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Take a moment to think about all the work that goes into designing and building a car. Untold hours go into the engineering of each part. The coordination necessary to convert raw materials into a car boggles the mind. With such a complex process inefficiency is bound to creep in. As a result there is also a lot of room for improvement. Specifying and approving plastic materials and making that information available to suppliers is one area where OEMs can improve. It's time for OEMs to modernize their use of plastics information.

Keep in mind that inefficiency is a relative term. What was efficient 15 years ago isn't efficient today, because everything relating to it has become more efficient. Take computers for example. My kids have a vintage 100MHz laptop to play with (so my newer computer doesn't get broken). Twelve years ago it was state of the art. Today it’s a child's toy. The laptop didn't change, but the industry did.

It seems that some OEMs employ the Rube Goldberg method for managing their plastics information - yes, it works, but it could be done more easily. Nowhere is this more evident than in the automotive industry. I'll use the automotive industry as an example because the vast majority of cries for help I hear come from the automotive sector. In an age of databases and computers, finding automotive approved plastic materials often involves visually inspecting hundreds of pages of documents. From my experience, there are a few things the Big Three automakers (Chrysler, Ford and General Motors) could do to improve their handling of plastics information. Below is a list of steps any OEM can take to lower their plastics-related costs.

Make the approved resin easier to find

If the information was easy to find, people wouldn't ask me to find it for them. Ford and Chrysler utilize PDF documents to display their lists of approved materials. Ford uses six documents, but three of them are for Europe, so there is a lot of data duplication (read as room for error). Granted, the documents are electronic so searching them is faster than if done manually, but they're still little more than paper documents. To its credit GM displays its information in a spreadsheet, which is nice because it is in a usable format. Whatever gains were made by using a spreadsheet are lost on clarity. The spreadsheet also includes decals, zippers, hook and loop fasteners, and a variety of other interesting items. One common theme throughout all of these solutions is that they each attempt to display more information than they were intended for, which adds further confusion. Inconsistencies and misplaced information add to the challenge of finding the appropriate resin.

Keep materials lists current

Keeping any list that covers a wide variety of dynamic sources is a challenge. This is something IDES deals with every day and it is no easy task. There is always room for improvement. Recently I found some Himont materials listed as being approved for a particular automotive specification. In case that name doesn't sound familiar, Himont became part of Montell, which eventually became Basell. Unfortunately this case is not isolated; there are numerous instances where resin supplier names and product lines are out of date. What happens when a manufacturer changes their nomenclature on an entire product line, or goes through a merger and loses their identity? (see The Plastics Graveyard™ for some direction). Challenges such as these become evident as you inspect the approved source lists.

Make the specifications dynamic

A solution that encompasses all of the previous suggestions would not only make the job of making plastic parts for the automotive industry easier, but more economical as well. Making the plastics automotive specifications dynamic would further increase the usefulness of the information. Requirements called for in the automotive specifications themselves, like "Flexural Modulus of 750 MPa min" could be stored in a database and used in pre-canned searches. Finding approved materials would no longer be reading through pages of documents, it would be searching for materials that meet the requirements. Materials enter and exit the marketplace on a regular basis, probably more regularly than the auto companies update their materials lists. Potential alternative materials can also be identified with ease. What is needed is a database that receives frequent attention and is managed by someone who deals with the plastics industry directly. I happen to know of just such a database.

Setting the standard

Managing plastics specifications and approved materials dynamically applies to any industry, not just the automotive industry. One company that is setting the standard is John Deere. John Deere's situation is similar to that of the automotive industry; they need a way to communicate their plastics requirements to their suppliers. They have a dizzying assortment of products, from weed trimmers and chainsaws, to skid steers and excavators. By integrating internal information into the IDES database, John Deere has improved communications and reduced the time needed to find and source materials, which translates into higher efficiency and cost savings. The Big Three sell their suppliers paper. John Deere gives their suppliers tools. Last time I checked, scissors beats paper.

Ben Howe is a content manager for IDES Inc. and is responsible for the management of 74277 unique grades of plastic material data sheets from more than 636 resin suppliers. Ben holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wyoming (2001).

Ben has a knack for tracking down hard to find plastics information and authored the Property Descriptions and Plastics Test Method Standards library.

Ben also moderates technical inquiries from the IDES Plastic Materials Support Center.

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