Assembly: The Final Stage of End-to-End Plastic Manufacturing
Product assembly is one of the final steps of the plastic manufacturing process. Assembly refers to the finishing touches applied whereby products are finalised and made ready for immediate use within a diverse range of functions. For example, separate plastic components could be combined together to assume their final form. This allows for these parts to be utilised – such as within internal production processes – as soon as they arrive on a client’s site without the need for client assembly.
This reduction of production burden can be important to clients with fast-moving assembly lines of their own, or for customers that want to avoid the additional complexities that arise from combining a number of separate components into a single finished, or semi-finished, product. In already intricate production journeys, assembly contains nested within it many complex processes and procedures which can result in vastly extended lead times – not to mention the potential for inflated costs.
For instance, when assembling components in the final stages of their production, additional materials may be required in order to complete the assembly. This requires working with a (potentially) very large number of sub-suppliers and managing each of these relationships individually. In practice, this means having to keep track of: various order progression (such as deliveries and delays), a variety of payment and invoicing, as well as ensuring the quality and value for money of the parts ordered.
Moreover, when assembling internally, a business has to ensure they have the staff necessary in order to complete the assembly function properly (such as by ensuring their assembly staff are well trained and motivated). This intuitively has the potential to massively increase costs and to greatly reduce organisational efficiency.
The Assembly Solution
By sub-contracting assembly, businesses are able to rid themselves of the hidden costs associated with this crucial stage of plastic manufacturing. The additional expense garnered when having to book components into stock – and then subsequently finding and issuing them when production orders are raised and issued to the shop floor – can quickly mount up. This is especially apparent when multiplied across various projects, components, and products.
As such, for many businesses, it makes complete commercial sense to subcontract out this (sometimes) complex process of assembly, so that they are sheltered from the potential drawbacks of having to fulfil the function internally.
By utilising the specialist skills of expert assembly professionals within the wider context of the plastic manufacturing process, businesses are able to:
- Reduce lead times (and stress) – due to not having to organise and maintain production relationships with a variety of sub-suppliers.
- Reduce costs – as expert assemblers already have a developed and diversified list of trusted sub-suppliers from which to procure components required for assembly. Crucially, this procurement provides excellent value for money as the specialist assembly partner will be able to leverage their purchasing power and industry experience in order to extract maximum return on investment for their clients.
Put simply, working with an expert assembly partner can save clients time and money – both of which are essential resources for any successful business.
With coordinated planning between an experienced assembly specialist (such as Cox Wokingham) and the client, sub-assembly components can be delivered to the assembly line on a JIT basis. This greatly enhances production efficiency and On Time and In Full (OTIF) delivery performance for customers of Cox Wokingham.
The Benefits of Assembly Services From Cox Wokingham
Outsourcing your assembly to an experienced and expert service provider has a range of key benefits:
- It can improve production efficiency – lowering lead times.
- It can reduce the costs associated with assembly.
- It can save time within internal processes – such as by removing the burden of admin associated with procuring, booking, tracking, raising, and delivering required sub-components.
- It reduces operational complexity.
- Put simply, outsourcing assembly results in one less thing for you to worry about.
