IPL Inc. based in Edmunston uses petroleum to manufacture and trasport it’s products and the rising costs in fuel have
effected this plant that produces plastic containers. You can read more about this here.
Adapting | Business reduces dependency on petroleum used in production, shipping
D1By Ben Shingler
Canadaeast News Service
Stumble Upondel.icio.usDiggFacebookPrintEmailspeakupEDMUNDSTON - The soaring cost of fuel presents difficulties to any manufacturing business shipping its product to market. But for a plastics company in Edmundston, the high price of oil has been doubly challenging.
Enlarge Photo CHANGING WITH THE TIMES: Eric Harquail is the administrative service manager with IPL Plastics in Edmundston. The Saint-Damien, Qc.-based IPL Inc. plant in Edmundston uses petroleum not only to transport its product, but to manufacture it as well.
The plant produces plastic containers for food manufacturers across North America, and employs about 175 people.
The jump in oil and the high dollar has pushed the company to improve the things they can control, like reducing the time it takes to set up a new container mould, or creating a unique design to distinguish themselves from competitors.
“In this industry, a penny can make all the difference between making a deal or losing it. It’s highly competitive,” said Eric Harquail, the service manager at the plant.
On a tour of the 120,000 square foot facility in late June, Harquail showed off the company’s updated technology, where row upon row of robotic machines pump out plastic containers of different shapes, sizes and colours.
In May, IPL announced $4.3 million for new equipment to its plant in Edmundston.
The technology helps produce thin-walled plastic containers targeted at the dip market, and dairy products such as sour cream, cream and cottage cheese.
The new package is 10 per cent lighter than its current injection-moulded containers, which means less plastic materials and lower transportation costs, said Harquail.
The equipment is slated to be in full operation in November, though some of the new containers were already in production last month.
“If we can show it will improve sales, then they’ll want the product,” he said.
“For one company, their sales jumped 40 per cent after they used the new packaging.”
In accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, IPL’s food containers are not produced from recycled plastic for risk of contamination.
So instead, the company imports boxes full of petroleum pellets from as far as Texas and melts them down into plastic containers on site in Edmundston.
The company has reduced its transportation costs by having the materials shipped by train to its Quebec headquarters.
“We’d like to have them shipped by train all the way to Edmundston. We’re working on that, but for the moment, we send our trucks to Quebec,” said Harquail.
Once the products are made, they ship them to their holding center in Worcester, Mass., before being distributed as far as California by truck. Nearly 80 per cent of IPL’s clients are south of the border.
Despite the distance from its clients, the factory in Edmundston - a mainstay in town for 30 years -shows no signs of waning.
Originally owned by Edmundston Paper Box, the factory was bought by IPL and converted to produce solely plastic containers in 1987.
IPL employs about 1,000 people in total at its three plants in Quebec and the New Brunswick factory.
