Foamed Extrusion Expert
​​Andrea Sacco

Andrea Sacco is a foam extrusion expert based in Europe with decades of industry experience.

Andrea has over 30 years’ experience in Polystyrene (PS) foam and Polyethylene (PE) foam along with Thermoforming PS foam sheet. His broad background includes machine design, experience, medical packaging. Extended skills include Team Coaching, Organization Counseling and Non Violent Communication. Andrea also has worked with packaging foam for farmaceutic, food and luxury goods. with  calander process to create sandwich of Paper and polystyrene foam without glue or plastic film on polystyrene.  Andrea has modified several designs for flat and circular foam extrusion dies and for profile extrusion of polyethylene foam. He has been part of the team to foam PET from scrap of bottles in 1995 and with R&D group of the L.M.P. ( corotating twin screws extruders) to foam under vacuum in short distance.

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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
​2021 - Present
Life insight srl SB
Turin, Italy

• Consulting in plastic, process, manufacturing and facilities.
• PE and PS foam process problem identification and fixes
• Solutions for Extrusion and Extruder problems
• Thermoforming  process and machine problem resolution
• Plant engineering problem resolution
• International work including setting up used extruders and others complementary machinery
• Solved shrinkage problems prior to shipping material to customer
• Increased production output and quality for several companies
• Participate to develop new products

 
2021 - 2024
Isonova srl
Turin Italy
CTO In a small company responsible for all the tech side from IT to R&D and NT, Quality, Safety, using LPG as a foaming agent. I was responsible for fixing all the process problems associated with PE Foam, PS Foam Calendar process and thermoforming. With my team that was partially made by internal people and external, we designed the tooling necessary to upgrade the existing product line and the design of new products.

• Annual budget of €200,000 for capital expenditures and expenses 
• Spearheaded the development of a new product line
• Selection of new machinery
• Trouble shot process problems
• Cut cost by purchasing used machinery and rebuilding it
• Project Manager for a new plant and moved equipment from old facility to new and rebuilt the machinery before installing

• Interfaced with Plant Managers to solve equipment problems
• I also helped some other companies to solve their problem of extrusion, both in Polyethylene and in Polystyrene Field. After several attempt from other external consultant failed I brought the solution thanks to the experience and my profound curiosity in this field
• Responsible of the maintenance of all the equipments and machinery

 
1997 - 2001
Owens Corning, PS Ext
Turin, Italy
PS extrusion for insulation purpose

• Laboratory for analysis of compression, cells orientation, Insulation and stability in general along the aging period
• Developing a system to create picture of the structure of the foam using a microscope and a mini CCD to digitalize the image or with a camera
• Iso9001 quality assistance

 
1996 - 1997
Military Service
Rome & Milan, Italy
Fantry for communication line

• Became instructor corporal for the first six month
• Setting up field mapping for training purpose
• Worked in the office for the second part of my duty

 
1993 - 1996
Polypan Nord srl - L.M.P. srl
Turin, Italy

• Research for gas compatibility and insulation properties.  
• Traveled with L.M.P. in South Africa for 60 days  to set a new extruder line and to teach how to use it
• Increased production of the recycler extruder matching the real need
• Develop a new way to cover the lips with Teflon
• Work in the team of R&D for PET FOAM and propose to create the die body, wasn’t accepted in that moment but that is actually used worldwide today

• Managed a 15 person maintenance department to include Maintenance Supervisor, Machine Shop & Design Engineer
• Positions included Design, Product, Plant, Mechanical, Process & Mfg. Engineer
• Maintained & upgraded all plant equipment
• Designed:  Thermoforming tooling, Material handling system​, Yogurt container​

Contact Andrea