RD Abbott, Roembke, Arburg team up for solutions at open house

Barberton, Ohio — In its most successful form, product development is a function of partnerships, close communication and proper training.

And curiosity.

"We talk about 'Applied Curiosity' here. We ask a lot of questions when we get involved with a project," Tom Jenkins, vice president of business development for R.D. Abbott Co. Inc., told Rubber News during a Nov. 2 open house on LSR and TPE injection molding. "We really want to know what you want to do with the component.

"It is all about curiosity."

The gathering on advancements in the fields drew about 60 people to NovationSi, R.D. Abbott's Northeast Ohio manufacturing subsidiary. R.D. Abbott is based in Garden Grove, Calif.

Mold maker Roembke Manufacturing and Design Inc. and injection molding machine manufacturer Arburg Inc. also were chief sponsors of the event.

Like R.D. Abbott, Roembke and Arburg also ask a lot of questions at the onset of a project.

The two companies need to be on the same page with their customers as well.

"What is out there that will help in your and your operator's life to make it easier to be in front of the machine?" said Marko Koellmer, area manager for sales and engineering for Germany-based Arburg. "How can you use the machine to do more with less?"

Beyond the customer, a symbiotic relationship is necessary between these major players that make part production possible.

The four-hour event offered a hands-on forum on the pitfalls and best practices in each space — design and development, tool making and automation.

"Everyone is trying to do more with fewer employees today," said Adam Shaal, business development manager at the Ossian, Ind.-based Roembke, which offers turnkey solutions in addition to tool making.

"A turnkey provider should be able to support you through the entire process," Shaal said.

Steve Trapp, of Lakewood, Ohio-based Steve Trapp Associates Inc., a consulting firm for Northeast Ohio plastics manufacturing companies, used the event to fill in some blanks on the LSR side.

Trapp has been in the TPE industry for more than 40 years and his company uses Arburg presses.

"I have worked mainly in injection molding," Trapp said. "LSR is of interest and I wanted to understand the molding process a little bit better.

"It is important to understand what is going on in the industry."

The final product at the Nov. 2 open house—the component to emerge from the back end of an Arburg Allrounder 370A injection mold press — was a hexagonal silicone coaster ornately imprinted with the names of the three host companies.

However, the process of getting to any end-application, like the sea foam-green coaster, begins with training.

"And that is really what is unique about what we provide," Craig Lustek, LSR application and business development engineer with R.D. Abbott, told Rubber News. "We offer product development assistance alongside the training you will need."

While the services offered by R.D. Abbott, Arburg and Roembke are completely unique, one notable redundancy is their respective customer support service.

R.D. Abbott is staffed with experts at every level and offers research and laboratory services, process engineering, training and education, and custom elastomer and materials science solutions, using materials from companies like Dow and DuPont (specifically for the silicone applications).

R.D. Abbott's product line also includes an extensive portfolio of rubber chemicals and dispersions, polymeric plasticizers, fillers, bonding agents and testing equipment — all from respected industry suppliers.

"But we don't like to be called (only) a distribution company," Jenkins said. "We do a lot more than that. We try to help customers get leads on project start-up, training and processing."

R.D. Abbott has gone to the source for its experience, especially at its labs in Barberton and Garden Grove.

"At our U.S. labs we have people who used to work for Dow and DuPont. ... This has given us a depth of experience in the silicone space," Jenkins said.

Koellmer agreed that the landscape has shifted toward technical assistance in the field—so much so for Arburg that the thrust of business in the U.S. is no longer about machine manufacturing.

"Our focus in the U.S. is really about supporting our customers, not building molding machines," Koellmer said.

Arburg began in the U.S. in the late 1960s, and now has sites in Connecticut, Illinois and California. Each site has service and training opportunities through the applications engineers who are employed there.

"We have about 112 employees in the U.S., and half are engineers and process technicians," Koellmer said. "Having process engineers in the field is what we have been doing. We have been reacting to that as the U.S. is a very important market for us."

On the manufacturing side, which takes place almost exclusively in southern Germany, Arburg offers presses from 14 tons to 730 tons, including electric machines.

About 13,000 Arburg presses are in use in the U.S. today.

"We can decide what machine is best for your application, what gives you the most flexibility," Koellmer said.

The largest market for Arburg is medical, with some automotive share.

"We have seen the increase in medical since the pandemic," Koellmer said.

Similar to R.D. Abbott, Arburg offers classes throughout the year on its machines.

"Our customers can really learn about their machines," he said. "Operators can really get a lot out of these classes."

Arburg offers virtual classes as well as in-person training, the former a leftover from the pandemic that continues to be a successful format for the company.

Any LSR or TPE component producer needs a quality mold to go with a quality injection press.

"How cool is it to look at this silicone rubber that was passed around and be able to turn it into products?" Shaal asked the audience at NovationSi.

For Roembke, which began as a tool maker in the 1970s for the automotive sector, certain criteria are necessary at the outset of a project.

Who is using the product? What is the weight of the product, and how many does the customer require?

As Roembke customers branched out into medical, the firm followed with its molds and cold decks for LSR.

Since the company could test and debug every mold it made with its own presses, customers began to request more testing from the company.

And more testing. And more testing.

"Pretty soon all that testing developed into a company that could offer complete turnkey solutions for customers," Shaal said.

So what is a turnkey system, as it refers to molded rubber goods?

Basically, the full cell requires a dosing system, injection press, mold, automation and some kind of integration.

"This is everything you need for a turnkey solution, basically this is an entire molding cell," he said. "Hopefully you can use this (presentation) as a cheat-sheet for your own assistance, should you decide on a turnkey solution."

Briefly, the dosing system—in this case, from Austria-based Elmet—sends the A and B streams of an LSR (comprising a crosslinking material, inhibitor and a catalyst) into the injection press.

"Essentially the dosing system controls the ratio of material entering the press," Shaal said.

The two streams can merge with a third stream, which could be a coloring agent or another performance additive, before entering the press.

Silicones and TPEs—both of which can be molded in an Arburg press, providing some minor retrofits are installed—differ in that they require opposite temperatures on the curing end.

While silicone is cured in a cold deck, TPEs are set in a hot mold.

"When we are prototyping, we really want to understand what the product is going to be used for and the volumes of the product needed," Shaal said. "Do you need eight cavities or 16 cavities?"

Other considerations for a turnkey system‚ which can be useful for a customer with little LSR molding experience, include an understanding of where the turnkey system will be placed, and whether a customer has the skilled operators for such a system.

To clarify, a turnkey system allows a customer to conduct the molding of the parts themselves, as opposed to purchasing just the mold and trouble-shooting downstream issues themselves.

With turnkey solutions, Roembke is present every step of the way for technical advice and set-up.

"Turnkey is a great solution if you have little experience in LSR molding," Shaal said. "It can save more money than buying the mold and debugging it yourself.

"It allows you to focus on making parts rather than the logistics and costs that can accompany only having the mold."

Just as there is a calculus to the costs of any molded goods venture and the associated tiers of service, there are benefits to each.

Arburg offers an Internet of Things connectivity that can assist with the control of orders; transmission of machine data records; message management, like alarms, preventative maintenance and warnings; and data for process monitoring and quality assurance.

And R.D. Abbott will continue with its training, be it a class on dosing systems or injection molding machines, or a full two-day seminar on LSR.

In every case, time-to-market is a function of collaboration.

"These classes give us interaction with the primary suppliers who are out there," R.D. Abbott's Jenkins said. "What is important to fabricators is this material processing—how to make the material flow better or cure faster. We can really help the process along."