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For many of us February brings to mind Presidents’ Day, Valentine’s Day and sometimes Leap Day, but did you know it also contains National Engineers Week (Feb. 21-27)? The celebration kicked off on Sunday. George Washington, through his surveying work is often referred to as our nation’s first engineer – so what better month to have a celebration of engineers!

Genesis Plastics Welding’s manufacturing and product development engineers are some of the best around and pride themselves on the solutions they are able to create to take our customers’ ideas from drawing board to prototype to market quickly and cost effectively.

We agree that they deserve a whole week dedicated to them! We’re excited to toast their collaborative efforts this week and who knows, maybe there might be a slice of their favorite ice cream cake involved too. We’re pretty sure being champions of our customers’ success equals some sort of decadent celebratory sweet treat.

Go ahead hug an engineer this week and tell them you appreciate all they do!
Want to learn more about how our engineers help clients validate and bring their products to market quickly in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible?Download our Research and Design Services resource with a great visual on the Genesis R&D process.

Every four years we get the fabulous bonus of an extra day. Sit back and think about that for a minute! A whole 24 hours of extra time. When most of our days are so busy, extra time is a breath of fresh air.

Our friends at THOMASNET recently published a fun blog on the power of leap day and we couldn’t agree more with their instructions to “do something you normally don’t have time for.”

Check out these 24 ideas for how manufacturers can make the most out of 24 extra hours:

1. Update your website with new product offerings. Give the people what they want.

2. Run down the list of products you need to get. From spares to customizable parts, there is no use putting it off. (Our Operations Manager Dale Wagner is giddy about this one.)

3. Find out if your smart devices are working at full potential. Utilize the Internet of Things for all it’s worth.

4. Take a look at your process and see if anything can be automated. Spoiler — Plenty of things can be automated.

5. Write a new blog. (Oh this one makes our marketing team giddy.)

6. Figure out how green your business is. Unless you like these record warm months.

7. Review budgets for the year. Is there an opportunity to replace some old machinery or invest in something new? (Or you can skip this one and eat cake. Cake sounds way better than budget reviews.)

8. Outsourcing some of your work? Leap year is as good a day as any to look into the benefits of reshoring.

9. Brush up on some lean manufacturing and six sigma practices. Everyone can improve, right?

10. Gather your team for a team building activity. It’s a great way for everyone to reconnect and catch up.

11. Update your social media. Share something on LinkedIn.

12. Look at some resumes to increase your workforce. Graduation is just around the corner for the next addition to the workforce.

13. Research a local STEM program you can support. Nurture some industry love.

14. How is the economy affecting your resources and business? If you don’t know the answer to this question, go find out.

15. Participate in #DayItForward. Everyone can use a random act of kindness.

16. Investigate some of your competitors. You should know who you’re standing up against.

17. And while you’re investigating, find some new competitors. Are there any industries you’ve been considering breaking into?

18. Tackle those RFQs. You and I both know they need to be addressed.

19. Review safety protocol for your shop floor. You can never be too careful.

20. Run diagnostics on your machines. Just to know that everything is operating as it should.

21. Commit to an industry event and network with others in your wheelhouse.

22. Is everyone on your team properly trained for every aspect of their job? We’ll say yes, but you know what you have to do.

23. Look into what it would take to get a new quality certification.

24. Make sure potential customers are finding you.

The day is wide open with opportunity! Which will you tackle first?

What comes to mind when you hear plastics welding? Might it be a masked welder with a hot torch? For those not familiar with the art of radio frequency (RF) welding that may be the exact image that comes to mind. Yes, plastics welding involves heat but not in the same manner as metal welding. To dive deeper into the process of plastics welding visit our recent blog Radio Frequency (RF) Welding 101, where we explain each step in the welding process and discuss why manufacturing with RF welding is a great option for many industries looking into getting a plastic welder on site.

Today let’s unwrap the terminology around plastics welding. By better understanding some of the terms associated with the process, those exploring plastics welding as a supply chain solution can be better equipped to make impactful decisions.

Radio Frequency (RF Waves): High frequency electromagnetic energy (usually 27.12 MHz) similar to a microwave but heating plastic instead of warming up leftovers.

RF Heat Sealing: High frequency power applied to two or more layers of thermoplastic material to create a seal or bond in the shape of a die.

Bipolar Molecules or Dipoles: Molecules with one end positively charged with respect to the other end.

Polar Plastics: Plastic material that have molecules with one end positive and the other end negative. In other words, polar plastic material contain a dipole molecules and two atoms are oppositely charge creating a net difference of charge in the bond.

Non-Polar Plastics: Plastic material with molecules that do not have one end positive and the other end negative. In other words, non-polar plastics do not have enough difference in net charge to react to RF welding.

Thermoplastic: Plastic polymers that become soft and moldable upon heating and return to their original hardness and strength upon cooling and this process can be repeated. This is contrary to thermoset, which when melted will not return to its original form.

Seal: A fused point between plastic material that creates a liquid or air tight joint that otherwise would not be.

Weld Width: The width of the actual RF welded seam.

Bond vs Weld (Chemical vs Mechanical): In RF heat sealing, when two like materials are welded they become fused and become one with each other in the welded area. When materials are bonded only they are mechanically held together, such as bonding with an adhesive in between, using something like this shrinkfast 998 shrink wrap gun. They are still two separate materials and a bond is weaker than that of a true RF heat sealed weld.

Machine Direction vs Transverse Direction: Machine Direction -The direction parallel to the machine as the film moves through the machine. Transverse Direction -The direction perpendicular to the machine as the film moves through the machine.

Material Shrink: Decrease in dimension of a film when subjected to heat.

Sided Material: Having two different chemical compositions of material on either side of the film.

Layered Material: Having multiple chemical compositions of film in one material.

Carbon: When a flash or an arc occurs in the welding process it can leave the chemical element carbon as the exposed materials burn.

Arcing: An electrical arc or flash that can occur during the welding process causing damage to the materials and/or the tooling and needs to be repaired before the process can continue.

Plastics welding or RF heat sealing is often utilized for medical device manufacturing for items such as fluid bags/pouches, wound care devices and patient warming products. It also is utilized for heat sealed military applications such as hydration pouches, safety products and protection gear. Most often polar materials such as polyvinylchloride (PVC) and polyurethane (PU) are utilized in the RF welding process. However, due to Genesis Plastics Welding’s diverse heat sealing solutions, from radio frequency to impulse to ultrasonic welding, clients can consider non-polar materials as well, such as olefins, TPEs and bio-derived plastics.

• View products manufactured utilizing Radio frequency welding process
• See how OEMs like REDpoint International have used our ecoGenesis technology to replace PVC with “greener” materials like TPE and bio-derived plastics

Peyton you changed us forever. You left an imprint on our hearts, and you made us love the game of football even more. Yes Peyton, you will forever be a COLT to us. I can’t wait to hear you speak at next weeks engagement. These peyton manning agent details will be useful to anyone hoping to book Peyton for an event.

We’ve loved watching you go down memory lane these past few weeks and take us along for the ride. You’re a class act and we’ve learned so much from you, both on and off the field! Your absolute love of the game, your work ethic, your dedication to your community and your leadership to name a few.

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate all the years than with “18 Times Peyton Manning Made You Love Peyton Manning” from the Colts Roundup.

As an Indiana business, we’ve been deeply inspired by your example over the years. You’ve energized us and stirred our own efforts to pay it forward to those in our community as well. Peyton, we were honored to have you as our QB for 14 amazing years! Cheers to the next chapter, buddy.

As an organization focused on continuous improvement, we believe it can be something tackled at every level of the company from line operators to CEO. Often the best improvement ideas come from an “aha moment” from a team member as they go about their daily routine.

Earlier this month Dave Hall, V.P. of Manufacturing at Post Glover Resistors shared an article in Industry Week outlining four areas of focus to make continuous improvement something anyone at any level of your organization can easily understand. We all can get caught up in industry buzz of terms like Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, as well as acronyms – QMS, MES, ISO and GMP, but it really just boils down to moving the needle and making improvements that make processes easier, better, faster or more cost effective, without sacrificing quality or safety.

Theory of Constraints. Quick Response Manufacturing. Six Sigma. Lean. Total Productive Maintenance. Total Quality Management. The lexicon, tools and methods around improving manufacturing these days seems to be endless. 

We, being the continuous improvement community, make it more complicated than it really needs to be sometimes to the point of confusing and frustrating those very people we are trying to help. Don’t get me wrong, I have used each of the methods listed above in some application as they have their place in my manufacturing heart. But it is our job to make this concept of continuous improvement easy and fun, not complicated and by the book.

By making a process or job easier for the operator it typically results in less time and therefore less cost for the company.

But easier can also be in terms of the health and safety burden it puts on the operator. Easier is one that has countless benefits: It makes the product better because the operator is less tired and can focus better at their task; easier means the operator can get more done in the same amount of time — all of which helps to make the product cheaper.

Better

Every company should always be looking for ways to make their products better. This can come from changing a component or material, adding features, or simply improving an assembly process. Sometimes companies struggle with this one because on the surface it almost always results in raising costs. Be sure to always consider defects and breakdowns when looking to make the product better. It may result in adding dimes to the COGS but save dollars on the service and warranty. When looking to make the product better for the customer, one also needs to be careful. Don’t make a Bentley when all that is needed is a Toyota. Always keep the customers’ expectations in mind.

 Explore the rest of the four areas of focus more in-depth here.