When engineers are developing products that require a polymer solution&#;albeit rubber, insulation, or other material&#;deciding exactly which materials to use and finding a supplier is an integral part of the product development process. Performance of those materials is not the only concern, either: chances are you&#;re working within budget and time constraints and need to have expectations clearly defined. In addition to providing materials or a manufactured component, a good supplier is also your partner. Here are some questions you might have during the product development stage that an experienced supplier can address.

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1. What is your lead time?

In order to plan your project and its benchmarks, you need to know your supplier&#;s lead time: how long will it be from the time you place your order to the time you receive your shipment. If you&#;re ready to assemble your product but are missing a crucial component, this will seriously hinder the time it takes before your product can go to market. Ask how quickly your supplier can turn around your orders.

2. How do you handle emergency orders, and how fast is expedited?

You have deadlines to hit, and dealing with a long lead time isn&#;t always acceptable. This is an instance where it&#;s necessary to find a supplier who is willing to go above and beyond in order to deliver your materials as quickly as possible. Ask if your supplier is able to handle emergency orders and exactly what it means when an order is expedited.

3. How long will your material last?

Manufacturers occasionally have to sacrifice quality of their materials in order to get the lowest cost possible, but this can backfire. If you offer any sort of warranty on your products but parts wear out easily from overuse, you&#;ll find yourself bearing the cost of replacement&#;or you&#;ll simply find that customers are unsatisfied with your  product. Your supplier should be able to give you a clear answer as to how long the material will last when your product is used as expected.

4. What types of testing do you do to determine the right solution for my problem?

Sometimes, engineering teams seek out a polymer materials expert because they need consultation on the right material for their projects. Other times, they&#;re trying to upgrade an existing product because their current solutions are underperforming.

Whatever the case, if you&#;re not sure what material you need or if your chosen material is up to par, your supplier should be willing to perform testing with various materials before deciding on the one that will accomplish your goals. Maybe you&#;re concerned about heat resistance, water-repellant properties, noise damping, vibration control, aesthetics costs, or all of those factors. A materials expert can help determine which solution is right depending on your needs, and they should be specific with you about what kinds of tests the materials will undergo to determine this.

5. What is the most cost-effective way to place my orders?

The quality and effectiveness of your materials is important, but naturally, you&#;re looking for ways to save costs wherever possible. Your supplier should be able to let you know whether it&#;s more cost-effective to order in bulk or to place recurring orders over a certain time period.

6. What can you do to lower my costs without changing the material for my product?

Testing of various materials can help you decide the best, most cost-effective material for your needs, but once you&#;ve decided on the material, there may be additional ways to lower costs (aside from how you place orders). For instance, the more parts your product has, the more time-consuming and costly assembly is, which may be why you&#;re looking to better utilize your product&#;s materials.

Sometimes, a custom molded foam solution can reduce the parts in your product, making it more uniform and simpler to assemble. Besides, standardized components  are not best suited for all products. Perhaps instead of getting three different pieces, there could be one piece of custom molded foam that works for all applications, making production more efficient. If your supplier can pre-assemble certain parts for you, this is another way to optimize production and lower costs. You should be able discuss all of these concerns with your supplier.

7. Will your manufacturing processes cause a loss in material quality?

You may be concerned that although you are aware that you are receiving a product that has been tested and is of high quality, your supplier&#;s manufacturing process may impact that quality. This could be due to the machinery and tools used and the overall quality of your supplier&#;s process. You may want to ask what the supplier&#;s margin of error is and how much excess material they plan to go through to compensate for production errors. It&#;s important to know whether this excess material will negatively impact the costs of production.

Work with a supplier who can address your most crucial questions

Ultimately, your project will be impacted by the ability of your supplier to support you. A good supplier can work with you throughout product development to determine the best materials to use. These aren&#;t, of course, the only questions that may come to mind when you&#;re vetting suppliers. If you&#;ve chosen the right supplier, they should be helpful and eager to answer your most important questions.

Top 10 Plastics & Resins Manufacturers

Too much talk and discussion has been done on the significance, uses, and applications of HDPE sheets, and a person can consult best HDPE sheet supplier, it&#;s time to shed light upon some top most plastic and resin manufacturers who are dominating the current plastic industry.

This post can be helpful for those ventures who are looking to get a deal with the top manufacturers to nail down their services in a new project. Besides, this list of top manufacturers will not only enlighten you about their core manufacturing products but also tell you about their other innovations.

1.  Dow Chemical

Total revenue: $49 billion

It&#;s an American multinational synthetic organization situated in Midland, Michigan. This organization provides chemicals, plastics, and agricultural products, and it operates around 35 countries. This company is a global supplier of every major resin, polyethylene (PE), and the biggest manufacturer of polyalkylene glycols and chlorine.

The principal lines of their business is based on consumer solutions, agricultural sciences, infrastructure solutions, performance materials & chemicals, and performance plastics. In , the organization had yearly offers of almost $49 billion and utilized roughly 49,500 individuals worldwide.

2.  Ninge Plastics

Ninge plastic stands among the largest HDPE rods, tubes, sheets, and polyethylene sheet suppliers. This company believes in running a unique process than other HDPE rod and sheets manufacturers. They use premium-grade raw materials, which are strictly tested for quality and inspected to guarantee the perfectness of the product in terms of its dimensional properties.

Their low friction sheets, HDPE, and PMMA rods are best for rollers and bearings due to their lightweight. HPDE is an extremely financially savvy alternative for various high-requesting modern applications. Most importantly, you can buy HDPE, Teflon, PTFE, PMMA, POM sheets, and rods from them at affordable wholesale prices worldwide.

3.  Exxon Mobil

Total Revenue: $236 billion

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It&#;s an American multinational gas, oil, and chemical company located at Irving, Texas, and is known to be the world&#;s ninth largest public company by revenue and was ranked no. 6 in sales and no. 17 in benefit all-inclusive in Forbes Global list.2 ExxonMobil produces plastics, petrochemicals, diesel, and fuel among numerous different items in every real nation of the world and investigates for oil and flammable gas in six mainland.

The organization is one of the best overall makers of polyolefins and different polymers and pitches. In , the organization had yearly offers of about $237 billion2 and utilized roughly 75,600 individuals around the world.

4.  Lyondell Basell

Total Revenue: $33 billion

This company counts among the biggest plastic, and chemical manufacturing companies located in the Netherlands, and main head quarter is located in Houston, Texas, and global operations in London, UK.

It basically deals in providing plastics, petrochemical products, chemicals, diesel, and gasoline among many other products which are produced in 17 countries at 55 sites.

The company had annual sales of nearly $33 billion in , and employed approximately 13,000 people worldwide.

5.  ALPLA

It&#;s an Austrian-based plastic manufacturing company that excels in producing blow-molded bottles, caps, injection molded parts, and tubes.

This organization is the biggest maker of bundling all through Europe having 68 generation plants located in Western Europe, and holding 160 production in more than 42 countries globally.

6.  Formosa Plastic Group

A Taiwan plastic company that is mainly known for producing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and some intermediate plastic goods. This company runs under the strict supervision of businessmen Wang Yung Ching, who is the founder of this company.

The establishment was laid in with US $ 798,000 credit acknowledged from US help organizations.

7.  LG Chemical

Total Revenue: $17.8 billion

This is the biggest Korean chemical company located at Seoul, South Korea. LG is a main producer of petrochemicals, polyvinyl chloride, polyolefin, manufactured rubbers and claim-to-fame polymers.

Apart from it, this company also deals in manufacturing digital and IT gadgets and batteries. The company had annual sales of nearly $18 billion in , and hire around 14,000 people from different corners of the world.

8.  Chevron Phillips

Total revenue: $13.4 billion

It&#;s another elite petrochemical company located in Woodlands, Texas. It was established in by combining the chemical operations of both Chevron and Philips.

This company deals in producing polyolefin, petrochemicals, and specialty chemicals. The organization produced about $13 billion in deals in .

9.  Borouge

This company is the min manufacturer of polyolefin and known as a the combined venture of Borealis of Australia and Abi Dhabi international oil company. This company is involved in the business of supplying polyolefin plastics (polypropylene and polyethylene)

The basic aim of expert team is to emphasize on high end applications in the Middle east, and Asia pacific with Borstar-enhanced polyethylene manufactured inn UAE, Abu Dhabi, and Borealis range of specialty products.

10.  SABIC

The name stands for Saudi Arabia Basic Industrial Corporation, it&#;s a public petrochemical company that is known to be the third-largest producer of polyethylene and fourth largest producer of polypropylene and polyolefin.

Generally, this company is involved in the business of chemicals & intermediates, manufacturing polymers, fertilizers, and metals.

For more Synthetic Polymers & Resins For Wide Industry Supplierinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.