Cascades plant in Kingsey Falls and its Cascades Inopak plant in Drummondville. Both of these plants specialize in the manufacture of packaging for fresh food made from recycled plastic.
At the Plastiques Cascades plant in Kingsey Falls, the $3.5-million investment will be used to replace a thermoforming line, add a pre-padding solution to the production line and install automated packaging lines.
This will make production more flexible, increase throughput and boost plant profitability, meaning existing jobs can be consolidated. These investments support the development strategy set out for the growing food packaging industry.
The new facilities will also reduce the physical strain associated with certain packaging activities, enabling us to offer a safer work environment to our employees.
At the Cascades Inopak plant in Drummondville, the $1-million investment will be used to install a new thermoforming line. Adding this production line at the cutting edge of technology will boost both production capacity and quality.
According to Luc Langevin, president and chief operating officer of the Specialty Products Group: “These investments are part of a process of asset modernization at Cascades. They will boost our productivity, while also allowing us to better meet our customers’ requirements and offer high-quality packaging. In the long term, this project will improve our positioning in certain competitive market segments.”
(Image above courtesy of Pulp & Paper Canada).
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