PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2021

A look inside the PSL MOULD MAKING PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 06/21 www.petpla.net 20 “With an almost approved prod- uct, there might be some longer-term checks that they have to do, where they need to put it in a temperature chamber for three months or some- thing like that, but 99 per cent of the validation procedures are completed and ticked off, here at our PSL,” says Alan Tolley. “We can test mould plat- forms that we manufacture through our PSL. “The attraction to the cus- tomers is potentially massive reduc- tions in development time. “Customers want their moulds tested; they want to have some idea at the tool maker’s stage. Having this capacity in-house saves time on shipping samples back and fore and on external validation. We can, very often, receive immediate approval to finish a production tool, shav- ing weeks or even months from the overall project time. It’s a full turnkey offer,” he continues. “We save them from jeopardising their production plans. We ship the moulds out to them, with all validations already com- pleted and recorded, with all the sup- porting documentation. By the time the mould gets to them the product is already approved and they’re up and running, immediately.” R&D/Leverage had got used to hosting four or five visits a week to the PSL, by both brand owners and converters, from Russia, South Africa, South-East Asia and all over the world. For customers new to the com- pany, it has served as an outstanding introduction to R&D’s testing capabil- ity, encouraging them to come back again and again to use its extensive and highly rated service. Overcoming Covid-19 Then came Sars-CoV-2 ID-19, better known as Covid, which stopped all travel – especially international travel – dead in its tracks. Customer visits to the PSL went down from several each week to just one every few months. For many companies, that would have meant severely curtailing or even shutting down operations altogether. While it was unexpected and could not have been planned for, it turned out that the investment in comprehensive design, prototype, testing and validation equipment made it perfectly suited to the ‘new normal’. R&D/Leverage’s ability to fully complete all design and development, prototyping, testing and to undertake full QA during lockdown, and to send comprehensive reports to convertors and brand owners, with complete con- fidence that the QA control methods are of an approved standard, served both R&D and its customers very well. “Having all of the inspection equip- ment, all of the technical knowhow and the machines, has really been a big boost for us. Last year was a record breaking year,” says Alan. “Without having the complete cycle to offer, we would have been strug- gling, sending samples out, waiting a week or two for them to come back, redrafting, trying again – we have, instead, been able to do everything here and deliver complete solutions. We have actually become the custom- ers’ trusted partner. They know they can give us the order, we will design it and we will manufacture, whether that is a one cavity pilot tool or a produc- tion tool. We will lead through all the qualifications, and then send the sam- ples to them. With one customer in particular, over the last 15 months, it has worked very well for both sides.” Rising to the occasion Ultimately, there is no substitute for the depth of understanding that comes from getting to know each other face to face: it is how long-term partnerships are built. What the Covid situation has demonstrated is that R&D/Leverage is the firm for all seasons, equipped to deal with the unexpected – in whatever form it takes – and to deliver. The start of the pandemic saw the company get a lot of orders for sani- tiser and handwash bottles but regu- lar business reasserted itself fairly quickly, and it received a huge number of orders for cosmetics. R&D carried a lot of projects single handedly, using zoom calls and such like to set the scene, bring the brand owners and the converters together and essen- tially to drive whole projects. The com- pany won respect with the agility of its response and its willingness to go the extra mile to allow the customers to keep everything on track and launch several new product ranges. “Without our capability, it would have just been absolutely impossible. As the uses and demand increase for R&D/Leverage’s PSL, we see more ways that our customers view us as a complete solution provider, rather as a commodity tooling supplier,” Steve Gough concludes. www.rdleverage.com R&D/Leverage’s Product Solutions Lab is equipped with:  Aoki 250LL-75S  two Nissei ASB 70 DPH V3  three Nissei ASB 70 DPH V4  two Nissei ASB 70DPW  Nissei 12M The PSL offers single cavity pilot tooling for product devel- opment, material trials, colour trial and in-house training. This allows a sampling program for a customer’s product that includes inspection of samples from R&D’s stretch blow and injection stretch blow moulding lab.