Services > Design For Manufacturability

Keys to Successful Part Design

Describe Application

Describe the environment, intended use, regulatory compliance, and important mechanical properties. Consider chemical, liquid, and temperature exposure. Determine aesthetics like color and surface appearance.

Material Selection

Materials have different shrinkage factors so it’s critical to define it at the outset. We’re experienced with engineering resins and can handle both thermoplastic and thermoset polymers.

Tool Design

This critical piece has a substantial impact on your tooling cost and piece cost. We’ll look at every option to take cost out by eliminating unnecessary complexity and reduce secondary finishing steps.

Production Process

This is where we select molding processes, automation, and any secondary services to efficiently produce and finish your part. We offer complete value-added services like machining, kitting, and assembly.

Nicolet Plastics Early Design Involvement

Early Design Involvement

We encourage early design consultation to optimize your design, save you money, and find ways to gain a competitive advantage for your product.

  • Weight reduction opportunities
  • Identify equivalent alternatives to branded materials
  • Eliminating fabrication and assembly steps
  • Improving strength and structure by tool design and additives
  • Properly located and sized gates (impacts quality and cycle time)
  • Reduce cycle time by design
  • Optimize tool for uniform cooling throughout mold cavity

Mold Flow Analysis

Mold flow software can be used to evaluate the design to make sure it will produce the most consistent and highest quality parts from each cavity of the tool. A virtual model of the mold is created and, using the known data and characteristics of the chosen material, the software can predict how the material will flow into the mold and its cavities. Different data points can be assessed, including pressure, fill time and melt temperature. Doing so allows for optimization of the process before tool production ever begins.

  • Help identify potential problems
  • Help identify ideal injection molding gate designs
  • Shows the last areas of the part to fill
  • Shows how the material will orient with the mold,
  • Exposes potential warp and stress points.

Material Selection

Advances in polymer science have made tens of thousands available for injection molding processes. You can rely on our experience to identify the best choices for your application – and give you options at different price points. We keep a substantial inventory of engineering and commodity materials on-hand in order to quickly meet our clients’ customized and deadline-driven orders.

Important considerations for material selection includes:

  • Does the part need to withstand pressure, weight, temperature variations or elements / chemicals?
  • Do any regulatory requirements apply?
  • High-performance and specialty resins come with a higher cost.
    • Ask about alternatives to branded materials
  • Certain resins may increase the maintenance intervals of your mold.

When you need more from your plastics, we have the thermoplastic and engineering resins to make that happen.

Mercury Marine is very selective in who they use as suppliers. Companies must meet the high quality standards and flexibility that Mercury Marine requires. Nicolet Plastics has consistently met these criteria.

Nicolet Plastics and Mercury Marine engineering and purchasing departments worked together to redesign and prototype an existing part. Each prototype met all the specialized criteria, and through combined innovation Nicolet Plastics was able to move the part into production. The cost came in very low, allowing Mercury Marine to save money and use a better quality part.

Nicolet Plastics adapts very quickly to change, can do custom work and provides each client with the personal attention they deserve.

Matt Demmin, Packaging Engineer | Mercury Marine

The first project I ever worked on with Nicolet Plastics, Inc. was in the mid 80’s, and since then the partnership has only grown stronger. Nicolet is willing to try anything to produce the results the client is looking for.

They are on the cutting edge with tooling, equipment and design capabilities. Their design review team provides excellent input; they are creative solution-finders and are very easy to work with. NPI delivers a timely response on product and a quick turn around on tools.

When challenged with difficult mold designs Nicolet is able to simplify the process, thereby reducing costs. Utilizing their in-house rapid prototype machine allows the toolmaker to better understand how the tool needs to be created. One quality control advantage that Nicolet provides for the customer is their storyboards, which detail the proper measurements and color specifications of each piece. Through this self-certification process, Nicolet offers customers the assurance of knowing that each piece is manufactured to exact specifications. I have come to expect that quality work will always be there. You don’t realize how good Nicolet is until you try to compare quality and price somewhere else.

From the President of the company to the guys in shipping, the folks at Nicolet are host, hardworking and down to earth, some of the best people I’ve ever worked with.

Project Manager, Mechanical Engineering | MRI Devices

I have been working with Nicolet Plastics for 13 years and have never been disappointed. The people at Nicolet Plastics have a true open door policy, and extreme flexibility. They want to be involved in the entire process of your project so they can truly understand the objectives that need to be fulfilled. In my experience, it is rare to find a plastic injection molding company that has the combination of in-house tooling and molding that they do. The quality produced is phenomenal.

Nicolet Plastics is an outstanding company. They are knowledgeable, easy to work with, provide exceptional customer service, produce high quality parts, provide flexible lead times, are always competitive on price and do precision color matching work."

Nicolet Plastics is a cutting edge company that is always willing to take on a challenge.

Pat Kilps, Engineering Manager | Quest Technologies

Time-to-market is critical to being competitive. We pushed Nicolet Plastics to provide tools within a very aggressive timeline and they delivered samples in just six weeks.

Dean Walters | Invivo Corporation

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Customer Success Stories

  • Add value by increasing efficiency
  • Implement automation with fast payoff
  • Simplify multi-part tool programs
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Nicolet Plastics University

Proprietary Education Course

  • Exclusive customer training
  • Brings disciplines together for accuracy
  • Injection molding technology, materials, tooling, & RFQ process
  • Ensures tools are specified correctly
Course Details & Enrollment

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