Molder’s Increased Tooling Capabilities Accelerate Time-to-Market

Spectrum Plastics Group, headquartered in Minneapolis, MN,
provides custom manufacturing solutions for its customers in
the medical, aerospace, defense and precision industrial industries.
An alliance with an unnamed tool and design manufacturing
company in the Twin Cities area is the next step for the
company to meet its customers’ needs for high quality, quickturn
tooling.

The company offers an array of product development services—
including rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and production
molding. This recent alliance with a local mold manufacturer,
the name of which Spectrum Plastics Group CEO/President
Randy Ahlm wishes to keep confidential, has allowed them to
relocate operations into Spectrum’s injection molding facility.
“The advantage of integrating tooling capabilities into our
facility is significant,” notes Doug Johnson, General Manager
for Spectrum Plastics Group’s Minnesota division. “It enhances
the Quick-Turn molding capabilities of our business and allows
us to help our customers accelerate their time-to- market. We
are now able to quickly respond to tool modifications, revision
changes and new tool builds.” This addition is a direct response
to multiple requests from its customers, and is another
example of the company’s commitment to a customer-focused
approach, Johnson adds.

Quick-Turn is a term coined by the company to describe its
process for rapidly turning CAD files into injection molded
parts, based on a customer’s specific project needs and requirements,
Ahlm notes. The company also developed DynaClass™
technology, which refers to a hierarchy of rapid tooling and
molding capabilities at Spectrum Plastics Group. “It is geared
toward simplifying the selection of tooling for a variety of
applications, and aligning customers with the best molding
solution for their application,” Ahlm explains. “With four
DynaClass options of tooling available, Quick-Turn offers one
of the most diverse tooling and molding options.”

This new partnership further elevates Spectrum as a multicapable
supplier of custom manufacturing solutions, Ahlm adds.
“While each business will operate independently, Spectrum will
be the largest and preferred customer—enabl-ing it to shorten
program lifecycles and reduce costs for its customers.”
This move has been a long time coming, Ahlm continues.
“We now have in-house tooling at all of our production facilities,”
he states. “Combined with our outstanding engineering
and tool design teams, we are able to provide technical solutions
and quick turnaround to support our customers’ growth—
and further our core focus of quickly turning engineering concepts
into high-quality products.”

Spectrum has plans to not only move all of the tooling
design, manufacturing and quality equipment into the
Spectrum facility, but has further plans to add on new capabilities
as business continues to grow. The first step in this
direction came in the form of Spectrum adding a 240-ton,
Arburg multi-shot injection molding press as well as additional
robotics to automate an insert over-molding application. Ahlm
concludes, “Our customers want more than just another
injection molder, they want someone who can support them
throughout the entire product development lifecycle; and this
enhances our capabilities to do exactly that.”

For More Information
Spectrum Plastics Group / (952) 929-3312

sales@spectrumplasticsgroup.com / spectrumplasticsgroup.com