Posts Tagged ‘Injection Moulding’

Plastic People

Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Plastics People Technical skills continue to be in demand

Plastics People Technical skills continue to be in demand

Plastic people -or those persons associated with manufacturing utilising polymer plastics such as PET continue to be in demand in the medical device manufacturing industry.

Positions for catagories such as Moulding Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, or Production Manager with knowledge of injection moulding are keenly saught after by companies such as KCI, Vistakon and Mergon as these professionals are at the heart of their R&D and CIP stratagies which require cutting edge technology and High Value Added Knowledge and expertise that place Ireland at the same levels of Quality and New Product Development as  Singapore, Germany and the US.

Our only weakness it would seem is there just are not enough qualified engineers and managers with plastic knowledge- perhaps we need to stretch our educational resources further to meet the demands of this increasingly lucrative sector?

Medical Device Manufacturing

Monday, January 25th, 2010
Plastic Injection Moulded Medical Devices

Plastic Injection Moulded Medical Devices

Medical Device Manufacturing continues to remain an active sector for science jobs recruiting. Current demand seems to be developing for Manufacturing Engineers, Production Managers and QA/RA Engineers.

In particular multinational employers are seeking candidates with experience of injection moulding manufacturing operations involving  medical device products. However prospective candidates with injection moulding experience  are not limited to the healthcare industry and can come from the automotive sector for instance where innovative technical moulding solutions are in demand for customers demanding precision and high quality end products.

A typical Production Manager in demand today may be educated to degree level or hold an equivalent engineering discipline qualification and be experience as a production/manufacturing manager in plastics moulding operations. Ideally those operations that involve carrying out custom moulding for the medical device, healthcare or automotive sectors. Production/Manufacturing Managers also tend to have excellent planning, problem solving, leadership and people management skills.

Given the current market it appears these skills will be in demand despite the downturn witnessed in other sectors and it is a positive indicator that perhaps there are prospects yet for those seeking science jobs in Ireland today.

Polymer Engineering

Friday, October 16th, 2009
Polymer apllications appear to be limited only by our imagination

Polymer applications appear to be limited only by our imagination

Polymer Engineering is one of the more exotic engineering disciplines which has expanded and developed a critical function within the medical device manufacturing sector in the past 15 years.

What is polymer engineering? Polymer Engineering is a field of engineering that deals with the analysis, design and modification of polymer materials and involves aspects of a variety of the pertochem industry including structure and characterisation as well as compounding, properties and processing of polymers and their applications.

These are then divide into thermoplastics and thermosets, the latter being consisting of resins and polyesters which can be used in composite materials which have applications in aerospace and automotive products etc.

Thermoplastics tend to have low density characteristics including transparencywhich makes them ideal for medical devices such as blood bags, syringes or contact lenses (PET or polypropylene).

Elastomers are ploymers with low tensile moduli and are excellent for vibration absorbtion and damping and have applications in areas of products such as Tyres.

Recruitment prospects then for polymer engineers are quiet good even despite the economic downturn as several industries have considerable demand in their manufacturing processes for polymer or process engineers who are key to the manufacture of advanced medical devices or automotive components or indeed for further scientific Research and Development.

Research and Development (R&D)

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Medical Device Components

Medical Device Components

Research and Development (R&D) investment continues to increase by major multinational companies operating in Ireland today. In particular there have been several major investments announced within the Irish Medical Device  manufacturing industry. Boston Scientific, Medtronic and Teleflex have indicated sizable investments in their research facilities based in Ireland that have positive long term implications for jobs already established here and for future investment that can only add to the technological career opportunities available for R&D, Quality, Materials, Product development  and Tooling/ Moulding Engineers.  These professionals; particular those with expertise in Processing,  Polymers and advanced Plastics, will be required to support these projects and future advanced research projects which are at the heart of some of the most sophisticated medical devices manufactured anywhere in the world.

Needless to say, these are careers that are both well paid, and with considerable promotional prospects that are not confined to traditional Irish manufacturing industries but also offer possibilities far beyond these shores and in other allied industries such as BioPharmaceuticals and semiconductor  to name a few.  Irish Recruitment agencies have not been slow to recognize this and are now actively supporting it as a core industrial sector.