Bespoke Testing: Supporting Better Plastics Product Development // Impact Solutions Blog

Think about something as familiar as a reusable plastic food container. It may look simple, but developing it involves a series of linked decisions around material choice. If you change one element, another can be affected. A change in processing conditions may alter the behaviour of the finished part. Introducing recycled content can also add further variation. Impact Solutions explains why testing is more valuable when it is built into the development process, rather than treated only as a final check.

Testing During Development

Impact Solutions is a UKAS-accredited (No. 0402) materials testing laboratory and innovation centre, providing accredited testing alongside independent, analytical, bespoke testing and R&D capabilities.

As an independent third-party laboratory, Impact Solutions provides an objective view of material and product performance. This can be particularly valuable during development, where decisions may involve different materials, suppliers or design routes. Independent testing gives businesses evidence that is separate from their own internal assessments or those of a material supplier, helping to bring greater confidence to technical decisions and providing credible data that can also be shared with customers, partners or other stakeholders.

In some cases, an established standard provides exactly what is needed. In others, the product or development challenge does not fit neatly into a standard method.

In these cases, bespoke testing can offer invaluable insight.

Designing the Right Test

Bespoke testing does not necessarily mean starting from scratch. Often, it involves adapting an existing method, changing test conditions, using a different sample configuration or combining several techniques to get a more relevant answer.

The starting point is the product itself.

How will it be used? Which properties are most important? What has changed between one version and another? What does the development team need to know before deciding what to do next?

Those questions help shape a testing programme that reflects the actual development challenge, rather than forcing the product into a method that may not tell the full story.

This can be particularly useful when several variables are changing at once. A development team might be comparing different polymer grades while also adjusting part geometry or processing conditions. Testing can help separate those variables and show which changes are having the greatest effect on performance.

Turning Results Into Decisions

The value of testing is not simply in the result itself, but in what that result allows a development team to do next.

A comparison between two materials might help narrow down the best option for a prototype. Testing a revised design may show whether a change has improved performance. Investigative work can help determine whether an issue is linked to the material, the manufacturing process or the component design.

Used in this way, testing can reduce uncertainty earlier in development and help avoid costly decisions based on assumptions.

It can also support a more improvement-focused approach. Rather than developing a product in full and testing it at the end, teams can test, refine and compare throughout the process, building a stronger evidence base as the design evolves.

When Standard Methods Are Not Enough

Standard testing remains essential across the plastics industry, but product development often brings questions that are more specific than a published method was designed to answer.

Through its laboratory capabilities and Impact Innovations, Impact Solutions can support projects that require a tailored or investigative approach.

The objective is simple: to give product developers evidence they can use effectively.

Contact Impact Solutions and find out the best testing approach for your product’s development.

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