Custom Plastic Parts: Steer Clear of Pitfalls

Sourcing custom plastic parts can be a complex endeavor fraught with potential obstacles, ranging from selecting the right materials to navigating advanced manufacturing processes. It’s essential to follow systematic guidelines to avoid common pitfalls and help ensure success. What should you keep in mind when sourcing custom manufactured plastic components?

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Here is an in-depth look at the plastic part supply chain process and the crucial details you need to steer clear of complications.

Step by Step

Starting with the overall plastic part supply chain process, most sourcing engagements that we employ for our clients' custom plastic parts follow these steps:

Proof of Concept

After a new plastic product is designed, a practical manufacturing test is the first step in developing that product's supply chain. Real material compositions, production process steps, finishing passes, and all other actual manufacturing methods are tested out, confirming or augmenting all sourcing decisions to come.

Manufacturing Tender

With a validated production concept in hand, buyers extend formal proposal tenders to qualified suppliers, requesting competitive price and lead time offers for manufacturing services.

Purchasing

At this stage, buyers review, negotiate, and accept a winning supplier proposal for the bulk manufacture of their plastic parts. Both parties exchange the necessary commercial agreements and financial elements, putting real-life production into motion.

Manufacturing

Once a supplier is released to begin production, they order raw materials, allocate resources and labor, and schedule factory time for the run. At this stage, money and resources begin to be consumed, continuing until the production run is complete.

Logistics

Per the terms of the procurement agreement, the supplier begins shipping complete or partial plastic unit volumes out to the buyer.

Distribution and Warehousing

Though it varies by company, product shipments tend to route to distribution warehouses for intermediate storage prior to final delivery. Quality inspections, volume counts, and technical part testing are often performed upon receipt.

Sales and Delivery

At the end of the supply chain, products are routed to their final destination either through direct or third-party sales efforts. Once products are sold, they can be dispatched from their warehouse and delivered to end customers.

These steps in the process formulate the building blocks of custom plastic parts manufacturing, but we have only just begun. The next section is where it gets fascinating.

Structuring Plastic Supply Chains

What mainly sets plastic manufacturing supply chains apart from others is not the overall process itself, but rather the nuances within each step specific to plastics. To start breaking down the distinctions of plastic part procurement, we’ll begin with differences driven by the plastic materials themselves.

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Materials

Plastic manufacturing typically distinguishes materials into these five categories:

Thermoplastics

These become malleable when heat is applied and then solidify upon cooling. They can be reshaped with subsequent heating cycles, making them highly workable but relatively lower in strength. Examples include acrylic, nylon, ABS, polyethylene,PVC, and polycarbonate.

Thermosets

These start as semi-solid or liquid resin and are cured by heat, radiation, pressure, or a catalyzing agent to achieve high structural strength. Once set, they cannot be remade or reshaped. Examples include epoxies, polyurethanes, esters, polyimides, silicone, and vulcanized rubber.

Textiles

These include fabrics made entirely or partially from plastic materials, often using synthetic fibers or polymeric additives laced into natural fibers. Examples include polyester, nylon, acrylic, spandex, and polypropylene fibers.

Elastomers

These polymers are "stretchy," having viscoelastic properties allowing them to return to their original shape at room temperature after deformation. Examples include nitrile rubber, silicone rubber, polyisoprene, Viton, and elastolefin.

Exotics / Biodegradables

These include cutting-edge material compositions like biopolymers, which are compatible with organic processes, and biodegradable plastics that can be decomposed by bacteria, microorganisms, or composting.

Methods

Next, let's have a quick glance at the most common custom plastic parts production methods:

Extrusion

This produces continuous profiles such as plastic tubing and structural shapes.

Injection Molding

This injects high-temperature fluid plastic material into a molded cavity, allowing the material to take on the solid shape of the mold as it cools. Examples include electronic housings and medical devices. It is the most common modern plastic manufacturing method.

Blow / Vacuum Molding

This produces hollow plastic shapes such as containers and bottles by applying gas pressure or vacuum to expand a preheated plastic parison to the shape of the mold.

Rotational Molding

This relies on rotational force to distribute a preheated polymeric liquid evenly over the surface of a mold. It is typically used for large molds such as tanks, road cones, and helmets, where gas-assisted molding would be unreliable.

Machining

This involves using traditional tool processes on blocks of raw plastic materials. One of the oldest custom plastic part manufacturing methods, it provides higher tolerance parts but often at a higher cost, such as industrial replacement components and consumable fabrication fixtures.

Thermoforming

This produces profiles and shaped products from preheated flat plastic sheets, which deform to match a hot form's profile. It is often used for plastic packaging and containers.

3D Printing

This is the most recent advancement in plastic manufacturing technologies, capable of generating part features in any axis and plane. Though 3D printing costs and speeds are constantly improving, printed parts may often need secondary processing.

The devil is in the details concerning plastic materials and manufacturing methods. Often, a single product will require multiple tool processes and materials, involving multiple specialized suppliers and many intermediate supply chain steps.

Key Considerations for Plastic Parts Procurement

Over decades of firsthand experience, we have gained unique insights into the nuances of sourcing manufactured plastic products, especially when engaging foreign suppliers. Below are some expert tips to benefit your next plastic manufacturing project:

Request Manufacturing Samples

Nothing beats holding a tactile sample in your hands to evaluate quality, appearance, and function. Drawings and specs can easily be misinterpreted, but a sample can transcend most communication issues.

Require Certificates of Conformity

Suppliers may substitute materials, accept shoddy alternatives or source from illegitimate wholesalers, risking your products due to nonconforming procurement decisions. Certificates of conformity help keep records straight.

Reference Compliance Standards in Contract

Especially for regulated products, hold suppliers accountable by including federal, state, industry, and advisory standards in the procurement agreement.

Specify Shipment and Packaging Protection

Plastic parts are sensitive to shipping damage such as abrasion, temperature deformation, and indentation. Precise shipment requirements assure everything arrives as intended.

Be Explicit with Quality Requirements

Clearly define quality requirements to avoid misunderstandings. For instance, "ensure a smooth outer finish" is not the same as "provide a continuous outer surface roughness of Ra<16, grained in a uniform direction parallel to the part’s length axis, with solvent rinsing to remove all foreign matter."

Your Next Custom Plastic Parts Project

Let us put our decades of experience with custom plastic parts manufacturing to work for you. Contact us today with your questions or to get more information about our processes.

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