Our History
Production Sciences, Inc. has been in operation since June 1989. The business was founded in and is still located in Chestertown, Maryland. All manufacturing is still performed at this location in the USA!
Our first products were dip coated automotive tail light sockets, dip coated staples, and dip coated insulated mechanical power connectors for electrical applications. Over the years, we have adapted and refined our processes to meet the cleanliness and quality standards of the medical industry. Today, most of our products are specialty products manufactured to customer specifications.
Our past products have included radiopaque markers for medical procedures, specialty covers and caps for medical instruments, and tubing connectors for respiratory care, medical devices, and fluid supply lines.
Our Niche
Our niche market lies between the low-volume, high-piece cost of 3D printing and the high-volume, low-piece cost of injection molding.
With 3D printing there is little to no tooling requirements to make a part, but the production rate is exceedingly low making the part-cost very high. Production levels may be under 100/week. Injection molding has very high tooling and startup costs, which requires very high volume orders to offset the initial investment in tooling. Modification can be difficult and time consuming, making this method inflexible to evolving products.
Dip molding has low-cost tooling compared to injection molding. Startup tooling for dip molding costs only 5-10% of injection molds. Production can be scaled by adding more low cost tools to our production lines. This allows us to scale from a few hundred parts to over 100,000 parts per week. This moderate production demand and low tooling cost is what makes our manufacturing method competitive.
Our Capabilities
Production sciences operates a 6,000 sq ft manufacturing facility featuring six automated production lines that can be used for dip molding or dip coating. Five of our machines are optimized for parts 3 inches or less in width and up to 10 inches long. A sixth machine is optimized for parts up to 10 inches wide and 10 inches long. All six molding machines feature a modular design to allow flexibility in the molding or coating process. Machines can be configured for application of release agent for dip molding or application of primer for dip coating. Tooling and dip tanks can easily be swapped for different materials.
Production Sciences utilizes additional equipment for secondary operations after molding such as trimming or cutting. Automated visual inspection systems are utilized for in-process and enhanced inspection requirements.
