Concurrent engineering is a method of designing and developing products, in which several departments work on different stages of product development simultaneously. If done correctly, concurrent engineering increases the efficacy of product development by reducing time to market and overall costs while maintaining or even improving the final product quality. The idea of concurrent engineering…
Rapid production tooling is an agile and cost effective way to inject various plastic parts into small batches, such as would be used for prototypes. Once a steel or aluminum mold is created with a rapid mold process, it is utilized as a part of a molding process to create multiple copies of one piece….
You are not imagining things. Empty shelves at the grocery store and empty lots at the car dealer are a familiar sight. Unfortunately, these shortages are also emptying our wallets with higher costs on items from fast food breakfast to popular toys. Headlines are pointing to a broken supply chain to explain these issues. Consumers…
When you need to produce complex plastic parts and components, there are multiple manufacturing processes available. Two of these are plastic injection molding and 3D printing. Time, budget, precision and volume are considerations when deciding which option is right for your business. Here we take a look at each process and the benefits for both….
Injection molding. To the masses, it sounds like industry jargon or just another random process among thousands that make up the manufacturing chain. In fact, the technology behind injection molding is complex, intricate and worthy of better understanding. Injection molding is a manufacturing process that allows for parts to be produced in large volumes. It…
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a man-made chemical used to make fluoropolymer products and coatings that are resistant to heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. Until 2013, PFOA was best known for use in the process of making Teflon, a nonstick coating for cookware and other applications. The largest use of PFOA in recent decades is…
Quality, service and performance are important when choosing the company that ultimately gets your business. Recognition from industry leaders is a clear way to tell that a business deserves serious consideration. The Toolroom was awarded the 2009 Boeing Supplier of the Year, an honor bestowed only to suppliers that exceed Boeing’s stringent expectations. Boeing is…
Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible and durable. Its malleable properties make it ideal for injection molding, the most common way to manufacture parts. Plastic polymers that melt and soften with heat and solidify when cooled are called thermoplastics. This differs from the chemical change that occurs in thermoset materials, resulting in a permanent hardened material…
The Ever Given, a massive container ship horizontally wedged in the Suez Canal, was freed on Monday, March 29th after it blocked all traffic through the crucial shipping channel for nearly a week. In 2020, an average of more than 50 ships per day passed through the 120-mile long Egyptian waterway. That accounts for about…
Injection molding is one of the most widely used methods in the manufacturing of parts. It is both cost effective and can facilitate large production runs. Injection molding utilizes a machine with three components: an injection unit, a mold and a clamp. Here we look at the mold and its importance in the injection molding…