Towards an online portal for designers and plastics manufacturers

Towards an Online Injection Moulding Portal

Injection moulding is a complex process. To ensure that a product design can actually be manufactured, designers and producers must follow a set of specific guidelines.
Today, this manufacturability check is still mostly done manually — by the moulding companies or the production departments themselves. That process takes time, requires experienced staff, and often involves a lot of back-and-forth communication.

Since moulding capabilities vary from company to company — and even from machine to machine — aligning between designers and moulders can cause long lead times.
An online portal that automates these initial manufacturability checks would be a real game changer for both sides.

Limitations of Existing Portals

Platforms like Fictiv and Protolabs already offer online services, but they come with some drawbacks:

• Manufacturability analyses still require manual review by moulding experts.
• Designers have no transparent view of which moulder — or which location — their design is sent to.
• The (visual) manufacturability feedback is not integrated into the original design file.

In addition, while both designers and moulders are generally well-informed about common polymers, their knowledge about materials for specific applications is often limited.
Connecting design, manufacturability and material selection remains a challenge — especially with the rise of recycled materials and their inherent variability.

Development by Centexbel and Flanders Make

Together with Centexbel, we are developing an online injection moulding portal.
With this prototype, users will be able to:

• Make a well-informed material selection
• Analyse their designs for manufacturability
• Prepare their designs for quotation

More information

You can find all the details — and how to get involved — on the OPKOP project page.

How to participate?

We want as many companies as possible to benefit from our research. After all, our mission is to strengthen and anchor the manufacturing industry in Flanders.

That’s why we’re looking for companies that see a role for this portal in their operations — or that want to actively contribute to the research itself.
We welcome design offices, injection moulders, mould makers, software providers, and others.

Participating in this research allows you to help steer its direction and gain early access to new insights.
There are several ways to collaborate — from free participation to in-depth, tailored research — in areas such as:

• Material selection
• Design evaluation
• Production guidelines
• Web-based tools and portals

We offer:

• Participation in the OPKOP project user group
• Expert advice and knowledge sharing
• Preparatory studies and applied research
• Support for integrating the developed technology into your systems or processes

Your company will receive full support, from strategic advice and R&D to hands-on integration of the online portal.