Tag Archives: UPM
Material Selection for Plastic Injection Molding
Choosing the right plastic material is one of the most critical steps in achieving the best results in plastic injection molding. At Universal Plastic Mold (UPM), we help our customers select the ideal thermoplastic resins for their specific applications, ensuring that each part delivers the strength, durability, and performance needed for success. With our extensive knowledge of plastics and decades of experience, UPM ensures that your products meet functional requirements and cost objectives.
Key Considerations in Material Selection for Injection Molding
Selecting the right material involves balancing multiple factors, such as:
- Mechanical Properties: Required strength, flexibility, impact resistance, and durability.
- Thermal Resistance: Ability to withstand high or low temperatures.
- Chemical Compatibility: Resistance to solvents, acids, or environmental exposure.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Balancing material properties with cost to meet your budget.
- Aesthetic Requirements: Color, texture, and finish for product appeal.
- Regulatory Compliance: Adherence to industry-specific standards (e.g., FDA, RoHS, UL ratings).
Our experts at UPM guide you through the decision-making process to select the best plastic resin for your project based on these and other criteria.
Common Plastics Used in Injection Molding
At UPM, we work with various thermoplastics, each offering unique properties that make them suitable for different applications. Here are some of the most commonly used materials:
1. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)
- Strengths: High impact resistance, toughness, and rigidity.
- Applications: Automotive components, electronics housings, consumer products.
- Best for: Parts requiring a durable, impact-resistant material with excellent surface finish.
2. Polypropylene (PP)
- Strengths: Excellent chemical resistance, flexibility, and fatigue resistance.
- Applications: Packaging, containers, automotive parts, and household goods.
- Best for: Products that require flexibility, chemical resistance, and low moisture absorption.
3. Nylon (Polyamide, PA)
- Strengths: High strength, abrasion resistance, and good thermal stability.
- Applications: Gears, bearings, mechanical parts, automotive components.
- Best for: Mechanical applications requiring toughness and resistance to wear and friction.
4. Polycarbonate (PC)
- Strengths: High transparency, toughness, and impact resistance.
- Applications: Eyewear lenses, medical devices, automotive lenses, and safety equipment.
- Best for: Clear parts or those that require excellent impact resistance and optical clarity.
5. Polyethylene (PE)
- Strengths: High chemical resistance, flexibility, and toughness.
- Applications: Consumer products, medical applications, packaging, and containers.
- Best for: Products that need excellent chemical resistance and flexibility, often used for packaging.
6. Polystyrene (PS)
- Strengths: Cost-effective, rigid, and excellent for detailed part designs.
- Applications: Disposable consumer goods, toys, and product packaging.
- Best for: High-volume, cost-sensitive products where rigidity and detail are important.
7. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
- Strengths: Strong, durable, and resistant to chemicals and fire.
- Applications: Plumbing pipes, electrical conduits, medical devices.
- Best for: Applications requiring excellent chemical resistance and flame retardancy.
8. Polyetherimide (PEI)
- Strengths: High strength, heat resistance, and dimensional stability.
- Applications: Aerospace, medical devices, and high-performance components.
- Best for: High-temperature applications requiring durability and chemical resistance.
Factors Influencing Material Selection
1. Application Requirements
The product’s end-use dictates which properties are most important. For example, parts exposed to high temperatures or abrasive environments need materials with strong thermal and wear resistance, like Nylon or Polyetherimide.
2. Environmental Considerations
Exposure to harsh chemicals, moisture, or UV light can degrade some plastics over time. Materials like Polypropylene and Polyethylene offer excellent chemical resistance, while Polycarbonate provides UV stability.
3. Regulatory and Compliance Needs
Specific industries, such as medical, automotive, and food packaging, require materials that comply with strict regulations, such as FDA approvals or UL ratings. UPM ensures that your chosen materials meet all relevant standards.
4. Cost Constraints
While high-performance plastics may offer exceptional properties, they have a higher price tag. UPM helps balance material performance and cost by selecting plastics that meet budget and technical requirements.
5. Aesthetic and Finishing Needs
Some products require a specific look or surface finish in addition to functionality. Materials like ABS provide excellent finishing characteristics for painting and plating, while Polypropylene offers a smooth, clean surface without additional finishing.
Material Selection Process at UPM
1. Project Consultation
Our team begins by understanding your product’s requirements, including functionality, performance, and budget. We evaluate your design to determine the most critical material properties for success.
2. Material Testing
If you’re uncertain about the best material for your project, we can conduct material testing to evaluate performance under simulated real-world conditions. This helps ensure your material selection meets all mechanical and environmental demands.
3. Prototyping and Small Batch Runs
UPM offers prototyping services to test your part design and material choice before moving to full-scale production. This allows us to fine-tune both the material and the mold design, optimizing performance and reducing costs.
Benefits of Proper Material Selection
Choosing the right material for your plastic injection molding project offers several advantages:
- Improved Product Durability: By selecting materials with the appropriate strength and resistance, you ensure your products last longer and perform better.
- Cost Efficiency: Correct material selection minimizes the need for post-production modifications, reducing costs.
- Enhanced Product Performance: Using the correct material ensures that your product meets mechanical, thermal, and chemical requirements.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring materials meet industry standards prevents costly delays and rework during production.
Industries We Serve
UPM provides material selection and plastic injection molding services for a wide range of industries, including:
- Automotive: We use durable, heat-resistant plastics for interior and exterior vehicle components.
- Medical and Pharmaceutical: Our materials are biocompatible and sterilizable, ideal for medical devices.
- Consumer Goods: We provide aesthetically pleasing, cost-effective materials for high-volume products.
- Electronics: Our plastics are used in casings and components requiring precision and reliability.
- Hardware: We supply durable plastics for tools and hardware applications.
- Packaging: Our solutions include plastics for protective and functional packaging.
- Pool and Spa: We offer materials that withstand chemical exposure and environmental conditions.
- Solar: We provide high-performance plastics capable of enduring extreme environmental conditions.
Need Help Selecting the Right Plastic for Your Project?
Contact Universal Plastic Mold today to speak with one of our experts and ensure that your material selection delivers the best results for your application.
7 Reasons to Choose UPM for Your Custom Injection Molding
Our team at Universal Plastic Mold has a long history of serving customers’ custom injection molding needs, and we continue to keep our standards high and be the best provider on the West Coast. Proper custom injection molding isn’t something that can be done just by any company. It takes added skill and commitment to superior services and end results, which got us thinking. What sets Universal Plastic Mold apart from other injection molding providers? Thankfully, the answer wasn’t hard to reach. If you’re wondering what keeps us at UPM at the head of the pack, here are the top seven reasons to choose UPM for custom injection molding services.
Superior Plastic Injection Molding
It’s taken us a long time to get here, and we only get better with age. See what makes us a leader in our industry, and why we’re the best choice for custom injection molding.
- Our Experience. Universal Plastic Mold has been in operation for over 50 years. That’s 50 years of fine tuning our processes, training our employees, and honing our product until we achieved the best result possible.
- Our Collaboration. At UPM, we strive to be a real business partner to our customers, so we spend a considerable amount of time carefully listening to our clients and ensuring we understand their needs, challenges, and goals. This approach has paid off, with us now having many customer relationships that have lasted through the years.
- Our Facility. The UPM facility is world class, with over 127,000 square feet of production and warehouse space, a location that’s close to all major retail distribution centers, cutting-edge technology, superior equipment, and positioning near Los Angeles, the U.S./Mexico border, and the Port of Long Beach.
- Our Level of Quality Assurance. Above all, we’re committed to genuine customer satisfaction. We maintain high quality standards through the establishment, maintenance, and continual improvement of our ISO 9001:2008-certified, ISO/TS 16949-compliant quality management system.
- Our Reliability. UPM proudly staffs over 300 employees, is in operation 24/7/365, and is an all-in-one facility. This dedication is how we ensure our customers are properly taken care of.
- Our Eco-Friendly Commitment. It’s our mission to prove that we can serve our customers to their highest specification in a timely, cost-effective way without being a detriment to sustainability efforts. In fact, UPM is one of the largest producers of post-consumer recycled plastic products in the western U.S.
- Our Logistics & Lean Manufacturing. The UPM facility has fully-integrated inventory management and warehousing on site. Our lean manufacturing program eliminates hassles, reduces unnecessary spending, and simplifies shipping processes.
This is how we make getting quality custom injection molding easy for our customers. UPM is all about ease without sacrificing quality, and clearly we have what it takes to offer our customers superior service and a lasting partnership. For questions about our custom injection molding capabilities or to learn more about UPM, please call us at 1-888-893-1587 or visit us on our website.
How UPM Provides High-Quality Large Injection Molding
At Universal Plastic Mold, we’ve always had a strong commitment to our customers, and we continue to prioritize providing the best service possible. We’re well known for our large part injection molding capabilities, and we pride ourselves on being able to deliver the highest quality large injection molding. Our team has a lot to do with it, but one aspect of our success that often gets overlooked is our unsung hero: our facility.
Our UPM facility is world class, with 37 injection molding machines ranging from 200 to 2,000 tons that use the most state-of-the-art technologies, such as robotics, gas-assist, and water-assist capabilities. At over 127,000 square feet of production and warehouse space, we’re one of the largest injection molding manufacturers on the West Coast with high tonnage machines. Our facility plays an important role in us being able to provide exactly what our customers are looking for in a timely, cost-effective way, and we want them to be confident in what we can produce.
Here are just a few facts about our facility to prove what we’re capable of:
- 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space
- 25,000 square feet of warehouse space
- 9 acres of space dedicated to UPM
- Close to all major retail distribution centers
- Complete overhead cranes (25-ton external) able to easily pick up molds
- 12 bulk resin silos
- 35 miles east of Los Angeles
- 110 miles from U.S./Mexico border
- Only 28 miles from Port of Long Beach
- Geared toward direct shipment to major retailers, such as Walmart, Target, & Home Depot
Not only do we have the space, team, and technology to meet any large injection molding need, but we also can do it sustainably. The need for eco-friendly manufacturing practices is at its peak, which is why UPM continues to be on of the largest producers of post-consumer recycled plastic products in the western U.S. With our knowledge of environmentally friendly resin conversion, we help supply greener products, proving that plastic manufacturing can be advantageous to our customers without harming the environment.
Our facility is one of our greatest assets, one that keeps us capable of serving our customers the way they deserve. If you’re in need of quality, reliable large part injection molding, there’s no better partner than Universal Plastic Mold. For questions or to learn more about our large injection molding service, please call us at 1-888-893-1587 or visit us on our website.
UPM Receives 2012 Supplier of the Year Award From Pelican Products
The award recognizes Universal Plastic Mold for demonstrating consistent and relentless excellence in quality, technology, flexibility, and supporting Pelican’s many supplier initiatives in the spirit of true partnership. The distinction was awarded during Pelican’s 2012 annual Supplier Appreciation Event, held in the Naismith Basket Ball Hall of Fame, Springfield, MA, on September 18, 2012.
“It is a great honor to receive the ‘Supplier of the Year’ award from Pelican and to be recognized for our dedication to quality products and superior customer responsiveness,” said Jason Dowling, President. “We value the excellent partnership we share with Pelican Products and believe the relationship enables both innovation and unsurpassed customer service. We also commend and thank our employees who have dedicated themselves to the success of both UPM and Pelican.”
“By utilizing UPM’s ability to mold and assemble parts, UPM also can be a full service 3PL provider create a competitive advantage for our customers”, said Jeff Racoosin, UPM’s Director of Sales and Marketing. “By utilizing this advantage we can partner up with our customers to become market leaders to work together to proactively tackle growth.”