No Cost Screening Trials: The Micrex Solution
Trials are at the core of The Micrex Process. Every day materials arrive from around the world for Screening Trials – and every successful Microcreped product started out as small, hard-to-run hand sheets.
Equipment: The Micrex Microcreper
We can test on all nine configurations of the Micrex/Microcreper in our lab — accomplishing in a few hours what might take weeks in a traditional production environment. Learn more about the technology and how it works.
Quick Turnaround from Trial to Production
Development never takes a back seat to production at Micrex. Our facility is outfitted to scale-up to production equipment quickly, ensuring a timely turnaround.
Contract Converting
To assist customers in utilizing Micrex Technology in their products, we maintain three full sized Micrex/Microcreper systems at our facility outside of Boston.
The Micrex Lab
Innovation is all about speed. At Micrex, we know that success comes from the ability to quickly try things and fail – fast.
Patents
We’ve been around a long time: Micrex has been creating solutions using our patented Micrex/Microcreper technology for almost 50 years.
Material Optimization
Many successful commercial Microcreped products have resulted when characteristics of the incoming substrate were also optimized for Microcreping. Optimization may initially seem daunting; however, often very small changes (“de-tuning”) reduce both the incoming substrate cost and the processing costs.
A seemingly insignificant variation in the base web can potentially have a huge impact on how the material processes on the Micrex/Microcreper. While indeed The Micrex Process is complex, because it is mechanical, when carried out properly with the same inputs, the resulting creped product will be the same from run to run. Unexplained variations in the creped product can often be traced to a variation in the base material that existed before creping and which went unidentified by the customer.
Two techniques illustrate how this can work:
- “Sandwich” a substance that normally would be beyond the scope of Micrex technology between two layers of material that will process; the result: successful processing. This composite structure is a simple way to solve a complex problem.
- Use an existing process, such as embossing or wet creping, to change the physical properties of a sheet. In these cases, the coeffficent of friction is altered and the density is increased — both characteristics that enhance Microcreping.
Our best thinking on this topic is available in the following Technical Note.
New Technology
Micrex technology is always evolving. Whether by inventing new configurations of Micrex/Microcreper or by expanding the operating envelope of an existing configuration, we are committed to expanding the usefulness of Micrex technology.
For example: In 1988 we worked with only two versions of the Micrex/Microcreper; now we have nine.
Screening trials: even unsuccessful ones help inform our research. Micrex views every trial as an opportunity to learn and grow.