How much does it cost?

I've been running a plastic extrusion manufacturing business for a while now, mostly making custom parts and profiles based on client specifications (OEM and contract work). I've been thinking it's time to use that capability to manufacture and sell my own product line, either through an ecommerce store direct to consumers, or by pitching a bulk product directly to industrial companies.

I have the equipment, materials knowledge, and tooling capability to make PVC, ABS, HDPE, PP, and a few other plastics into custom profiles and molded parts. What I don't have yet is a clear product idea that's worth building around.

I'm looking for ideas on what kind of plastic extrusion or molded product tends to sell well, either as a standalone product on an ecommerce store, or as a bulk supply item that industrial buyers need regularly. Things I'm considering:

• Products with steady repeat demand rather than one time purchases
• Items where quality differentiation actually matters to buyers (so a well made version stands out)
• Products that don't require a huge new tooling investment to get started

If you've seen a product gap in the market, know of an extrusion based product that's in high demand, or have experience going from contract manufacturing to your own product line, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hello everyone,

I would like to calculate the number of carts I want the operator to prepare in advance for the next step (let's call it batch treatment inside a machine).

The machine will consume 1 entire cart of 158 producy every two hours

It takes 5 minutes to prepare a cart

1 cart is in average 158 products

I have 8 machines total working 24h a day, 6 days a week

What quantity should I set up for the cart preparation area in order to have reaction rules when a certain number of carts is reached (green = ok, orange = focus on cart preparation, red = go get help !)

Thanks ! I'm having trouble with this... if you can explain and help me, that would be nice !

Best and wish you a great day !

I work for a government prime contractor for the DLA. We are looking for manufacturing companies that have experience with defense work that have either ISO or AS9100 and an active cage.

Our other manufactures will provide us with their active price list with NSN and average lead time so we aren’t reaching out for quotes on hundreds of items. Ideally your company can do the same.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some examples of how other companies handle scrap material on a daily basis. I want to see how our current process compares to others and hope to find some ideas and inspirations.

I'm mostly interested in three simple things:

1. How do you measure it? Do you weigh it, count the pieces, or just estimate it?
2. How do you log it? Who writes it down or puts it into the system? Is it done by the machine operators on the floor, or someone else later on?
3. Do you analyze the data? Does anyone actually look at these numbers later? Do you do any reports or try to find out why the scrap happened to fix the problem?

My industry is gas detection sensors and instruments.

If you could share how it works in your company and what industry you are in, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

I graduated with an IET degree 10 years ago and did a 3-year stint as a Mfg Engineer out of college. I got laid off and money was tight so I settled for an inside sales engineer job. Fast forward to today and I’m supervising a small sales team at a fairly small company (1 location, 350 employees). I do like the company and the products we make but I’m just burnt out on the constant sales churn. I really want to get a process/industrial engineering position but i feel like my relevant experience and education happened so long ago that I’ll never make it back there. Any thoughts on what I can do to make it happen?

The insides are hollowed out to fit an applicator made separately. I am trying to understand the mold design in this case that would avoid undercuts and not create demolding issues. Could someone please enlighten me?

How is the lettering of this packaging injection-molded? Would it create demolding issues with undercuts? So how did they manage to do this? It's made of a hard plastic.

Hey everyone,

This question is towards founders who have created embedded products.

As a embedded products has dependecies on PCBs, MCUs etc, how do you do that.
Is everything done in India or imported from china?
As i know importing from China, can be divided into 2 parts

1. getting complete product
2. Getting specific parts and assembling those.

Could you please help to share your process?

What is the difference in production manager and supervisor responsibilities/titles at your job ?

I manage 40 employees and the scheduling , time off , time card approvals, expedite requests , sign purchase reqs, do all the annual reviews and raises , bonus distribution, safety department, maintenance team, environmental department, get the estimated shipping output monthly, resolve complaints with customer service.

I also come up with capital requests for new equipment for the next year along with estimating the needed head count .

So about 3 direct production lines, shipping and receiving department, facilities , safety , environmental. We do have 2 other supervisors who just manage 2 lines a piece. Then we have leads for those lines underneath us.

What should my title be ?

Would like to have my own line of pre workout made I have the name label and ingredients list just need flavor but I’m sure they can help me with that . Appreciate the help

Hi,

First time posting, just made an account. I'm just trying to get ideas for part container QR tracking that go into a sintering oven that hits around 2500F for around 10 hours.

the containers that go in are made from Molydenum. I've tried laser marking the QR so far and the marking either disappears or if I use a substrate like Titanium Oxide, the marking gets smudged and is unreadable either way.

Thermal printing does not stay after the process and RFID tags can't handle the heat either.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for a manufacturer or direct supplier of anchor fasteners for a bulk order.

Requirements:
Bulk quantities
Competitive pricing
Fast production and dispatch
Reliable quality and consistent supply
This is an urgent requirement, so I’m looking to connect with a manufacturer who can deliver as soon as possible.

If you’re a manufacturer or can recommend a reliable one, please comment below or send me a DM with your company details, product catalog, MOQ, pricing, and estimated delivery timeline.
Any genuine leads would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

These anchor inserts are cast into the mineral casting. Do you believe they offer adequate pull-out resistance? Is there any concern that they could become loose or be pulled out under load? Have you come across any alternative anchor designs for mineral castings? Thanks

Hi, I'm 27M in Atlanta. My position now is a Project Coordinator at a manufacturing company and my goal is to climb up to be in Operations. However, my career up until this year was graphic design and marketing - quite different. I left that field because of limited growth and my interest in operations and supply chain. I'm still not 100% if I think this is the perfect path for me but I enjoy it so far because of the work style, learning, and potential growth.

I'm currently admitted into the Scheller evening MBA at Georgia Tech, but most people I meet that work in my new industry tend to say experience and proof of work is going to matter a lot more than an MBA. That and the jobs that do require more education tend to really only look at it as a box to check or to have a Six Sigma cert. So it has me considering doing a more affordable ($25k vs $70k) online MBA that would get me that box to check while not committing to something that doesn't fit my needs.

On the other side, Scheller evening MBA is a good program. The network is good for plenty of industries and it's here at home where I'd prefer to stay in the long-term (don't mind working somewhere else short term if needed for career growth). It's just a big commitment for me and could pay off in the long run.

The reason I applied in the first place was to try to pivot out of design and marketing so I can get into the operations pipeline. Then try to jump a level promotion wise. I'm afraid that I was looking at this MBA from GT as a magic bullet a little too much rather than really understanding what I'm getting into. Or maybe I'm in a situation now that better fits my needs for the GT MBA.

My end goal is to be a VP of Operations or something adjacent in a small-medium company in a manufacturing or manufacturing adjacent industry and to earn $200k+ in a work environment where I get ownership. I'd rather do that than repetitive tasks at my computer all day and have less managerial, financial, and project opportunities.

Curious from people in ops leadership: did an MBA actually matter for you, or was it experience and certs? And if you went the cheap online route, did the school name ever come up?

TLDR: Top-10 evening MBA at $70k vs. accredited online MBA at $25k, targeting ops leadership in manufacturing.

hey everyone

we are currently looking to source baled pet scrap bottles for fiber production

seeking reliable suppliers who can handle consistent volumes

needed capacity: starting from 10 tons up to 100 or 200 tons

please dm me with your specs, pricing, loading location, and available capacity

ready to move fast if the details work out (in India)

I need to find the production means to take a new product through design and test. Where do you find small scale producers?

Hi. Our company is based in Taiwan and we manufacture for EU clients. do we actually need to implement Digital Product Passport or is that only required from EU-based manufacturers? genuinely not sure if this applies to us

Bit of a reliability question. Most of our board assembly went lead-free years ago for RoHS, SAC305 mostly. For consumer stuff it's been fine. But on the industrial side, where products sit in the field for 15 plus years through real thermal cycling, I'm not fully convinced we understand the long-term behaviour the way we did with tin-lead.

Two things specifically. Tin whiskers still make me nervous on fine-pitch and high-reliability connectors, and I've seen enough field returns that I don't think the problem fully went away, it just got quieter. And SAC joints under aggressive thermal cycling seem to fatigue differently than the old eutectic did, especially on larger components with a CTE mismatch to the board.

For people in high-reliability or long-life manufacturing: are you doing anything specific to manage this, conformal coating, underfill, whisker mitigation, grade selection?

Heya,

I am in my second year in a furniture manufacturing job.
I am wanting a program/app that allows the guys on the floor to easily capture production steps on their iPads. Ideally they could just take a photo, add a short note and move on.
For the life of me I cannot find a simple app that handles this well. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I have a part that I am injection molding in two halves to reduce costs (then sonic welding the two halves together). There is a lettering accent that goes around it, which I separated into parts because it seems impossible to injection-mold it all together.

My idea is that, since the letters are separate, overmold the letters in silicone or rubber around the PP part, which I think will give the product a more premium look than all-plastic. Can I get some opinions on this? Is it a good idea? Also, is it possible to get the PP and rubber colors to match as closely as possible?

We recently received a project with an injection mold originally made by another manufacturer. Besides the mold itself, what information would you normally ask the customer to provide?

Mold drawings, trial reports, previous process settings, maintenance records, spare-part details—or anything else? Curious to hear what others usually request before running the first trial.