Scott W Steel
Rigid Plastic Packaging Expert Witness

Experienced Expert Witness Scott W. Steele

Scott Steele is an innovation leader with over 40 years of experience solving plastic molding problems. He has experience in expert witness work on packaging industry topics including product design, closures, material selection, and trade secret infringement litigation.  Legal experience available upon request.   Scott has extensive experience developing new products which have been successfully commercialized. His experience includes management of manufacturing and professional services companies. He is a development specialist and has worked on many industry firsts and break through programs. Scott excels at resolving startup quality and productivity problems. He has hands-on experience with most forming processes to produce plastic products. He is also an expert on sustainable packaging and has helped commercialize numerous products with bio derived materials as well as recycled materials.​

​Professional Experience
Plastic Technologies, Inc.
President, Chief Operating Officer
1987–2017
 
April 2012 through retirement in 2017, Mr. Steele assumed the role of president succeeding the firm’s founder. As president, he was responsible for all operations of the company domestically and internationally, as well as overseeing the closely held affiliated company, Preform Technologies, LLC.
 
The position involved identifying new long-term client opportunities and overseeing the growth of the company. Scott served as both the business development manager as well as the chief operating officer responsible for P&L. He managed the creation of the strategic plan of the company and oversaw personnel development. Mr. Steele was also the account manager for several clients that spanned his 30-year history at PTI. He reported to the PTI board of directors.
 
Mr. Steele oversaw analytical testing services for PTI. He was also responsible for
international operations, which include PTI-Europe, a wholly owned PTI company. The position was also responsible for enterprise projects with cross-multiple service groups at PTI. Mr. Steele led a team of people using entrepreneurial and traditional management skills, and was responsible for generating revenue by providing consulting and technical development services. He created new business, managed resources, developed and trained personnel, and worked with other senior staff to set the overall strategy for the company.
 
Accomplishments:

• Built PTI into a multi-client professional organization with 90 employees, $14 million dollars in sales, and over $5 million in assets.
• Expanded the scope of our business by launching PTI-Europe, Preform
• Technologies LLC, PETWall ® LLC, and most recently Guardian Medical which develops packaging technology for medical devices.
• Trained and developed more than 40 staff engineers in plastic processing, product design, CAD, and IT, who are now working throughout the PTI organization.
• Entered into several commercial joint ventures, including Phoenix
• Technologies International, LLC, and Preform Technologies (both plastics recycling and development companies).

 
Project Accomplishments for Customers:

• Managed customer support for a client in Australia that converted entire source stream of one billion containers annually to self-manufacture. This project involved the establishment of the manufacturing logistics for seven molding operations, on-site evaluation of manufacturing operations of existing suppliers, development of take or pay manufacturing scenarios, reverse engineering and startup of over 20 different product designs, on-site support, creation of a recycled content strategy, and full participation in the planning process.
• Managed the development of first blow molding application of a thick walled Tritan® resin application. The client wanted to develop a dishwasher safe replacement for polycarbonate. The development was for Tervis® tumblers for a double walled insulated water bottle. PTI was the lead developer and Preform successfully won the manufacturing business and continues to supply 100% of the customer needs after 5 years of production.
• Managed development project for client in the medical device field to blow mold PLA tubing used in the manufacture of bio-absorbable stents. Project involved repurposing a standard medical tubing expansion device by building a custom IR heating system and validating that the system produced equivalent quality at a fraction of the former cycle time.
• Led a joint venture development effort to create a non-contact instrument, which measures the wall thickness distribution of PET containers at high speed and in real time. Upon successful implementation, the technology was licensed to a third party; the instrument company that now markets and sells systems worldwide. The development involved patent and intellectual property management, the creation of a joint venture company, as well as the creation of technology to accomplish the project goals.
• Assisted in the launch of a food grade recycling operation for Australian customer that was the first commercial application of a new and proprietary recycling technology for food grade resin. Assisted with the de-bottlenecking of the operation and creation of manufacturing specifications and guidelines.
• PTI clients have received packaging awards for several developments produced by the product development group. A DuPont Award to Coca-Cola for a PET/PEN blend container, 2005 AmeriStar Award to Cadbury Schweppes for 105gm lightweighting of a Hawaiian Punch gallon bottle, a 2004 AmeriStar Award to Kellogg’s for an Eggo Syrup container, and a 2004 Flexible Packaging Achievement Award to Cardinal Health for DelPouch unit dose application pouch.
• Managed product development of a unit dose-dispensing pouch for a private equity firm that funded the development for the inventor. The project encompassed redesign of the concept for manufacturability, selection of manufacturing process, development of film materials with the right properties to form weak and strong seals, development of lab equipment to form and trim pouches for proof of principle, and trial runs of product to support product integrity and marketing efforts. The development resulted in a licensing deal for the sponsors and additional intellectual property developed during the course of the program.
• Developed a package design for a new polyester resin, which went into commercial test market in January 1997. The product development encompassed initial material characterization through the development of specialized tooling and process equipment to address forming problems unique with this material. U.S. and International patents were issued covering the formulation and preform design developed for the package.
• Worked as subject matter expert for processing equipment developments for customers including new reheat stretch blow molding machines, a coinjection platform redesign for barrier containers, a compression molding system for molding preforms, a tubing expansion device for a medical product, and a single stage blow molding platform.
• Served customers as a technical expert in cases involving product integrity and patent infringement lawsuits. Specific matters are related in the legal witness experience section which have all been favorably settled by clients.
• Provided consultation for clients on decision to purchase existing supplier production facilities, which would self-manufacture containers, renegotiate supply contracts, or build new ground up production operations.
• Managed product development projects for clients converting entirely from generic packaging to custom packaging in multiple shapes and sizes. The brand names covered in this conversion included Coca-Cola, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Surge. These brand names are registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company and Cadbury Schweppes. The product design process ranged from the creative design stage through production startup of a commercial 500 million container test market. Managed development budget that totaled $350,000 and coordinated tooling procurement for clients, which topped $5 million in investment. Over ten billion containers are now manufactured annually with tooling specified by PTI.
• Participated on a team that addressed a major quality problem with carbonated soft drink containers. The team was assembled in 1996 to reduce the failure rate of containers due to environmental stress cracking. The team included representatives from manufacturing, resin suppliers, bottle producers and parent companies to address problem at all levels. The failure rate of containers was reduced from parts per million to parts per billion as a direct result of the team effort.
• Served as the International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT) liaison to the Closure Manufacturing Association (CMA) during the time of the creation of new beverage finish standards to accommodate plastic closures. Served on the ISBT subcommittee that eventually launched what is known as the PCO-1881 finish standard in the 2006 to 2009 timeframe.
• Assisted two customers with conversion from wood to plastic pallets including development of design standards, supplier selection, material selection, specifications, and follow up trouble shooting of manufacturing issues.
• Managed cost reduction programs that reduced the weight of two-liter beverage bottles from 57 to 54, 47, and now 45 grams, resulting in savings for customers of millions of dollars annually.
• Developed a base design for customers with improved container stability and physical performance, which circumvents existing container base design patents worldwide.
• Managed package redesign programs, which allowed migration of manufacturing systems to higher and higher output injection molding and blow molding machines.
• Managed package development programs, which resulted in the industry lightest weight 20 ounce and one liter bottles produced on the highest speed commercial equipment.
• Managed package development programs, which resulted in the industry lightest weight 20 ounce and one liter bottles produced on the highest speed commercial equipment.
• Developed new heating approach for reheating polypropylene, which has led to commercial reheat blown bottles with exceptional clarity.
• Developed IR heating system for commercial PET machine for customer, which produced product at desired rates and avoided patent infringement issues.
• Developed more than 100 commercial packages and preform designs for edible oil, liquid detergent, and carbonated soft drink PET bottles.
• Built two PET Reheat blow molding lab machines with output ranging from 1 BPM to 4 BPM. Engineered entire system ranging from PLC control, mechanical systems, software development, and start-up/debug.

 
Plastics and Closures Group, Owens Illinois, Inc.
Various titles from Entry Level Engineer to Group Supervisor
(1978 - 1987)

• Responsibilities evolved through personal growth from basic project engineering responsibilities to supervisory responsibilities in nine years with the company.
• During this time, O-I went from building a pilot plant for making the first PET beverage bottles, to full-scale production at five locations, to a leveraged sell-off of the whole operation. Integrally involved in the PET package development effort. Handled project tasks ranging from direct customer interaction, creative design, prototyping, and finally, commercial startup and production qualification. Worked on every phase of the Owens-Illinois operation ranging from secondary package developments to closure and sealing system development.
• Startups included beverage packages from 16 ounce to 3 liter in volume, wine packaging, liquor bottles, food and other PET projects. Managed speed up projects increasing output of production machines from 2000 BPH to over 4500. Involved in lightweighting of 2 liter bottles from 63 grams two piece to 52 gram two piece.
• Accomplishments:

• Qualified numerous molds, products, and resins for production.
• Developed a reheating system, which increased output of production blow molders by 150%.
• Start-up and development of 1.75 liter liquor bottle production.
• Start-up and development of 3- and 4-liter wine bottle production.
• Developed numerous secondary packaging applications for cans.
• Supported market research of secondary packaging options.
• Relocated process and analytical laboratories to larger state of the art facilities.
• Managed development projects with machine builder to make custom PET blow molding machines.
• Project work in sheet extrusion gauging control.
• Two U.S. Patents on novel bottle finish/closure.
• One U.S. Patent on IR heating system for blow molding.
• Two U.S. Patents on novel secondary packaging applications.

 
EDUCATION:
 B.S. - Chemical Engineering, the University of Toledo (1979)

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