All comments listed are by Ms. Wendy Bertsch, Director of Marketing & Employee Relations, a 2nd generation family employee

Safety & Cleanliness

Safety & Cleanliness are priority #1 within the organization. "We cannot hope to maintain a top level workforce if we do not provide them with the tools they need to succeed. We are proud to have every single guest that tours our plant, comment on how incredibly clean our production, tooling and value-added areas are. Each PCI teammate is put in a rotation to clean our employee break room so that every individual understands the value of cleanliness, and that we are all responsible for keeping the facility in an ultra clean and "like new" condition." Polymer continues to win awards and accolades from our insurance company for a long and exemplary safety record.

People

Polymer's family atmosphere carried throughout the plant, started with the company's inception in 1979. To this day, the business is still owned by the Bertsch Family, and 2nd generation and top level management continue to encourage this environment despite the country's hard economic times. "It's important that we treat each and every employee as a member of our extended family; they spend more of their waking hours at work than they do at home, so we feel we owe it to them to provide a clean, safe and rewarding environment to spend time in; As of December 2009, the average length of employment here at PCI is 12 years and our family does everything possible to ensure that all 80 employees remain employed and have the opportunity to grow personally if they so choose. We also treat our customer partnerships like family relationships through honesty, integrity, respect, friendly & personal service and a level of industry expertise that is hard to come by; We provide the innovative expertise and professionalism of a suit and tie, with the comfort and reliability of your favorite pair of jeans."

Engineering Expertise

Polymer's cross-functional qualification team evaluates and scrutinizes each new job for manufacturability, tool design and value-added operation requirements in order to continuously meet the customers' critical quality demands. Each engineer has a minimum of 15-20 years experience in their field and has been a long standing employee of Polymer Conversions. "Many of our engineers have been instrumental in solving extremely difficult customer concerns on their own product design and manufacturability. Our team was able to consistently injection mold an analytical cartridge with micro fluidic channels completely flat with no warp; we also were able to suggest the elimination of a heat gun/shrink wrap process done by our customer's 3rd party, because we were able to duplicate the scale with a multi-color pad printing station in our facility (saving the customer money and reducing manufacturing lead times)." These are just a few examples of the many ways our organization has proven to be a beneficial partner to our customers.

Real-Time Process Monitoring

Every single injection molding machine has a data terminal attached and networked to a main process monitoring system, that is able to be viewed by anyone, at any time, throughout the plant. Workers can check up on process limits for each shot of each product to make sure they meet strict customer requirements. Customers can also schedule a visit to view the process limits and manufacturing data and witness their job running in the press. Reporting systems can also generate data on job status, alarms & events, operator check-in and check-out, material usage, efficiency and machine & tool histories.

Equipment

Polymer has always had a policy of purchasing brand new equipment when it came time to upgrade, replace or add new technology. "It's not "investing" if you are buying used equipment that could potentially be more trouble than it's worth due to unseen quality or functionality issues. That just wouldn't benefit our customers or our future bottom line. We try to maintain each and every piece of equipment throughout the facility in "as new" condition and have quite an extensive preventative maintenance program delivered by a professional, 24hr/day maintenance team". The average age of most equipment is 15 years or less.

We don't just buy a major piece of equipment and put it into service either. These purchases are made, only after a cross-functional validation team has set specification parameters with the vendor. After installation, the machine must pass rigorous, documented qualification processes before it is released for use. We whole-heartedly believe that these investments allow us to perform at our very best, to ensure customers get quality products and service each and every time they need us.

Tooling

At the end of every production run, each mold, cavity and/or mud base is cleaned, thoroughly inspected and made production ready before storing back in a clean, dry environment. This allows molds to be ready at a moments notice and helps maintain the quality and life of the customer's tools. PCI's in-house tool room can design & build your prototype or production ready molds, make repairs or changes and can build the fixtures and end-of-arm-tooling needed for just about any project.

Part Diversion Chutes

Every molding machine is capable of automatic part diversion via a reversible chute or robotic end of arm tooling that is tied into our process monitoring system. Any shot that runs outside tightly established customer and/or PCI set parameters/limits is automatically diverted from the production stream, to a separate quarantine bin ensuring that it does not reach the customer.

Questions about Polymer Conversions, Inc.? Contact an expert engineer or submit an RFQ today!