Congratulations to our customer Lakeshore Plastics for the expansion of its Orem, Utah manufacturing facility, increasing their capacity by about 50 percent. The new facility totals 12,000 square feet of mold fabrication and injection molding space, up from 8,000 square feet.
Beginning in 2024, Lakeshore Plastics is expanding its caps and closure manufacturing services, along with new equipment for cap lining (vented, foil, foam, etc.). “Right now, we produce about 4 million caps per year. In the coming months, we're also adding specialized molds to easily swap logos and textures on numerous cap sizes, to produce a custom closure at a much lower initial cost,” said CEO Kyle Pontius.
Lakeshore Plastics started as a mold fabrication company in 2019 and now provides turnkey engineering, mold fabrication, production and assembly for both custom injection molding and the packaging industry. The company owns five injection molding machines from Absolute Haitian (three Haitian Mars servo-hydraulic IMMs and two Zhafir Zeres electric IMMs) ranging from 100 U.S. tons to 427 U.S. tons. The new space has the capacity to add three additional IMMs in the future.
Automation contributes to higher quality, consistency
Lakeshore Plastics pairs three of its five IMMS with top-entry robots from Absolute Robot. “The primary added value is quality control,” said Pontius. “We have several projects where aesthetics is particularly important, for example, a case for high-end rings (jewelry). Dropping the case would potentially leave scuff marks; automation more carefully and consistently pulls the parts from the mold.
“Another example where automation played a key role for us was in the molding of a polished part made of clear Tritan copolyester. This sensitive material degrades quickly if there is any variation in the cycle time. The ARI top-entry robot is faster and more consistent at removing the part from the mold and prevents damage that could be introduced if a machine operator so much as bumps the mold when removing the part,” Pontius noted. (In addition to Tritan, Lakeshore Plastics also molds parts made from ABS, HDPE, glass-filled nylon, PVC, polystyrene, polypropylene, TPEs and TPUs.)
If you are looking for a mold fabrication or production partner, give CEO Kyle Pontius a call at 801-404-8812. If you are looking for a partner to meet your injection molding machine needs, call us at 216-452-1000.
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