Plastics & Rubber World - September/October 2019 - 25

injection moulding

"That's a volume part," says O'Brien.
"The component was designed to support
the company's MLA (Medium Light Architecture) platform. That'll be good revenue
for us."
Fibrax can deliver one-off parts, ramping that up to volume as required by the
customer. In the case of Superfos, volume
is the name of the game - there is little
room for customisation.
"The majority of our customers take a
design off the shelf," says Seddon. "In the
1980s and '90s, paint companies using
millions of cans were considering making
their own packaging, but regulations surrounding plastic made it unrealistic. Considering the number of years we've been
perfecting the design of the cans, usually
there's no need to develop a packaging
solution for a specific product."
Paint cans come in a range of sizes,
although the most popular (in terms of
output) are 2.5- and 5-litre versions. Considering the size of the product, the basic
volume of plastic in each unit, it might be
imagined that the company operates a
field of machines to support orders. But
that's not the case, as Seddon describes
the set up.
"We've a selection of different moulding machines, with different tonnages,
cavitations and related assembly processes. The cans aren't made in one piece,
some assembly is required. It's large scale,
but not like yellow fats [margarine and
butter] or washing up bottles, which have
super-high turnover."
But successful production still boils
down to product performance, even after the can has been shipped out of the
Superfos plant. At the paint producer the
can has to support high-speed filling and
even online sales have to be taken into
consideration.
"Shipping to internet buyers is a key
concern," says Seddon.
This market has required development of a bespoke shipping pack. Protection includes a cardboard outer and,

John o'Brien (centre) with colleagues,
outside the Fibrax plant in Morocco

the Fibrax manufacturing facility in Wrexham
in some cases, a polythene bag to capture any leakage. The solution had to be
evaluated in terms of environmental impact, while production lines were revised
to support assembly of shipping-ready
packages.
Shipping plays an integral role in the
success of remote manufacturing at Fibrax. Following the offshoring of production for the complex automotive wiring
harnesses to eastern Europe in the early
2000s, now volumes assembly has been
moved to North Africa.
The Fibrax plant located in Casablanca, Morocco, delivers plastic and rubber
parts to local assemblers, which then
ship the completed harnesses to OEMs
across Europe. The location offers a mix
of drawbacks and benefits. With the former there are higher electricity costs;
with the latter there are lower wages, although these are expected to rise over
the coming years.
Some countries in North Africa operate free-trade zones, primarily to encourage foreign investment. While the current
plant is not located within one of these areas, O'Brien says the likelihood is that the
company will setup up a facility within one
of these purpose-built sites.
"It's a short-term goal, not part of a
long-term plan," he says.

Preparing for can shipping at the
superfos plant in Blackburn

Business Considerations

Once capital expenditure has been taken
into account and that outlay amortised,
automation and robotics can help support reduced production costs - if the given process can benefit from the proposed
addition.
"Automation with rubber is difficult,
plastic not so much," says John O'Brien.
The company has been doing limited
amounts of 2K moulding for about six
years. There had been limited interest,
but that is now starting to build as the potential is realised.
O'Brien notes that Fibrax has not yet
invested in a dedicated 2K machine, as
the cost could be up to £200,000. The
compromise is to use an £80,000, single-shot machine and run parts twice, or
run two machines together. The next step
in that would be to add automation to
move parts between the machines.
At Superfos, Mark Seddon says that

›› Continued on page 26
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