This is a 'A' Level Design & Technology project. At the time when
this was done this project was worth 15% of the marks. It helped me get
an A grade in 1998. The whole project is reproduced
here for your reference. In is an investigation into the method of making extruded
plastic floor skirtings. The name of the company has been changed to
CompanyX. The name of the product range has been changed to the Purple
range. All the names of the people in the company trees have been
errased.
|
This is a real A-Level project and as such is intended for
educational or research purposes only. Extracts of this project
must not be included in any projects that you submit for marking.
Doing this could lead to being disqualified from all the subjects
that you are taking. You have been warned. |
Contents
- Planning Strategy
- The Company
- CompanyX Extrusions - Company Structure
- The Sales Team
- Sales And Marketing Team Structure
- Marketing Department
- Quality Control Department
- Quality Control And Safety Department Structure
- The Beginning
- The Manufacturing Process
- Extrusion Of The Purple Range
- The Die
- Decorative Foils
- Cutting The Finished Product
- Fitting The Purple Range
- Quality Control
- On Site Testing
- Marketing
- Sales
- Conclusion
I went to CompanyX Extrusions to follow the design process of their
recently launched Purple range of floor skirting. I went there to
examine what had happened from the original idea to the designing,
producing, selling and marketing of the finished product.
I will be going to CompanyX for one afternoon a week for 10 weeks. I
plan to spend three afternoons at the extrusion site, two afternoons in
the Sales office, two at the marketing department and two afternoons at
the storage and packaging department.
By splitting my time up so that I spend different afternoons in the
different departments I will be able to see how the company operates as
a whole and so get an idea of how the various parts of CompanyX
interconnect. I will prepare questions in advance so that I can find out
as much information as I need on every visit. I will talk to several
people on each visit, hopefully the manager in charge of the section and
one of the ordinary employees in the section. This way I will be able to
get information on how the area is operated by the management and also
how the ordinary employees work in the section. From this I should be
able to obtain a balanced view of how CompanyX operates. I will take
notes whilst I am at CompanyX and write them up when I got home to
ensure that the information is fresh in my memory. From these notes I
will be able to prepare a report on the extrusion of the Purple range of
floor skirtings.
CompanyX makes extruded plastic parts. Most of their products are used
in the building industry for stairs and for carpets. The parts are made
at K---- Street and then sent to their C---- Street factory where they
are packaged and distributed.
CompanyX operates on a three shift rotating pattern from Monday's to
Friday. The shifts are from 6.00am - 2.00pm, 2.00pm - 10.00pm and
10.00pm to 6.00am.
CompanyX has it's own tool room, quality control laboratory, die
cleaning store and a material recycling facility.
One of their newest products is the Purple range of floor skirting. It
consists of a plastic skirting board with the pattern already printed
onto it. This makes it easier for the architects and decorators to match
the skirting to the decorations. It is also easier because normally a
pattern has to be separately applied to the skirting but there is no
need for this with the Purple range.
CompanyX do not stock large quantities of each of their products. If a
certain product is ordered they just produce a new batch. They are able
to do this as each product has a quick turnaround. The product can be
quickly made then a few hours later that extruder can be making a
totally different product. They have 12 extruders so they can make many
different products simultaneously.
Like all of CompanyX's other products the Purple range is made using
extrusion. This is where soft plastic is forced through a die to make
the right shape
The sales team is responsible for collecting the orders from customers
and passing them on to the manufacturing department. It provides a
service from Monday to Friday. The area managers from the sales team
will install their products for customers and also give advice on which
product is most suitable for them.
The marketing department provides marketing for all the CompanyX
products. It is responsible for producing product literature, samples,
market research, corporate hospitality and exhibitions to promote it's
products.
CompanyX have their own design and printing facilities for any
promotional literature.
Some of the bigger CompanyX customers have included the Ministry of
Defence and the National Health Service, they have insisted on checking
their suppliers such as CompanyX to make sure that the goods being
supplied are of good quality. CompanyX therefore had to ensure that they
had good quality control procedures in place to satisfy their customers.
CompanyX Extrusions have kept their quality standards high and because
of this they have obtained the BS 5750 certificate. This certificate
confirms to their customers that they have good quality control
procedures in place.
In 1995 CompanyX noticed that a German company was importing
decorative floor skirtings into the country. CompanyX decided to make
their own version of it. This was to be different to all their other
products as this was the first decorative skirting that they had ever
tried to design. They contracted an outside company to do some research
into floor skirtings. From this research they had a rough idea of the
sort of product they wanted to make. It had to be attractive and
functional and be easy to fix onto the wall. There was no formal design
process for this product. The design team just made freehand sketches
until they came up with a shape that was pleasing to the eye.
CompanyX then had to work out how to get a decorative effect onto the
skirting. They got an outside company to try laminating the plastics
with the patterns but this proved too costly and it only worked with
hard plastics.
They found an English company which had had a lot of success with
laminating plastics for small children's toys such as 'Pogs'. CompanyX
consulted them and found out that they put their patterns on the toys
using heat transferred plastic foils. An American company designed a
variety of patterns for them and sold them the finished foils in 170m
long rolls.
The actual plastic used for the Purple range is PVCP. They buy it in
bags of small pellets. These are only about 5mm long to ensure that they
can be melted down easily. The pellets are also produced by extrusion.
Soft hot plastic is forced through a die containing many circular holes
by an extruder. Pellets are cut by a rotating blade which is on the end
of the die. There are around 300 colours of plastic pellets available
that are made in this way.
When CompanyX get an order in for an existing product they can very
quickly set up all the machines ready to make that product. The most
important part in the extruders is the compressive screws which push the
plastic through the dies.
To force the plastic through the die they use compressive screws which
rotate slowly at about 30 RPM. As they rotate the plastic moves along
them. These screws heat the plastic to make it soft. As the plastic
moves along the screw it gets compressed due to the thread of the screws
getting closer together. The diameter of the screws also decreases so by
the time the plastic has reached the end it is very compressed and flows
easily through the die.
Each screw is around 1.5m long and is made up of a steel core. The
screws used for soft plastics are single screws which have a much
shallower thread than those used for harder plastics as they do not need
to apply as much force to the softer plastics. The screws for hard
plastics are twin screws which have two screws next to each other which
rotate in opposite directions.
Twin Screw
The compressive screw is housed in a barrel and it is an exact fit to
ensure that plastic cannot work it's way back along the barrel. Four
metal Micre Bands are placed around the barrel. These bands heat the
compressive tube up to around 160 -170 ºC which is sufficient to
make the plastic soft and workable.
Soft Plastic Screw
The screws consist of four separate zones.
At the thickest end is the Feed-Zone. This is where the plastic
pellets drop onto the screws. These pellets are fed into the machine by
a hopper which lets the PVCP pellets freely fall onto the screw by
gravity. CompanyX also do extrusions with harder plastics, in these
machines the pellets are fed onto the screws by a pump.
The hoppers on the extruders are kept continuously filled by a simple
suction pump which sucks the pellets from a feeding funnel at the bottom
of the machine into the hopper at the top of the machine. This makes it
much easier to keep the extruders full of pellets as if they did not
have these pumps in place someone would have to climb up about 2 metres
of stairs to fill the hopper.
Hopper
After the Feed-Zone the thread of the screw starts to get closer
together and so compresses the plastic. This is know as the Compressive
Zone. In this zone the amount that the plastic is compressed depends on
the type of plastic. Soft plastics such as used in the Purple range are
only slightly compressed as they are soft enough to be easily extruded
without the extra pressure. The harder plastics are put under a lot of
pressure to get the soft enough to go through the die.
The third zone is the Decompressive Zone. This is only present in the
screws that are used to extrude hard plastics. In the extrusion process
of hard plastics bubbles may build up in the plastic as it is pushed
along the screw. If these are not got rid of then this could ruin a
whole batch of products. The Decompressive Zone is the area where the
bubbles are got rid of. Here the thread of the screw gets wider and so
releases the pressure that the plastic was under. The barrel in this
area has many small holes in it's surface. The area around this part of
the barrel is also under a vacuum which sucks all the air out of the
barrel. The plastic is not sucked out as it is not molten enough to get
out at this point. It is also no longer under pressure so it will not be
forced out of the holes.
In soft plastics, air bubbles are simple able to leave the barrel by
flowing up the screw. They therefore do not need a Decompressive zone.
Instead at several points along the screw they have jagged edges known
as mixers which simply mix the plastic as it passes through them. These
mixers make sure that the plastic is of an even composition and make
sure that any air is not trapped in the plastic.
The final area of the screw is the Metering Zone. Here the plastic is
once again put under pressure as the diameter of the screw narrows to
it's smallest point. The plastic is compressed heavily so that it will
be able to flow out of the die easily.
The dies are custom made by CompanyX for whichever product they are
making at the time. They are around 300mm long and have a diameter of
about 200mm. In order to function properly they must be at a temperature
of about 140 - 150 ºC. If they were fitted cold onto the extruders
then it would take about two hours to heat up to the correct temperature
which is not acceptable as it is costing CompanyX around £35 per
hour to keep their extruders functioning. A few hours before the dies
are needed they are taken out of the die room and put in a pre heater
which heats them up. When they are needed they are wheeled onto the
factory floor and fitted onto the extruder. It then only takes about 25
-30 minutes for them to settle at the right temperature. This period of
time is known as the settling down period. This pre heating technique
allows CompanyX to get the maximum possible use out of each of their
extruders.
Once the plastic has passed through the compressive screw it is soft
and is at the right temperature to be extruded. However it is also
spinning and so it's motion needs to be altered from spinning round to
go straight onto the die. This is achieved by having a breaker plate
in-between the screw and the die. This is a metal cylinder around 50mm
long which has many small holes in it. When the plastic reaches the
cylinder it is forced to go through the holes and so passes in a
straight line towards the die.
A range of dies that CompanyX can use
The soft plastic goes through the die and is now in the correct shape.
It is still molten so it has to be kept in the right shape and cooled
down quickly. The plastic passes through a series of toast racks if it
is a soft plastic or calibrators if it is a hard plastic. These toast
racks or calibrators are exactly the same shape as the original die and
so allow the plastic to keep it's shape while it is cooled down.
The hot plastic is drenched in cold water as it passes through these
toast racks and the area between each toast rack is under water so the
plastic can cool down as quickly as possible.
The calibrators of the hard plastics are almost identical to the toast
racks of the hard plastics except that as the plastic passes through the
calibrator it is pulled through a vacuum. The calibrators have many
small tubes in them that suck the plastic onto them. This helps to make
the surface of the plastic as smooth as possible. If there was a tiny
scratch in the die then this mark could be passed onto all the plastic
that passes through it but the Calibrators help to get rid of these
scratches by sucking the plastic into the shape that it is meant to be.
The extruder plastic passing through the toast racks
and being sprayed with water to cool it down
As the plastic passes out of the row of toast racks it is blasted with
a jet of pressurised air which blows any water droplets off it. This is
very important as any water on the plastic could cause bubbles to form
under the decorative foil when it is applied which would result in that
batch of products being scrapped.
As the plastic is pushed out of the extruder by the screws it is also
pulled off by a separately controlled Haul-Off which consists of two
belts which pull the plastic between it. The two machines are separately
controlled so this can create problems for the plastic. If it is pulled
out much faster than it is being pushed out by the extruder then the
plastic will stretch and end up being much thinner than it is supposed
to be. If it is pushed out faster than the haul off is pulling it out
then it could end up too thick or it could even end up buckling.
A Haul Off
This can be put to use if the size of the plastic needs adjusting
slightly. If they find that the plastic coming out of the machine is too
thin they simply slow down the haul off slightly and if the plastic is
coming off slightly too thick then they speed up the haul off.
As the plastic skirting passes out of the haul off is goes through the
foil heat transfer machine. The plastic passes through a cloth to make
sure that it is totally dry. The foil which is slightly too big is
rolled onto the plastic and heat is applied to the area where it needs
to stick to the skirting. The foil is applied under tension to ensure
that it does not buckle or have any bubbles in it. The excess foil is
pulled away by another roller leaving just the skirting with the
decorative pattern on it.
Foil Transfer Machine
Once through the foil transfer machine, a protective plastic film is
rolled onto the plastic. The soft plastics are then rolled into rolls by
a mechanical roller. Hard plastics cannot be rolled and are therefore
cut into lengths of about 2-3 metres by the haul off before being tipped
into boxes.
The haul off has a counting mechanism built into it so that once a set
amount of plastic has passed through, it guillotines the plastic if it
is a soft plastic. The haul offs which are used with hard plastics use a
saw to cut the plastic to the correct length.
Guillotine
When used in the UK the finished product is designed to be glued onto
the walls by using a solvent-based glue. The product is not flat and has
a gap but CompanyX recommend applying a lot of glue so that the gap is
totally filled. The method of fixing the skirting to the walls is
slightly different in the rest of Europe where due to EEC regulations
they cannot use solvent based glues. Here a strong form of double sided
sticky tape must be used.
Samples are regularly taken of the products as they come off the
extruders. Each product has a specification sheet which details the
acceptable error limit. If any of the plastic does not conform to the
standards then that batch is scrapped.
The sizes of the plastic are checked with an electronic micrometer.
The samples are then taken to a testing room. Here they are cooled to
freezing point and a 1kg weight is dropped on the sample from a height
of 1m to test the strength of the plastic.
A hand held scanner known as a spectrometer checks the colour of the
plastic to make sure it is exactly right. CompanyX buy in their plastic
in the colour they want them so if something is wrong with the colour
they have to go to the plastic manufactures to find out what is wrong
with the colour.
CompanyX make sure that the foil stays on the plastic by using the
selotape test. For this a fixed length of ordinary selotape is stuck
onto the sample and the ripped off. To pass this test none of the foil
should come off with the selotape.
An abrasive test is done to test the strength of the sample. An
abrasive wheel is lowered onto the sample with a fixed amount of
pressure and is allowed to rotate 200 times. Only a certain amount of
plastic is allowed to come off in this test.
To see how the sample ages CompanyX place it in an oven at 60°C.
One day in this oven ages the sample by 16 days so they were able to
make sure that it could survive for a year easily in less than a month.
The Purple range is designed to last five years so that after five years
they hope that the companies will have to order a new batch of the
product to replace the old skirting.
If a sample fails any of these tests then the whole batch is scrapped.
The soft plastics can be sold back to the plastic manufacturers who melt
them down and make new plastic pellets out of them but hard plastic have
to be sold onto a scrap merchant for a loss.
Once the product had passed all these quality control targets it was
decided to give it a real life test. In April 1996 CompanyX installed
the product at F---- School in M---- and in D---- Hospital. CompanyX
installed the skirting in areas such as the canteen in F---- School
where they knew it would get a lot of wear. After six months they went
back to these places to check the progress of the skirtings. CompanyX
found that the product had worn well so they decided to launch it in
November 1996.
The marketing department was involved from the start of the
manufacture of the Purple range. They had to conduct a survey to find
out if there was a need for the product and also to find out what
architects might want from a wall skirting. CompanyX pay 'Focus Groups'
consisting of architects, designers and distributors to have an open
discussion on what they would like to see out of a product. They found
that the Purple range would have a good market in modern office
buildings and in private hospitals. Once they had found that there was a
market for it they could start planning the marketing whilst the
production team made the product.
The Purple range is different from most other products as it is "Architect
Specified" which means that if an architect is designing a building
he may put in that the building is to use Perspective's wall skirtings.
As CompanyX are the only people to make this product it means that if
they can convince the architects to add this skirting to their designs
then they are guaranteed some sales.
The marketing department have the job of making the product known to
the industry and the architects. They produce single A4 information
sheets that are sent to approximately 5500 distributors and architects
which costs them £3700. They also produced more expensive material
such as brochures, sample boxes, and 'clapper board' sample cases which
are given to serious potential customers. As their sample boxes cost £5
and 'clapper board' sample cases cost £10 they can't afford to give
them out to everybody. They had to organise a launch day to which many
customers were invited. They also got news of the range into about 20 of
the trade journals for which they pay up to £90 for having a photo
printed in the editorial.
It costs around £250,000 for them to research and promote a
product but it is essential as people can't buy a product if they don't
know about it.
The sales department is divided into 12 areas, each dealing with a
specific area of the country. Each sales person is responsible for all
the distributors in his or her area only. CompanyX sell their products
to 80-100 main distributors around the country. They prefer not to deal
with the builders directly and if they do ring up they are referred to
their nearest distributor. The diagram below shows this relationship
between CompanyX and it's contractors.
Distributors buy CompanyX goods because they have the largest range of
products in the floor and stair edging business. The have an 80% market
share in the UK. A lot of their competitors can sell the goods more
cheaply than CompanyX, but the greater range of products that CompanyX
sell ensures that they should be able to keep their lead in the UK
markets for the foreseeable future.
When an order is telephoned in the sales person can quickly call up
the details of any of their products or customers from a database. With
having the sales people only responsible for a certain area of the
country the sales people can quickly get to know the customers and so
are able to deal with their orders more efficiently. Once the order has
been taken it is sent by an internal network to the factory where the
products can either be fetched from the warehouse or a new batch can be
made.
CompanyX then store the products till they can be sent to the
customer. They have regular delivery of the products throughout the
country ranging from every other day for the London area to only once a
week for Scotland.
The sales people also are responsible for dealing with any problems or
queries that the customers may have about the range of products.
The Purple range of floor skirtings was launched on the 11th November
1996. I visited them up to June 1997 and only a small amount of The
Purple range had been sold. They initially produced a small batch which
was worth several thousand pounds but did not sell any of it. This floor
skirting now has to be scrapped because the protective plastic on the
product starts to deteriorate after six months.
There lack of sales is partly because they have many other products to
sell and market so the Purple range gets left out in favour of
CompanyX's older but more marketable products. If they do want to sell
it they need to have a more effective marketing strategy to make sure
that all the architects know about it. It will only be bought if the
architects specify a CompanyX floor skirting in their plans so they need
to send samples and information out to the architects so that they know
what the product is. They have sent samples to distributors but they
will not but it unless architects start wanting the Purple range in
their designs.
As having a decorative floor skirting is only cosmetic to a building
the architects or builders would probably prefer to use the cheaper
plain floor skirting in order to cut costs. Therefore it will only be
bought for buildings where there is extra money to spend on making the
interior look better.
It is also only designed to last 3-4 years which is a factor which
will turn a lot of people off this product. People do not want to have
to change their floor skirtings every few years, they want them to last
for a long time. CompanyX naturally would like companies to buy a new
batch of the Purple range every 3-4 years but many of these companies
are much more likely to want a harder wearing alternative that needs a
lot less maintenance.
They however are not too worried by the lack of orders because with
products such as this it usually takes a few years before the orders
start to come in. The Purple range is a good idea for a floor skirting
and in use looks much more attractive that the usual plain floor
skirtings so it is certain to become quite popular in the next few
years.
