Creating consistent plastic components: an in-depth technical guide

When you look at a small plastic cap, it’s hard to imagine the level of technical knowledge that’s gone into making it. Although plastic components may just be one small part of a much larger product or machine, it’s essential that they perform, both in terms of quality and function. Just a small change in the tolerance or a slight fault in the production of a component can cause problems for your process or your customers, for example:

• A cap that doesn’t cover a valve properly can cause dirt and ingress to enter a system, or mean that materials leak from the process, threatening manufacturing downtime
• A motion component that doesn’t operate correctly in a washing machine can cause, at best, consumer inconvenience and at worst real threats to a customer’s safety and your company’s reputation tarnished
• An electrical part that malfunctions in a car can be a real threat to people’s safety and cause significant damage to the vehicle

There are quite a few considerations that experienced manufacturers take into account to ensure they are creating accurate components. To make sure that plastic components are of a consistent high quality, it is essential that the injection moulding process is as accurate and efficient as possible. As a highly complex process, there are several variables in injection moulding which will influence the final quality and consistency of an injection moulded component.

The key to making sure our components are of a consistent high quality is in the expertise we employ within our global workforce. As well as employing experienced technical experts who oversee the injection moulding process and develop both our standard and custom components for customers, we have distribution teams who regularly ship more than 17,000 orders each week across the world.

Our manufacturing and distribution expertise helps us to deliver thousands of consistent components efficiently from our 12 global sites. This means that customers can get the high-quality parts they need when they need them, reducing lead times and preventing disruptions on the production line, as well as ensuring that your final product or system functions and looks its best.