Safety first. But there is a way to balance safety and production. Below are some checklists to make sure any plastic injection molding facility is safe for both workers and anyone else on the plant floor. But let’s begin with the basic idea of what’s happening within the equipment you work on or walk by…
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That’s right: doff your fedora to the global plastic caps and closures market! Want numbers? The global market for the ubiquitous plastic doohickies was valued at more than 38 Billion in 2017, and projected to reach more than 51 Billion by 2023, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 5% during the forecast…
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All plastic injection molders know that the surface texture of the mold cavity and core will transfer a texture to the molded part. But even experienced molders can be unclear about the exact technical language used to classify these finishes, how they’re engineered by toolmakers and how to measure them accurately in a production environment….
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Let’s face it, automated quality assurance systems such as machine vision are are not very sexy. In fact, they often fall into the same no-nonsense category as risk management, IT security, and maintenance — a necessary expense, of course, but an expense nonetheless and a drag on the bottom line. Manufacturers of plastic injection-molded parts for…
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Let the jokes begin: plastic injection molders are “high” on hemp bioplastic… They don’t want any byproducts of the crop to go to “pot” … they would like to “smoke” their competition by transitioning away from non-sustainable, un-“green” polymers to sustainable, very-green hemp bioplastic. But this is no joke: many plastic injection molders think bioplastics,…
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Consumers can get very, very attached to the packaging of their favorite products, and nowhere as intensely as beverages. Trifle with the material, color or label at your own risk, marketing experts say. So when the makers of Snapple decided to move to plastic bottles from glass, there was tremendous trepidation at Dr. Pepper Snapple…
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Let’s cut to the chase… here are the “Big Five”: Part design. Material. Mold design. Construction. Molding machine. Those are the five most vital factors in the plastic injection molding process, according to experts. They all have to be optimized vis-a’-vis each other, or you can run into big problems. In many cases, these experts…
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You don’t normally associate the words “tariffs” and “plastic packaging” but that’s exactly what many US plastic injection molding companies want President Trump to do in order to retaliate against China’s aggressive intellectual theft and government subsidies of their home-grown plastics companies. In fact, Pactiv LLC, one of the biggest U.S. plastics companies, is making…
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Almonds taste great in cakes, breads, cereal, candy bars, even liquors. Now there’s research going on that call for a plastics recipe which includes the tasty nut as filler. Well, not the almond itself; more specifically, its shell. Almond shells enhance the strength of plastic more than most conventional materials and are being tested as…
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We take it for granted in our industry: molten plastic cools and crystallizes into some preordained shape in a mold under a predetermined pressure in a process called plastic injection molding. If only it were that easy. The story begins with melted or “molten” plastics. All these polymer molecules look relatively the same at the…
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