Production investments in 2022

We talk to Witold Staniewicz – Director of Production Management

1.We are coming to the end of the year. It has been a time of very intensive development for Niepruszewo. Could you summarise the production investments in 2022?
There have indeed been quite a few investments in Niepruszewo recently.
Back in 2021, the construction of new halls in Niepruszewo began. In April this year, we got more than 3,000 m2 at our disposal for production and 1,500 m2 of warehouse.
In mid-April, we moved the confectionery department and the finished goods warehouse into the new buildings. Thanks to efficient organisation and planning, we were able to avoid major delays in production.
In the second half of the year, the installation of another acrylic application line began. This has been the real bottleneck of our production so far. The machine we have been waiting for the most. Commissioning is planned by the end of 2022.
In the first quarter of 2023, another slitter for wide web is due to arrive in Niepruszewo. We have also carried out a major overhaul of the two oldest web slitters.
Our engineering department has designed and built a latex application machine that also allows delamination, rewinding and slitting of paper.
At the end of the year, we installed photovoltaic panels of almost 50 kWp above the car park in Niepruszewo. Of course, this will not fully satisfy our electricity needs, but it will certainly reduce the energy drawn from the grid to some extent and, above all, improve the daily power demand profile.

2. What was the rationale for Dalpo to undertake such a large production investment?
Whoever stands still is going backwards. If we want to be a leader in the industry, we have to constantly run ahead of our competition, develop production, optimise processes to provide our customers with the best product on the best terms. This cannot be done without investing in new technology or machinery.
We also have to think about optimising the consumption of ever-increasing energy. Hence the investment in photovoltaic panels and a series of measures to save electricity and heat consumption.

3 .When exactly will the third coating line for the acrylic adhesive tape be launched? How will it increase efficiency and production times?
The new acrylic coating line should start up later this year. It will have virtually the same production capacity as the existing line, so we will be able to theoretically double production in the assortments concerned. So far, we have been able to produce the full range of products required on the existing line, from siliconising paper, to applying acrylic glue, to laminating paper for labels.
Now, thanks to the new process line, we will be able to separate
and optimise these processes between machines. We will thus reduce the number of changeovers and changeovers, which will further increase production, reduce the number of run-ups and improve production uniformity and quality.

4. What investments can we expect in the near future?
Of course, this is not the end of investments at the Niepruszewo plant, where we have definitely more space and, therefore, opportunities to develop production
compared to Rosnow.
We are planning to initiate a process of regranulation of BOPP film residues created at individual stages of tape production. The resulting granulate will be a full-value raw material for further production of various
plastic products.
If we manage to overcome the formal obstacles, we are also planning to expand the photovoltaic installation using the remaining space above the car park and the roofs of our production halls in Niepruszewo. We should then be able to produce a total of 830 kWp of electricity. This will already account for a significant proportion of our electricity requirements. On sunny days, of course.