ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: PLASTIC PROCESSING
Showing how they continue to adapt to
GETTING REAL ABOUT POLYMER PROCESSING
Broanmain Plastics explains the crucial role
plastic continues to play in industrial applications ‘
he zero-impact agenda’, ‘achieving net- zero’ and ‘zero-impact manufacturing’, are all terms frequently discussed when tackling topics surrounding sustainable production processes. Zero impact on the environment refers to the avoidance of activities that disrupt major natural processes that keep us and nature alive.
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Plastics is like any other high performance engineering material, learned Cinnamon Lacey and Joel Sparksman from Process & Control’s publisher Datateam Business Media (pictured above in the blue high vis), during a recent tour of the Broanmain’s Dorking facility. Any form of production uses resources, explained Managing Director Jo Davis. Whether it is biodegradable, made of recycled materials, carved from wood or printed on hemp, every material and anything manufacturers produce will still impact the environment to some extent.
As technical mass moulding specialists, the components made by Broanmain are built for industrial applications where durability, lightweighting and reliability are all essential. These are not single use plastics, emphasised Jo, but components moulded, finished and assembled for high performance automotive, aerospace, industrial, construction and commercial devices. Previously these applications might have used metal, but now plastics can offer significant efficiencies and quality features, including strength, stiffness, and resistance to wear, heat, and chemicals, at a fraction of the cost.
Eradicating plastics completely might solve one problem, but it would likely present countless others.
“Many blame the mass manufacturing of plastics for current environmental issues. However, it is often omitted how integral
34 JULY/AUGUST 2025 | PROCESS & CONTROL
plastic is to daily lives and wellbeing, and that the root cause of plastic waste, carbon emissions and pollution can more often be attributed to inefficient production methods and waste mismanagement,” explained Jo. Plastic packaging mitigates food waste attributed to spoiled product. Healthcare plastics are essential to patient and health worker safety and medical diagnosis and treatment plans. Engineering plastics are lightweight and therefore a more fuel-efficient way to transport food and liquids, reducing energy consumption, emissions of CO2 and transport costs. Plastic also makes vehicles, aircrafts and boats lighter, meaning they do not consume as much fuel, nor release as much CO2 compared to other materials. Founded in 1956 as a compression moulding business, Broanmain remains a family-run company. “Integrity underpins every service we provide and as manufacturing techniques and technologies evolve, Broanmain considers itself a pioneer with the highest level of material, tooling and technical competency.”
efficiency and labour challenges, in early 2025 Broanmain installed a fully automated 320-ton Haitian injection moulding machine featuring a Hilectro cartesian robot. The significance of this latest investment is indicative of the wider industry push focused on optimising performance in order to create a smarter, more predictive and sustainable production foundation for the future. The company also installed InTouch monitoring recently to observe where greater efficiency improvements can be realised.
“We are exploring every element of where we can reduce waste and being more resource efficient overall. This includes ensuring productivity from each unit of raw material and component we manufacture is maximised,” says Jo.
Serving UK and Ireland OEMs, Broanmain considers itself a natural extension of each customer’s engineering and product development teams. An approach that can lead to shorter development cycles and better use of physical, as well as material, resources. “From high volume production runs to precision moulding, CNC finishing and assembly, every project is managed by technically competent industry, materials and application experts,” highlights Jo. This includes full support for tool design.
Tooling is often a key part of the economics in plastic injection moulding and is the biggest one-time expense, notes Jo. For many production runs, no matter the volume, the tooling cost remains the same. Some small batch or limited batch runs may utilise aluminium tooling rather than hardened steel tools. However, these are hard to scale up if a company wants to expand production as they lack durability and often require replacing. Amortisation of the tooling cost is an essential part of the equation. Dividing the number of parts that are made by the injection moulding tool over its useful life can help to reduce the cost per part. These measurements can also assist with understanding how other processing variables, for example energy consumption, are impacted by tool quality. Observing the cycle speeds at the new Hilectro machine, Jo explained why mass manufacturing can actually have less of an impact on the environment than batch manufacturing. “It’s all about having a clear plan and managing plastic waste effectively. When utilised well, economies of scale, high volume production runs, secure storage facilities and Kanban can help OEMs fully maximise their costs savings, boost profitability and be more environmentally conscious.”
Broanmain Plastics
www.broanmainplastics.co.uk
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