An Inside Look at Forum’s Facility

Forum Plastics specializes in custom precision injection molding, prototyping, and assembly services for the medical, industrial, and electronics sectors. We designed our spacious, state-of-the-art facility to support world-class engineering and manufacturing solutions, no matter how complex, that meet the exacting needs of a wide range of clients.

What Sets Our Facility Above the Rest?

Successful injection molding outcomes, particularly for very small, complex, precision parts, rely heavily on details that are often overlooked. That is why the highly trained experts at Forum Plastics always adhere to established best practices for the facility layout and operations, which has earned our facility both ISO 13485:2016 and ISO 14001 certifications. In addition, we recently achieved ITAR compliance to serve our defense customers.

The entire facility is fully modernized with climate-controlled specialty rooms and epoxied floors to ensure optimal temperatures, aid in cleanliness, and provide an engineered environment for consistently superior results. All machines are ideally spaced for the safest and most efficient workflow. A free cooling, closed-loop system control is used to process chiller water, which preserves purity while protecting mold water passages and machine heat exchangers.

Our equipment is routinely and precisely calibrated for every different part or prototype we produce, with regular preventative maintenance to re-certify machinery to OEM specifications. We also operate three RJG eDart system units that provide scientific molding data collection and analysis in real time to monitor machine output quality and ensure that parts are being molded accurately.

Get a firsthand look at Forum Plastics’ facility and capabilities in our new video:
 

Forum’s Specialty Rooms and Labs

With a 45,000-square-foot facility, Forum Plastics has the capacity to develop your product or component from the initial prototype design to mold fabrication to final assembly, with isolated areas for each process and plenty of room to grow.

The largest area is the molding floor, which includes 46 injection molding presses, each with its own dedicated resin dryer, temperature control unit, robot, and picker to prevent cross-contamination of materials and ensure the structural integrity of completed parts.

Our pad printing room contains 18 pad printers (15 manual, three semi-automatic) for components that require offset printing. A fully outfitted tool room allows Forum’s skilled craftsmen to create the right tooling for complicated production injection molding solutions, while the R&D Lab supports our team of talented engineers to research and develop new advances in plastic composites and other materials.

A quality control room is devoted to monitoring items in production and a metrology room contains precision equipment to accurately measure the tiniest of components.

Rest assured that safety is our utmost concern. That’s why the assembly and packaging of sensitive surgical instruments and medical devices is only performed in a specially designed ISO Class 7 clean room.

First-in-Class Equipment and Automation

When it comes to injection molding, pad printing, and prototype production, Forum Plastics is committed to continuous improvement and capital investments. We are constantly evaluating our customers’ needs and acquiring new machinery and personnel, without compromising on quality or quantity. Our current equipment includes:

Injection Molds – Our facility runs 46 injection molding presses, from 11 to 200 tons, for 24 hours a day, 5–6 days per week, with on-shift quality control and technical support. These include micro molding, insert molding, standard injection molding, and other specialty molding systems.

Pad Printing – We have 18 offset pad printing machines, used to transfer two-dimensional ink images onto three-dimensional parts. Three of these are custom-designed, flexible, semi-automated and automated, multi-head printing centers with built-in vision inspection for optimal accuracy, consistent quality, fast changeovers, and shorter lead times.

CT Scanning – Forum Plastics is the only injection molding company in our region to offer this important quality service. Our RX Solutions DeskTom CT Scanner provides non-damaging x-ray inspection, measurement, and evaluation of all surfaces of complex and freeform 3D injection molded parts.

Optical Measuring – We utilize three top-of-the-line optical measuring solutions: Keyence IM-7000 and LM-1100 systems for instant, automated measuring, and the Micro Vu Vertex 342 tabletop system that provides high-resolution, camera-based measurements.

EDM Mold Fabrication – Our Charmilles Roboform® 350 CNC EDM electrical discharge machine allows us to fabricate manufacturing molds and precision dies with highly polished finishes and micron-sized details.

Milling Machine – The Mikron HSM 500 MoldMaster high-speed milling machine by GF Machining Solutions is an all-in-one system for producing a versatile range of mold and die related components.

3D Printing – Raise Pro2 3D filament printer for standard three-dimensional prototype printing and ProJet® Multi Jet Printer (MJP) 3600 Series for fine details and smooth finishes on high-performance parts.

Expanding into our Future

At Forum Plastics, we are committed to continuous improvement, increasing capacity and technology as required to serve our clients with the utmost care, now and in the future. That means expanding our facility’s production equipment or adding new capabilities on a regular basis.

For instance, to support our customers’ increasing demands, we will soon add several larger injection molding machines with approximately 280-ton capacities. We are also installing runner granulators at each of our molding stations to reduce scrap volume reduction and improve our recycling efficiency. And the technology team is developing automation of our in-process and first piece inspection processes.

We always want to be your first choice for precision injection molding, pad printing, and cleanroom assembly, so you can get there faster with Forum! For more information on what our facility can do for you, contact Andrew Butkus, Engineering Manager.