Profile —Strong adds value to projects for medical By Mark Shortt

Thermoforming Giant Opens up on Work for Medical, other Industries

isten to Steve Murrill give an overview of Profile Plastics, the company that he serves as president, and you’re sure Lto get much more. Murrill, a degreed chemical engineer with an MBA in finance, has been actively involved in working to advance not just his company, but the entire thermoforming industry since he bought Strong engineering Profile Plastics in 1986. In a December phone interview, adds value to projects Murrill traced his company’s for medical and beyond progress from the mid-’80s against a backdrop of techni- cal milestones and trends—the evolution of pressure forming and 5-axis CNC machining, for example, and the greater use of These thermoformed enclosures earned Profile Plastics one of molded-in features—all the while explaining what they’ve meant its many awards from the SPE Thermoforming Division Parts to the success of thermoformers everywhere. Competition. Photo courtesy of Profile Plastics. Profile Plastics (www.thermoform.com), a custom thermo- forming company in Lake Bluff, Illinois, specializes in produc- Profile’s 100,000-square-foot facility includes more than a ing highly engineered parts to close tolerances and high dozen dedicated thermoforming cells and a similar number cosmetic requirements. The company has reportedly won top of 5- and 6-axis CNC trimming cells, providing the capacity honors at 19 of the annual SPE Thermoforming Parts Competi- and flexibility to meet a variety of fast-changing production tions, sponsored by the Thermoforming Division of the Society and product design requirements. The company offers custom of Plastics Engineers, since SPE began sponsoring them in the , pressure forming, and twin sheet forming, and 1980s. Murrill himself was honored as Thermoformer of the Year can manufacture parts up to 8 feet by 12 feet from thermoplastic by the Division in 2011 after winning a Lifetime Achievement sheet up to 0.5-inch thick. Award in 2001. The ISO 9001:2008 certified company also takes pride in We asked Murrill if he had enough room at his facility to hold its success in expanding the viability of thermoforming, largely all those awards. He wasn’t biting. through use of what it calls value added engineering. A good “We don’t rest on our laurels,” he replied, adding that al- example, Murrill said, is the increased use of molded-in fea- though many of the winners were state of the art at the time that tures. “By being able to mold more features in, that often times they were awarded, time marches on and new challenges continue cuts costs,” he said. “Because one option is to not have many to emerge with each passing year. “It’s fun to look back at the old features molded in, and either machine them in or bond them ones, and we have some, believe it or not, that are actually still on separately afterwards. That raises the cost and increases the in production. The very first one, in fact, is still in production.” opportunity for rejects. Murrill was referring to an air conditioner plenum for a main- “A significant push is towards a lot of tooling creativity to mold frame computer room, which requires very precise temperature in features,” Murrill added. “The other part is in this attention control. “The part we make has nothing to do with the air condi- to detail on the backside, developing the 5-axis CNC machining tioning system, but they needed a 2-foot by 4-foot, complete air strategies to capture a part repeatedly in a nest or a fixture, and distribution and air intake plenum to put as the room interface programming the 5-axis machine to trim it consistently, and then between the air conditioning unit and the ceiling and the room,” have ways to QC and monitor the process of the parts to be sure he explained. “So this unit is 2 feet by 4 feet, and it has the air that the consistency is maintained.” filters for the return air and the air distribution network, if you Murrill also said that the breakthrough of 5-axis CNC machin- will, to distribute the conditioned air very efficiently. We devel- ing helped thermoformers compete with injection molders by en- oped it in 1986 and it’s still being sold today.” abling them to produce parts with the consistent fit and function 66 February 2014 • www.d2pmagazine.com 67 required of precision injection vantageous. Pressure form- molded parts. “To go after that ing has higher cosmetics, market, the part had to have a which means more expen- consistent trim and a consistent sive tooling. You can get fit. And in the early days, it was higher cosmetics having all being hand trimmed, which the sheet molded against was not only very labor inten- the tool—the cosmetic side sive; it was very imprecise,” he against the tool. So it’s gen- said. “So the 5-axis CNC machin- erally a tooling issue that ing, which came largely from separates the two. the woodworking industry in Twin sheet is an innova- the late 80s, was really kind of tion that allows two-sided the breakthrough to solidifying forming that you can’t get the quality of the fit.” in pressure forming versus Thermoformed parts pro- injection molding, which duced by Profile Plastics are is two sided by definition. used in a range of application The folks in the automo- areas requiring large, highly tive industry started call- cosmetic parts that are manu- ing it (twin sheet) sheet factured to tight tolerances , and that’s a and in relatively low volumes. pretty good definition of it One of the company’s core because it really now can do markets is medical equipment, products that blow molding including covers and enclosures for Profile Plastics concurrently developed nine mating and would do. But blow molding has two imaging machines and carts. But the matching parts for the dental imaging unit. Engineers significant advantages: At very high company also does work for OEMs in optimized points of attachment so that the product could be volume, it’s low cost, and if polyethyl- assembled easily. Photo courtesy of Profile Plastics. the industrial, transportation, food ene will work for an application, they and beverage, and recreation sectors. (blow molders) will be very cost effec- One project for a medical OEM challenged Profile Plastics to tive. But if it’s not polyethylene, and the volume’s not that large, provide multiple parts for what was intended to be an aesthetically the blow molders aren’t really set up to handle those situations. appealing dental imaging unit without any hint of trimmed edges Twin sheet forming can operate underneath that gap or void in its final assembly. Profile’s engineers designed the tooling for in the market with lower run, shorter run requirements. Any nine of the component parts, most of them using articulated resin we can find in sheet form, we can twin sheet. We can have undercuts to ensure that trimmed edges weren’t visible in the the advantages of two different types of materials, two different finished product. Pressure forming was used to ensure that final thicknesses of materials, two different colors. It also creates a parts showed consistency in color, texture, and gloss throughout hollow space between two parts, which is useful many times for the entire product. And with a view to final assembly, engineers insulation—either sound insulation or temperature insulation. optimized the points of attachment to ensure that it could be By creating that space, you also create places you can run wires; assembled easily. you can use the part to be an air duct. When all was said and done, Profile completed the complex There are some headliners that have twin sheet ducting sys- project on time and on budget, enabling its customer to meet tems in them that are very sophisticated. It’s like an airplane— its production and marketing goals. But although it neatly rep- how you have the air drop over every passenger’s seat. Well, you resents Profile’s ability to meet the stringent requirements of can do the same kind of thing in automotive or truck, having medical equipment OEMs, its relevance extends beyond that. a web, if you will, or a network of one big twin sheet part that Over the years, customers have come to recognize that Profile will duct the heat or cool to specific areas in the vehicle. That’s Plastics, sharpened by its experiences in the medical arena, brings generally not a cosmetic application. You just want to get wires to each project the same manufacturing know-how, the same or air—hot or cold—from one part of the product to another commitment to engineering excellence, and the same thirst for part of the product. creative problem solving that it turns loose when working for D2P: Medical is one of your core markets. Do you see any medical equipment OEMs. major trends in the medical industry that are impacting the “There’s not too big of a difference in terms of the way we types of products being developed, or the way they’re being deal with the customers,” says Murrill. manufactured? Following is an edited transcript of our conversation with SM: I see two. One is the one we all know of, but it can’t be Steve Murrill. overlooked. We tell the story that we made the covers for GE D2P: As a provider of heavy-gauge thermoforming, Profile Medical’s first ultrasound machine, and it was approximately 5 Plastics offers vacuum forming, pressure forming, and twin feet tall, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. It was huge! And a couple sheet forming. Could you talk a little bit about the factors you of years ago, in GE’s corporate annual report, they had a picture consider when using each process? of their ultrasound unit, and it was a notebook. It had the same SM: Definitely. Vacuum forming, generally, is for non-cosmetic sensors, the patient contact sensors for the key readings, but it parts or very low volume parts where the least costly tooling is ad- was all about a computer and now is the size of a notebook. So 68 DESIGN-2-PART magazine • February 2014

A close up view redesign the way that it interacts with the patient. That required of dental imaging about 15 different parts, and it was highly cosmetic because it’s equipment for in a dentist’s office or a hospital. which Profile So the cosmetic needs were high, there are multiple pieces, Plastics provided pressure formed and there’s some chemical resistance. This type of thing—that covers. Company the product had to withstand chemicals—is normal to the medi- engineers designed cal environment. And that package really just meant that the tooling for nine alternative to the designers was injection molding, and pressure of the component forming just presented a much, much lower-cost alternative tool- parts, most of them using articulated wise, and given that the volumes were relatively low to injection undercuts to molding volumes, it, overall, gave them a cost effective solution. ensure that D2P: Is it possible to say what types of parts were made for that miniaturization of computers has had a trimmed edges that product? Were they covers? huge, huge impact on the medical industry were not visible on SM: They’re all the covers, yes. One thing: Generally, ther- the aesthetically moforming is not structural; it’s generally cosmetic. One of the because things have gotten smaller, and as pleasing product. they get smaller, injection molding is more Photo courtesy of innovations, as an aside to your innovations question, is trying to cost effective. Profile Plastics. find thermoplastic composites that are structural. That’s under On the other side, the patient contact is development and that will be coming. There’s a lot of it now, but still the same. People are still the same height, weight, and have there’ll be more and more coming and there will be more that the same needs for testing. For an X-ray, you’ve got to have a table will be practically priced. for them to lie down on, and with an MRI, the machine has to Twin sheet is a structural product because of the hollow beam be as big as a person. So even though the computer is smaller, strengths that you get out of twin sheet parts. So there are some the patient interfaces are similar. So that has helped our industry structural advantages compared to, as we say, a plain old die form- because we’re more cost effective versus, say, injection molding, ing, or pressure forming, which is a single-sided part. the physically larger the parts are. D2P: This product had nine mating and matching parts that D2P: If a design engineer for a medical device manufacturer were developed concurrently, and you were able to optimize were to ask you what some of the latest capabilities in plastic the points of attachment to be “assembly friendly.” What went thermoforming are that could help them bring their product to into that process of optimizing the points of attachment so that market, what would you tell them? it could be assembled more easily? SM: The very first question is ‘What would you like it to do, SM: In general, there were no exposed fasteners. So in the and what can it do now?’ There are some resin breakthroughs in sequence of assembly, a part would have a hidden tab, and that terms of high temperature or high performance, or high chemi- tab would be hidden by the next piece, incorporating that into cal resistance. The evolution of plastics, , is continuing, the design. Also, machining—by being able to machine the receiv- and now you can get more and more technology in the sheet ing insert, let’s say, and bonding it on the back of the part, it can than you could, perhaps, 10 years ago, or, certainly, 20 years ago. be adjusted for changes in the machine, difficulties in assembly. You can get more in the sheet. We’ll take the aircraft industry, It can be more iterative because with an injection molded part, which is not medical, but the aircraft industry now has what is you have to decide where you want the points of attachments, politely called, ‘No nothing’ sheet—no smoke, no toxic emis- and they’re machined into the tool, and it’s difficult to change sions. It’s suitable for putting it in an airplane where people used those things. Here, you can change the blocks, alter the blocks, to die from asphyxiation due to the outgassing of the interior for better fit and/or for some unforeseen change that they had components. So that technology is huge, and there are bound to to make along the way. It’s not like a particular clever thing that be areas in medical equipment, in particular, where that’s used. no one’s ever thought of; it’s more of design flexibility. Many of the medical applications [for thermoforming] are D2P: With regard to Profile’s work on this project, what were carts, which deliver technology to the patient’s bedside. In that you most proud of in terms of what you were able to achieve sense, it’s operator conveniences that have been invented—you for your customer? know, creative ways to design things. It’s in the design, put it that SM: Well, for most of these projects, particularly multi-part way, and not so much that the process brings that. The designer projects, the customers always come to the covers at the end, brings that and the process is able to complement it. largely because they don’t know what they’re putting covers on D2P: Your website (www.thermoform.com) shows an example until they finish the machine. So by definition, it’s at the end, that Profile worked on for the medical industry. It was pres- but they’re always up against a trade show, up against a formal sure formed dental imaging equipment that was converted introduction that’s—from a corporate standpoint—carved in from the initial design to be compatible with thermoforming. stone. And so [we’re proud of] being able to develop these What processes was that product originally designed for? simultaneously, get them all to fit together, and get them to the SM: In the early days, it was largely metal and metal castings. customer on time. Let me back up slightly and say the precursor was the film X-ray One advantage of pressure forming is that you can make machines that we all know from sitting in the dentist’s chair for the parts and paint the first ones to get them to the trade show. 20 years. It wasn’t a conversion from a digital old technology to Once we texture the tools, they save a lot of money by having new digital; it was really from X-ray technology to digital. And molded-in color and molded-in texture. But we can get them to in so doing, the patient interface, the way the machine wants to market faster with these multiple pieces. That was the significant have the patient oriented, was different enough that they chose to contribution to their project. February 2014 • www.d2pmagazine.com 69 D2P: You mentioned earlier that the patient interfacing equip- D2P: How many people does Profile Plastics employ, and ap- ment needs to be on the larger side, which is an advantage for proximately how many engineers do you have on staff? your processes. Can you talk about any other advantages that SM: We have been between 80 and 100 in number of em- your thermoforming capabilities have for medical applica- ployees, and we’re closer to 80 now than the 100. We have ap- tions? proximately 10 engineers. SM: I think that, typically, medical equipment has long lives, D2P: Are they from different engineering backgrounds, like and industrial equipment, certainly. As sort of blanket statement, mechanical engineering and plastics engineering? thermoforming does not do well in consumer products. We SM: Yes, those are the two most common ones: chemical do great in kids’ swimming pools, and sleds, and saucers, and engineering and mechanical engineering, and there’s also an things like that, but in a durable good cover for consumers, the industrial engineer. consumer market changes too rapidly to make pressure forming D2P: Profile also serves customers in the transportation and and thermoforming cost effective. industrial markets, making things like truck fascia and an In the medical world, there tend to be 5- , 10- , and, believe enclosure for programmable theater lighting. Can you tell us a it or not, which is just amazing to me, there are some 20-year-old little bit about your work for either of these markets? medical devices that are still as robust as they were five or ten years SM: The common point, of course, is that the parts generally ago in terms of their sales volume, their applications. The long have to be physically large and we use the words ‘highly cosmetic’ tail on the products, I think, is what makes it very cost effective. because that generally leads it to pressure forming and molded- D2P: What are some other examples of applications that in color and a significant amount of molding detail that add to you’ve done for the medical industry? the ‘value added’ of the design. We don’t do automotive exterior SM: “Carts” doesn’t sound technical enough, but there are parts for obvious reasons; it’s way too high a volume. But for quite a bit of carts that have the computer and the smarts of the heavy truck and industrial applications, the industrial people are piece of equipment, but that need to be taken to the bedside of the last ones to go from the metal boxes to all the benefits, ap- the patient. Everyone wants their cart to look a little different, pearance wise, of plastic covers, some because a lot of industrial and they have consumables and different supplies that need to be equipment’s in pretty rugged use, where it’s exposed to bumps brought along with the cart, so you have to have different ways of or bruises or chemical environments, or high temperature, that packaging them or putting them on board that cart. X-ray tables, type of thing. But as plastics get better and better in paneling for the diagnostics imaging technologies, the CT Scans, the MRIs, high temperature and harsh environments, those applications those physically large pieces of equipment lend themselves well are converting over to plastic covers as well. to our process. It seems that there’s a general need for a higher level of ap- D2P: Besides aesthetics, what are some of the top concerns of pearance in something as simple as a mold chiller, a functional design engineers in making these products? product that you wouldn’t think would have to be too high design, SM: Typically, there’s the aesthetic part of it on the computer but there are a lot of companies that see that as the way to dif- side, let’s say. But on the assumption that it may be a blood ferentiate their product from another product. So using plastic analyzer, for example, there are a lot of moving parts and design is one way to do that. lots of interaction between the machine operators and the D2P: How do you see the future direction of Profile Plastics machine, so they need access points, they need clear windows taking shape? to view operations. Those are generally some of the concerns. SM: Well, I think the market niche is geared by sort of struc- The trick is in how can you get as few parts as possible and still tural things, like, injection molding needs two tools, and some cover all the critical areas of the machine. process reasons. Whether the niche will grow largely depends on It’s really sort of a triage of ‘This is what this machine has to the U.S. industrial base because we make parts for other people. do.’ The machine designers haven’t finished their work; they just We used to make a lot of exercise equipment and, maybe five know these tasks have to be incorporated, so it tends to be an years after we made parts and shipped them to assembly plants in iterative process of ‘We could do it this way,’ and they say, ‘Well, the Midwest, we started making parts and they would be shipped yeah, we could turn it this way and then that would allow this idea to China. to be incorporated into the design.’ Now, the whole machine comes in a box from China, so there So it’s a heavily interactive process. We don’t get many blue- is no assembly in Chicago anymore and, as a result, we don’t make prints in—they’re not blueprints anymore—many CAD files in parts and send them to China. They can make their own parts anymore that say, ‘This is it; just quote it and tell us the price.” and bring it all in in a box. So how significant is that trend, and No, it’s ‘Here, literally, is our napkin sketch. We see two pieces; will that trend slow down? Your guess is as good as mine. We’d we see it doing this. Can you come in and work with us on it?’ like to think it will, but it’s got a pretty good head start. D2P: That seems to be one of the company’s strong suits—the But I think our type of products will be some of the last ones. design and engineering capabilities that you have to help As for exercise equipment, actually, another thing happened customers with. on the way to the ball. Exercise equipment got to be very big SM: Yes. I think, relative to most companies in the industry, we business, so it no longer was a thousand or 2,000 a year; it was have a strong engineering department, which is good in product 10,000 a year. Well, that changes the economics. We would not design, and our sales people are sales engineers. So we have good be doing that part today because the volume is so high. That’s upfront experience. And I think we’re just as good when comes the normal evolution of our applications. We have to deal with down to actually doing the production tooling, the production things that are physically large and relatively low volume, and if jigs and fixtures that it takes to make what was designed repetitive they become very popular and get very large volume-wise, they and cost effective in the long run. go to more efficient processes.