By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Reporter Mike Boyer's manufacturing notes will now appear Thursdays instead of Fridays. Reporter Randy Tucker will begin an industry notes column on retailing Friday.

GE Engine Services has won an $83 million, 12-year agreement from Copa Airlines to maintain the Latin American carrier's CFM56-7 engines on its fleet of 16 Boeing 737-700 jets.

GE Aircraft Engines and Snecma of France build the CFM56 engines jointly. GE will also continue to maintain the airlines' Pratt & Whitney JT8 engines on its fleet of Boeing 737-200s at GE's Celma facility in Brazil.

The CFM56 maintenance will be done at GE's Strother Field facility near Arkansas City, Kan.

Evolution seen in molding machines

Milacron Inc. says two recent injection molding machine orders reflect an industry shift from simple machine design to process design.

Ferromatik Milacron North America said both of the twin-injection machines were designed to produce proprietary products for unnamed manufacturers.

One machine was ordered by a West Coast closure-maker to produce wine corks and a Midwest container maker ordered the other.

Bob Strickley, vice president of sales for Ferromatik Milacron North America, said commodity molding machines are increasingly being made off-shore.

Special molding capabilities that only a small percentage of customers were interested in a few years ago, are now considered a way customers can differentiate themselves for commodity molders, he said.

Cost-saving software a success for Cincom

Cincom Systems Inc. in Springdale said its manufacturing business solutions unit booked more than $5 million in new enterprise resource planning software orders during the company's fiscal first quarter.

Despite the manufacturing slowdown, Cincom said companies are continuing to look at ways of taking cost out of their operations.

Cincom said much of its recent success stemmed from its Environ product that is integrated with Microsoft's BizTalk server technology. Cincom said it has also released a new version of its Control enterprise management software.

Milford firm has contract with Samsung

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., picked software from a Milford company to integrate its supplier network and departments.

Samsung selected DEXcenter, a Web-based data exchange product from ITI TranscenData, a unit of International TechneGroup Inc. Samsung will provide more than 5,000 employees access to the DEXcenter services when deployment is complete, officials said.

Paper recycling equipment ordered

Kadant Black Clawson, Mason-based supplier of paper recycling equipment, is providing $7.3 million in equipment for paper mill products in China.

Lee & Man Paper International Ltd. ordered a complete stock-preparation system and related approach-flow equipment valued at $4 million for a mill in Hong Kong.

Dongguan Nine Dragons Paper Industries Co. Ltd. placed orders totaling $3.3 million for a stock-preparation system and additional pulping equipment for a new mill in Shanghai.

Both installations are set for completion this year. Kadant Black Clawson is a unit of Kadant Inc. and moved its offices from Middletown to Mason last year.

E-mail mboyer@enquirer.com