GPI Background
Great Plains Industries (GPI) is one of our customers from the United States, they are popularly known for producing fuel transfer gear pumps, nozzles and meters for industries that produce and distribute hydrocarbon products (oil, gas and fuel).
In early May 2021, GPI’s research and development team, led by Mr Smith approached Plastic Navi to assist in upgrading their plastic injection molds due to an increase in demand from their customers.
In addition to upgrading their existing molds, they would also require that we design new sets of plastic molds for new products. Overall their goal was to;
- Design high-quality pumps and meters molds;
- Increase their production capacity;
- Meet up with the technology demands of the industry;
- Attract new clients and retain existing ones.
Challenge
Since GPI was founded in the early 1970s, it has been dedicated to producing reliable and authentic pumps, meters and nozzles. In recent years, they have been faced with difficulties in adopting new technology that will enable them to meet customers’ demands. In today’s world where companies can easily mass produce machine parts with the aid of 3D printers, GPI struggles to compete in this domain. Their molding technology was old and could no longer meet up with today’s clients’ demands, as a result they were churning customers very quickly, not only that, their production capacity had also significantly dropped.
So they contacted us for a precision plastic mold upgrade in order to improve production and meet up with production demands. They would also want us to design entirely new molds for them so as to attract new customers which their existing technology could not serve. If these needs are not addressed, there is a high likelihood that they will continue to churn existing clients to competitors with enhanced molding technology.
Solution
Immediately Mr Smith informed us of the quick need to upgrade company designs and products. We assembled our engineering and production team to start working with their entire research and development team. In just a few weeks our design team provided Mr Smith and his team with the structural designs and prototyping required for the molds upgrade, alongside the designs for the new molding technology as demanded by their clients.
Our engineers provided the flow analysis and structure of the new mold designs using our in-house software. The new items according to Mr Smith require a lot of complex angles and shapes. This can conveniently be replicated with ease using the design software. Then, our mold construction engineers assessed their newly acquired software. This is because they are well versed and experienced in using software like AUTOCAD, PRO-E, SOLID WORK and UG to design the mold prototypes before they are finally produced into molds. To us, understanding and knowledge of the CAM and CAE versions would help us to tailor the custom mold designs with the software. As a result of this, each plastic mold was customized for each of the products. We equally considered the mechanical properties of materials mostly used for production, in case other metal materials such as aluminum is part of the product. After this analysis, our engineers produced a highly-detailed customized mold for each size of nozzle, meter, pump and precision injection mold for the pipes produced by GPI. Each of these molds was tested with the GPI research and development team lead with other members of the team present on-site.
The outcome was impressive as the molds were assembled to form whole parts. The cast products were detailed as specified in the designs.
GPI team was equally satisfied with the new molds as they can now increase production to meet up with customers’ demands.
Due to the impression we made on the GPI team, they requested a new custom mold that would be used for casting the newly added nozzle product. With our experience in product design and prototyping, we designed the nozzle mold according to Mr Smith’s specifications, which was followed by flow analysis. The new mold was designed based on the structure and requirements of the new nozzle product. The angles, contours and corners were cast as expected after the custom mold we produced. This gave Mr Smith’s team the confidence to add a new product to their production line.
Outcome
Over the years, we have provided services such as project management, custom die molds, precision casting injection molding, product design, injection mold manufacturing and prototyping for our clients all over the world and GPI is no exception. We also provide finishing touches to products by assembling and testing them. Therefore, we have helped GPI to improve their business, reduce cost of production and helped them actualise their goal of adding a new product to their company’s catalogue of products.
We are equipped with massive injection molding machines with a capacity of 50 tons to 1100 tons which makes many brands seek after us for consultation, design and mold production.
Mr Smith and the entire GPI team are most impressed that their products’ custom molds were upgraded to meet market demands and add a new custom mold type for their clients. We have become a trusted client of GPI which in turn has led to their client’s satisfaction. As GPI trusts our capabilities and professionalism, they continue to entrust us with the prototype design of other products and mold engineering in the last 3 years.
