Polybridge Partners with PlastikCity for New Industry Calculator Resources
Polybridge Training Limited, a provider of injection moulding training and technical support, is delighted to announce a new partnership with procurement platform PlastikCity for the promotion of both its training courses, and the expansion of its catalogue of industry-specific calculators and moulding resources.
Established in 1991, Polybridge Training has built a worldwide reputation over the past 30 years for delivering high-quality injection moulding training and technical support. Providing customer-specific training programmes in the UK, Ireland, Europe and Asia, courses focus on polymer processing, injection moulding-specific troubleshooting, and the fundamentals of product and mould design.
Training is delivered by David Jeavons, Director of Polybridge, (pictured above, centre), who has a long and illustrious career in manufacturing. After leaving engineering college in 1971, David served an apprenticeship in GKN Sankey’s Plastic Division before moving to the Rubber and Plastics Association (RAPRA, now Smithers MSE Shawbury). Following periods with two well-known trade moulders in the UK in the 1980s, David later worked on behalf of the Ford Motor Company during the introduction of SPC (statistical process control) throughout the Ford organisation and its suppliers. David then moved to the PPITB (Plastics Processing Industry Training Board – Now PTIC Telford) as a technical instructor, before moving to become Technical Manager for Netstal UK in the late 80s.
Since founding Polybridge in 1991, David has worked closely with ENGEL UK, delivering training and technical support on their behalf, as well as working in collaboration with the PTIC Telford to deliver training sessions to clients, including Aston Martin Lagonda, Unilever, the University of Edinburgh and DuPont, to name a few.
As well as promoting its range of training courses, the Polybridge website also hosts a range of industry-specific calculators and resources, aimed at helping moulders with calculations of technical and commercial issues quickly and easily. These spreadsheet resources have been improved and added to over many years, now with 20 calculators available, covering topics such as cooling time calculations, shot weight calculators, mould heating requirements, plasticising capacity, barrel capacity, and a host of cost and conversion calculators sure to be handy to any moulding professional.
In October 2022, David Jeavons (pictured, centre) met with Will Clarke (left) and Carl Futcher (right) to discuss how PlastikCity and Polybridge could work together to bring both the industry calculators and Polybridge’s training services to a wider audience.
PlastikCity, now in its 10th year of business, is a dedicated procurement portal for the UK and Irish plastics industries and represents over 260 suppliers in 400 categories, specific to the plastics market. As well as procurement tools linking buyers to sellers, PlastikCity also houses its own industry resources and calculators as part of its Knowledge Base area.
While there is some overlap between the two areas, PlastikCity and Polybridge will be collaborating over the coming months to merge, adapt, improve and add to the catalogue of resources available on PlastikCity’s Industry Calculator page.
Will Clarke, PlastikCity’s Partnerships Manager comments:
“We’re delighted to have made an agreement with Dave to collaborate on these industry calculators, as well as add Polybridge to our Polymer Training Course Providers website category. Our industry calculators are already some of the most popular web pages on the PlastikCity website, and we’re excited to get started on improving and adding to this valuable resource.
“Polybridge’s calculators are fantastic and highly detailed but could be unwieldy or difficult to use being in macro-heavy excel spreadsheets that require a download to open. We want to keep as much functionality as possible, but translate everything to HTML, so it works perfectly on the website, accessible from either your desktop pc, laptop, phone or tablet, with no download or data submission required.
“We hope that once the background work is completed and the new calculators are published, the PlastikCity Industry Calculators area will be the one-stop area for plastics industry professionals to make calculations and costings, helping with a myriad of situations occurring in mould shops on a daily basis.”
The first calculator being translated is Polybridge’s mammoth ‘Component Cost Calculator’, which allows professionals to input a variety of process information such as the number of mould impressions, cycle time, machine efficiency, scrap allowance, running hours and costs, such as material costs, regrind addition, masterbatch addition, even costing the addition of inserts or post-mould operations.
The resulting calculations give users three breakdowns, one of production, including total production hours, cycles per hour, total material output etc. The cost breakdown will display annual costs, as well as cost breakdowns per part for tooling, machinery, material and more. Finally, the financial breakdown will calculate your profit percentages, earnings per part and selling prices required to meet your targets. All in all, this calculator gives an informative overview of moulding projects, with added functionality to print your results and colouring the final financial information, either green or red, denoting profit or a lack of!
PlastikCity is still making some final tweaks to functionality, but if you’d like a sneak peek at the Component Cost Calculator, you can click here to view.
Speaking of the new relationship, Polybridge’s David Jeavons commented:
“I’m delighted that PlastikCity has added Polybridge to its comprehensive portfolio of services. Our piece-part cost calculator will soon feature on their website, for the calculation of technical and commercial moulding issues.
“These resources will continue to help industry professionals arrive at meaningful solutions quickly and easily as they are updated and brought into the 21st century! We hope the relationship will continue to grow in the coming years, as together we continue to provide assistance and support to the industry.”
For more information about Polybridge and its range of plastic industry-specific training courses, visit the Polybridge website. Keep your eyes open for more announcements as the industry calculators are released over the coming weeks, or bookmark the PlastikCity Knowledge Base for future reference.
Polybridge Training
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