It wasn't an easy decision, but fast-growing converter Douglas-Hanson Co. came to the conclusion that with blown PE-film substrates, sometimes, you just have to do things yourself.

Founded in 1973, the privately owned company, headquartered in Hammond, WI, specializes in release liners and flexible-packaging laminates. Its products are sold worldwide into the pressure-sensitive roll label, automotive, construction, tape and medical markets. Eight production lines coat and flexographically print various materials including papers and films.

Release liners account for about $1.8 billion in annual sales across North America. Douglas-Hanson holds a 10 percent share of the $660 million contract release-liner market, the company says, and is a leader in film-based liners—a field that's growing at 8 to 12 percent a year.

Such market stats, along with a variety of other drivers, led Douglas-Hanson to expand its operations last year to include in-house blown-film manufacturing. A 3-layer Varex® line from Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp. (Lincoln, RI) was installed in October 2004, and commercial production began in November. (See Line Closeup).

The decision to bring filmmaking in-house was two-fold, says Jon Hanson, vp-marketing. Film quality from its suppliers was inconsistent, and the cost advantages of in-house production weighed heavily against continuing to buy film from outside sources.

"A lot of our suppliers weren't focusing on PE films for release liners," Hanson explains, as they were selling to flex-pack converters for simpler bag and pouch constructions. "These don't need quite the flat profile that we needed to properly silicone-coat."

"The second reason was, in this day and age of shrinking margins, making our own film would help us greatly with costs," adds Steve Odders, vp-sales. "The advantage comes from the volumes of film we'll be making ourselves."

In making the move, Douglas-Hanson appears to be leading a retro trend back to vertical integration in converting. It now claims to be the only North American-based company making its own PE-film substrates for release-liner coating. "To compete, especially globally," Hanson says, "you just have to bring some of these processes in-house."

In truth, Douglas-Hanson is not totally abandoning outsourcing its films. In defense of one proprietary supplier, which uses Windmoeller & Hoelscher equipment exclusively, the converter will continue to purchase some quantities as needed from a select list of vendors. These substrates include lower-volume, specialty PE films in custom colors or for medical applications, for example, which are already specified by the customer.

"Profile-wise, quality-wise, this one supplier was the best we've dealt with," says Gerald Kerber, vp-engineering. "But the processing aids they use for packaging films, such as slip additives, can sometimes actually poison the silicone coating."

Such levels of purity in the resin and processing-aid mix extend to pigments for the film coextrusions. Douglas-Hanson supplies one multicolored, custom product—black on one side and white on the other, as well as burying the color in the core layer of film, which can keep it from also damaging the silicone. Currently, Chevron-Phillips Chemical Co. (Houston, TX) is the company's primary PE and polypropylene resin supplier.

The three-layer line lets Douglas-Hanson achieve some specialty applications based on PE-resin properties—low-density on the outside, high-density in the middle—to produce a release liner with specific performance, strength or elongation. "We'll also put different resins on the outside for things such as changing the gloss of the liner," says Kerber.

Bringing filmmaking in-house means a lot more than just making the film. While staffing for Douglas-Hanson's QC department didn't increase, the company did have to invest in several key pieces of test and inspection equipment, including tensile, tear, non-contact caliper gauge, light-transmission haze, colorimeter, and coefficient-of-friction testers.

Its experience with extrusion-coating testing for release liners definitely helps, says Peter S. Riehle, technical director. "For us to understand where we needed to be, we had to characterize our existing products and build a baseline to use. We'll get more experience as the blown-film line ramps up."

Staff for running the line did require new hires. A team of five was originally sent to Europe to learn its operation, and the goal is to eventually run 24/7 with a full-time staff of eight people.

For now, business is certainly going Douglas-Hanson's way. The recent decline of the dollar against the Euro is building its sales with customers across the European Union, and the North American advantage in quality base papers for layflat release liners is keeping sales steady with Asian customers.

"European suppliers are finding it difficult to compete in North America today," Hanson says. "Whether they will in another two years is another story. You have to take advantage of things while you can."