Digestive Health
ENTERAL FEEDING
WEIGHT LOSS MANAGEMENT
ENDOSCOPIC TOOLS
IMPROVING LIFE FOR PATIENTS WITH
DIGESTIVE HEALTH NEEDS
Rooted in precision molding and moldmaking, we specialize in complex digestive health components, including devices for nasogastric and gastrostomy applications that often demand expertise in insert molding and overmolding. Our Plastics & Automation engineering team has developed and refined highly automated overmolding cells for these programs, enabling consistent processing of challenging geometries while delivering high yields, minimal manual intervention, and reliable repeatability across every production run.
IN-HOUSE AUTOMATION
Our Automation Team is comprised of mechanical, electrical, and software engineers. Offering this service in-house enables us and our customers to customize automation cells to their exact needs while maintaining timelines.
RAPID MOLD SAMPLING
Our in-house R&D center offers identical machines—off the production floor—ensuring there is a readily available tryout machine. This expedites initial mold sampling & debug time.
EXPERIENCED MOLD VALIDATION
Our expert Quality Engineering staff is trained on the latest IQ/OQ/PQ mold validation protocols consisting of: First Article Inspection, process DOE, Gauge R&R, CpK Analyses, etc.
CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT
ENTERAL FEEDING DEVICE
A globally recognized medical technology company specializing in digestive health, and neonatal products approached Plastikos to run production on several product lines. Our customer was experiencing ongoing quality and support issues with their incumbent molder and needed a partner who could support supply for patient-critical enteral feeding devices.
The initial opportunity involved eighteen (18) multi-cavity injection molds, each ranging from 4 to 8 cavities, many of which contained value-added operations such as overmolding, pad printing, and sub-assembly. Our customer’s strategy was to diversify new tooling across several moldmaking suppliers while consolidating high-volume molding at Plastikos. This approach was taken to reduce risk, improve responsiveness, and position us both for long-term global growth.
The Initial Challenge:
Our customer needed a tightly managed new tooling program that would:
- Qualify 18 new molds with cavitation from 4–8 cavities
- Protect continuity of supply for multiple enteral feeding product lines
- Develop a highly-automated cell for one of their overmolding lines that was historically very labor-intensive.
OUR APPROACH (DESIGN-BUILD-RUN)
1) Upfront Design & Build Planning
- Our engineering and project management teams began with a detailed review of each mold, part print, and historical process window (if available). Together with our customer, we mapped a plan that sequenced tool validations to support their product launch and milestones.
2) Rigorous Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ)
- Each mold was validated through a rigorous IQ/OQ/PQ protocol that we customized to our customer’s specific requirements. This included cavity balance checks, dimensional studies on critical features, and process capability confirmation before release. Our Quality team coordinated closely with our customer’s engineering group to align documentation, sampling plans, and acceptance criteria.
3) Custom Automation Design & Build
- Our Automation Team developed a custom manufacturing cell for our customer’s overmolding application to increase overall throughput with multi-cavity tooling and reduce manual labor, where possible.
- Cost-savings were shared on this automation effort, saving our customer hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by investing in automation and higher cavitation tooling.
STRATEGIC SUPPLIER PERFORMANCE
- OVER 99% YEAR-OVER-YEAR ON-TIME DELIVERY PERFORMANCE
- MILLIONS OF PLASTIC COMPONENTS SHIPPED ANNUALLY
- ONE OF THE LARGEST EXTERNAL PLASTICS PROCESSORS FOR OUR CUSTOMER
Customer Response
“Plastikos rates as a top supplier for injection molded parts. The ability to sample, validate, come up with engineering solutions, make in-house modifications as needed, and perform metrology all in-house are some of the key reasons that we will continue to award them new business going forward.”
— Heath J. Principal Process Engineer
PIONEERING THE FUTURE OF MEDICAL DEVICE MANUFACTURING WITH PRECISION, CARE, AND INNOVATION
If you’re ready to elevate your project with top-tier injection molding services, contact us today.
