Albright Technologies
Albright Technologies provides its customers with engineering and R&D services for their silicone part projects. Our team of highly skilled engineers will review your project and make recommendations to ensure your silicone design is feasible, reduce challenges for long-term manufacturing and assist in scaling up production, while remaining within budget. By providing these silicone engineering and R&D services, you will only need to partner with one company for all of your silicone prototyping and production needs. That one company is Albright! Learn more about our engineering and R&D services below or contact our sales department for more information at 978.466.5870 or via email at [email protected].
Silicone Engineering Services
3D Model Creation – If you only have a part drawing or napkin sketch of your latest silicone part design then a 3D CAD model will need to be created. Albright’s staff of engineers can turn your print or napkin sketch into a 3D model in Solidworks, Iges, Parasolid, or Step formats. Albright uses the latest version of Dassault Systemes Solidworks to design your 3D CAD model. Ultimately, we will use the 3D model of your silicone part to create the mold design. Once you have accepted the 3D model and no more revisions are needed, then we will use the 3D model to manufacture a compression, injection or transfer mold of your part design.
Design for Manufacturability – Albright’s engineering staff will review your part design for ease of manufacturability. Due to the nature of molding silicone, it is important to have your part design reviewed for ease of manufacturability. Our engineers will review your part design and make recommendations to enhance the manufacturability of your product. We can offer design changes that will lower the cost of manufacturing, improve the rate of production and potentially even improve the part’s quality and function.
Manufacturing Review – Albright provides many customers with a manufacturing review to ensure that all of their silicone product’s needs will be met. Many of our customers look beyond the prototyping phase of their silicone part. The purpose of the manufacturing review is to outline the needs and requirements of the customer’s project and to ensure that Albright and its partners meet these needs. The manufacturing review encompasses all phases of the part’s life-cycle including prototyping, ramp-up, production, decline and end-of-life. Depending on the volume of the part and its specific requirements will determine if and when Albright needs to transfer the project to one of its high volume silicone production molding partners.
Silicone R&D Services
Process Development – Albright works on many silicone projects that require development of a molding process. All of the overmolding and two-shot molding projects that we take on, require several hours of R&D work to finalize a molding process. This involves significant development work and requires input from our molders, production manager, engineers and project managers. Process development requires multiple iterations to establish optimal processing parameters. Parts with difficult geometries may benefit from additional process development to improve part quality, while optimizing process performance. Lastly, Albright also works with customers requiring new, cutting edge processes involving silicone molding.
Materials Testing Preparation – Many of our customers will require enhanced materials that go far beyond the standard silicone materials that manufacturers offer. Since all of our silicone mixing is done in-house, we can load many materials with different silicone and non-silicone materials and fillers to achieve your part design’s function. We can provide advice for developing materials that meet certain specifications. Most importantly, we can mold parts using these custom materials so that you can complete evaluation tests. Albright has worked with many of it’s customers to develop cutting edge custom silicone materials that allow for medical imaging, increased electrical and thermal conductivity, as well as improved surface lubricity, among other requirements.
