Minneapolis, MINN — February 19, 2015 — Diversified Plastics, Inc. was named one of the ten Most Innovative Suppliers exhibiting at the recent Medical Design and Manufacturing (MD&M) show in Anaheim, Calif. The company was recognized for using additive manufacturing (3D printing) technology to create plastic injection molds for producing prototype parts. This innovative prototyping approach saves Diversified Plastics’ customers time and money validating product design,
Typically, prototype plastic injection molds are built using soft steel or aluminum — a process that is time consuming and expensive. “The time and cost savings, for our customers, on small parts has been about 70-80% over traditional tooling,” said Annette Lund, vice president. “This process allows us to produce injection molded prototype parts using the product’s final plastic material. Our customers can now very quickly evaluate geometry, design, performance and even the ‘feel’ of prototype parts. And for medical devices, it means having the ability to evaluate how the sterilization process affects the part before production.”
Lund sees this mold-making process as a real paradigm shift for producing not only prototypes, but production parts. “In the future, I think this molding technique will cause a big disruption in the plastics molding industry. This process will find its way into production where 3D molds will be used for short runs of maybe 100 parts. Mold cavity and cores may have to be produced every time a new run of parts are needed, but this also gives the customer the opportunity to quickly and easily make engineering changes to their parts between production runs. I think this will be a big, big change for our industry.”
About Diversified Plastics, Inc.
Employee-owned Diversified Plastics is a custom injection molder of high-precision, close tolerance, small-to medium-sized injection molded components for medical device, filtration, aerospace and a variety of other industrial markets. The 38-year-old company is a full-service contract manufacturer, from design assistance and mold construction, to intricate molding and clean room assembly. Diversified Plastics is ISO 9001:2008 and 13485:2003 certified, FDA registered, ITAR certified, and UL registered.
