SPE Announces Winners of Plastics for Life competition.
Press Release Summary:
SPE® announced winners of second-annual Plastics for Life™ global parts competition. Respective winners of feature-based Protecting Life, Quality of Life, Improving Life, and Sustaining Life categories were Rescue Backboard, Nissan GT-R Composite Decklid, 40-ml Triangular Shaped Precision Products Bottle, and Foam Core Parking Stop. People's Choice category winner was Bowling Pin Elevator, and Grand Award went to Single-Collimator Molded LED Headlamp Lens.
Original Press Release:
SPE® Announces Winners of Second-Annual Plastics for Life(TM) Global Parts Competition
BETHEL, CONN. – The Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE®) today announced the winners of its second-annual Plastics for Life™ global parts competition. Winners were selected in four feature-based categories ¯ Protecting Life (preservation, safety, containment, protection); Quality of Life (mobility, communication, luxury/comfort, recreation, entertainment); Improving Life (education, energy, opportunity, health); and Sustaining Life (environmental, conservation, sustainability, recycling, reduction) ¯ as well as a new People's Choice category and the prestigious Grand Award category for the competition's top vote getter. Results were announced at a press conference March 25, the last day of SPE's Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC® 2015), the world's largest plastics technical conference, held in conjunction in 2015 with the National Plastics Exposition (NPE® 2015) produced by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI®) in Orlando, Fla.
To be eligible to compete in the global parts competition, nominated parts must previously have won a category or a competition at an SPE TOPCON (topical conference) or Minicon (miniconference) held between January 2014 and January 2015. Nominations were reviewed by a blue-ribbon judging panel made up of members of the media, past SPE presidents, SPE Fellows, and industry experts. The People's Choice award was selected based on over 200 ballots turned in by attendees of ANTEC who had not participated in the earlier judging and were not SPE employees or leadership volunteers.
Winners of the 2015 Plastics for Life global parts competition were:
• Protecting Life Category: Rescue Backboard nominated by Profile Plastics, Inc. of Lake Bluff, Ill., U.S.A. (nomination previously was the Silver winner of the 2014 Heavy-Gauge Twin-Sheet category at the 23rd-annual SPE Thermoforming Conference);
• Quality of Life Category: Nissan GT-R Composite Decklid nominated by Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd. of Tokyo (nomination previously was a Body Exterior winner at the 14thannual SPE Automotive Composites Conference & Exhibition and a Body Exterior finalist at the 44th-annual SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Competition);
• Improving Life Category: 40-ml Triangular Shaped Precision Products Bottle nominated by W. Amsler Equipment Inc. of Richmond Hill, Ont., Canada (nomination previously was the overall First Place winner of the Packaging Division category at the 30th-annual SPE Annual Blow Molding Conference);
• Sustaining Life Category: Foam Core Parking Stop nominated by Pinnacle Plastic Products of Bowling Green, Ohio, U.S.A. (nomination previously won both the IndustrialOther category and the People's Choice-Industrial categories at the 30th-annual SPE Annual Blow Molding Conference);
• People’s Choice Category: Bowling Pin Elevator nominated by QubicaAMF of Mechanicsville, Va., U.S.A. (nomination previously was both the Gold winner of the Twin-Sheet Heavy Gauge category as well as the People's Choice-Thermoforming category winner at the 23rd-annual SPE Thermoforming Conference);
• Grand Award Categories: Single-Collimator Molded LED Headlamp Lens nominated by Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Mich., U.S.A. (nomination previously won the Process, Assembly & Enabling Technologies category at the 44th-annual SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Competition).
"The pace of innovation in the plastics industry is constant and continuous," explains Jon Ratzlaff, technical services manager, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., who created the parts competition during his term as 2013-2014 SPE president. "With our new Plastics for Life global parts competition, SPE hopes to highlight innovative technology that has recently won awards at our various division- and section-level events and thereby inspire industry and educate consumers about just how many ways plastics can be used to benefit life on this planet. This year's friendly competition was more than double the size it was in 2014. Fortunately we had the help of a diverse team of 20 Blue Ribbon judges drawn from the media, past SPE presidents, SPE Fellows, and other SPE members who are industry experts in their field. These judges did an outstanding job selecting our 2015 award winners and we hope they enjoyed the experience enough to come back to judge at ANTEC 2016."
SPE’s Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC®) is the largest, most-respected, and well-known technical conference in the plastics industry globally. For over 70 years, ANTEC has successfully expanded from U.S. into Europe, India, and the Middle East with further expansion to global locations in 2015 and beyond. Each event features technical and business presentations on new and evolving technologies, panel discussions, as well as tutorial sessions. Networking events and student functions provide attendees with ample networking opportunities with experts from the largest industry segments.
The mission of the Society of Plastics Engineers is to promote scientific and engineering knowledge relating to plastics worldwide and to educate industry, academia, and the public about these advances. SPE is active in educating, promoting, recognizing, and communicating technical accomplishments for all phases of plastics and plastic based-composite developments. Topic areas include applications, materials, processing, equipment, tooling, design, and development. For more information, see http://www.4spe.org/.
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