A recent article in Plastic and Rubber Weekly, ‘UK Mouldmakers fight back’, addresses the transformation of the medical injection moulding manufacturing industry in the UK. Due to the introduction of injection moulding tools from overseas suppliers, at very competitive rates mould makers have had tricky decisions to make in order to thrive.
According to the Mouldmaking feature in PRW’s 16 March issue there are three different ways of meeting and responding to the challenge faced:
Compete for head-on through high quality and rapid turnaround.
Migrate from “make” to “mend” – pulling out of new mould building altogether and moving to modification, repair and refurbishment.
As a client for large projects convenes a consortium of mould makers with complementary capabilities on a “horses for courses” basis.
The Europlaz solution to medical injection moulding
At Europlaz things are no different, today, an amalgamation of all three of the above options has been implemented and the strategy is proving to be very successful.
We offer a complete tool management service – for the life of a tool.
Our process is simple – we talk with and listen to our customers from the very beginning. Tools are designed and developed by our in-house team with production, quality and efficiency in mind; we know to manufacture so we know how to design tools for manufacture!
The next step is to get quotes from companies at home and overseas. There are obvious benefits to using a UK based company; communication, lead time, quality and risk reduction, to name a few. However, it is a sad fact that companies with overheads in the UK have difficulty competing on price. In order to give our customers a price comparison, we have toolmaker partners overseas who we trust and have personally audited – These companies offer a good service which, when combined with our in-house tool room, are a great option for our customers.
Tool assessment
When a mould tool arrives at Europlaz we conduct a strict assessment prior to conducting our in house mould trials, any modifications, repairs or refurbishments required can be carried out by our experienced toolmakers – feedback shows this capability and skill is one of the services really valued by our customers.
We also have a rotational servicing schedule for all tools in production as part of our quality management system – meaning efficiency, effectiveness and longevity of a tool are maximised.
At Europlaz we know tooling is one of the biggest investments a customer is going to make in the life of their product – so we look after it accordingly.
Visit our website for more information or contact us today to find out how we can help kickstart your product development.
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