Engineers love to find creative and new ways to solve persistent problems or meet urgent market needs. As Thomas Edison said, engineers always seem to know there’s a better way to accomplish the task at hand—it’s just a matter of finding it. Here are four tips for collaboration with our materials science experts to unleash your creative abilities:
1. Collaborate Early: Engaging a materials science engineer early in the process—before you’re locked into a particular design—keeps things tightly focused on program objectives. The range of possibilities is much bigger when an engineer can apply a full library of materials to solve a problem or create a new product. You can get the best possible outcome by collaborating early.
2. Seek Deep Expertise: When you’re facing a particular molded rubber and thermoplastic engineering challenge, it often works best to take an integrated approach to the innovation process. Minnesota Rubber and Plastics offers deep expertise in materials science, design support, and manufacturing. Access a team with a library of more than 1,000 materials, deep expertise with medical applications, and a wide range of certifications—all resulting in quicker answers, more design options and long-term project success.
3. Consider All the Possibilities: Minnesota Rubber and Plastics has built a team of materials science experts who understand the full range of possibilities for your product. We’re uniquely positioned to offer both rubber and plastic combination parts—including sub-assemblies—which allows us to maximize development and production efficiencies, reduce development time and tightly control short- and long-term costs.
4. Think Bigger: Design engineers often fall back on familiar products when designing new products. This can inhibit innovation, as the world of elastomers and thermoplastic solutions is much broader than most engineers realize. In fact, the parts that will get you closest to your end goal might not have been invented yet. The best path is to challenge us. Imagine product features and capabilities that go beyond what the market knows today and ask us to apply our expertise to bring your vision to life.
