Among today’s manufacturers, both 3D printing and plastic injection molding are viable options for producing complex plastic parts and components. While originally considered competing technologies, these techniques are now each largely recognized as having  unique advantages and can even be used together to help optimize production efficiency.

Quality is an important benchmark in all aspects of plastic injection molding, and rightfully so. Producing high-quality plastic parts is always the goal, but how often do you stop to consider what a supplier misstep, a materials mix-up, or a process miscalculation could do to the project overall?

Poor quality — in any form and to any degree — can have far-reaching impact. The solution is partnering with an experienced custom injection molder that can help you maintain standards that keep quality at the forefront of every project.

The more OEMs learn about plastic overmolding, the more they want to use this injection molding process to solve application-specific challenges ranging from soft-touch or stylish consumer products to field-use devices that require extra protection and user-friendly features. Not only does overmolding improve functionality, performance, and aesthetics, it lowers total production costs — which is pretty rare these days.

Successful custom injection molding requires process management that’s guided by expertise and precision timing. Tool and process engineers are front-and-center in the product and tool design phases, ultimately making decisions and guiding the steps necessary to ensure consistent and repeatable manufacturability of defect-free injection molded parts.

The impact of the widening skills gap is of ongoing concern for manufacturers. The 2018 Deloitte skills gap and future of work in manufacturing study reports that the average time to fill skilled production worker positions jumped from 70 days to 93 days between 2015 and 2018, surpassed only by finding engineers, researchers, and scientists which bounced from 94 days to 118 days over the same time period.

Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) Minneapolis (MD&M) is returning to the Minneapolis Convention Center on October 23-24 and you don’t want to miss your chance to connect with leaders across every link in the supply chain!

Nearly half of all plastic ever manufactured has been made since the year 2000. In a scant two decades, production went from 250 million tons to 448 million tons¹ and the race is on to shift the burgeoning over-reliance on plastic to ways that promote plastics’ use as a green energy source.

North American resin production topped out at nearly 28.7 billion pounds April of 2019, a 2.9% increase compared to the same time period in 2018.¹ The uptick suggests that engineered resins continue to find their place as preferred materials within industries requiring precision injection molded parts and devices such as in the medical, automotive, and defense & public safety markets.

Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) resin is regarded as ideal for many complex applications due to its inherent characteristics and injection molding versatility. Is this thermoplastic right for your project?

Medical device performance is inextricably linked to the characteristics of the plastics used. Enhanced properties such as strength, flexibility, transparency, biocompatibility, and temperature and chemical resistance ensure patient safety. They are also mandated by the stringent regulations and classifications of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP).