High performance polymers are allowing design engineers to finally stop feeling limited by the materials they happen to be working with, whether they’re producing kitchen utensils, small appliances or baby bottles

1. PROCESSING AND DESIGN EASE
Looking beyond limits:
How high performance polymers
offer fresh design perspective
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2. They say a bad workman always
blames his tools.
High performance polymers are allowing design
engineers to finally stop feeling limited by the
materials they happen to be working with,
whether they’re producing kitchen utensils,
small appliances or baby bottles

3. In this search to go
further, it is high
performance polymers
that present new and
growing opportunities
for design engineers.

4. They impact the design process and
greatly enable innovation in terms of
both the performance and aesthetics
of the final product…
PERFORMANCE AESTHETICS

5. And generally open up
more possibilities around
product manufacture and
materials processing.

6. High performance polymers
bring fresh perspective to
the task of innovating in
product designs.
If we had one central message to designers
it would be this:

7. When design engineers
sit down to create a new
consumer product, they
are looking to innovate.

8. Whether it is for a kitchen utensil, an
appliance, or a baby bottle, designers are
always looking to deliver better performing
products that can compete more on price.
KITCHEN UTENSIL APPLIANCE BABY BOTTLE

9. But when looking to innovate, designers
are always inevitably confronted
with the limitations of the materials
available to them, and the result of this
tends to be lower customer satisfaction.

10. The inclusion of multiple metal
parts in a kitchen mixer may create a
heavy product that people may not
wish to move repeatedly in and out
of a storage space.
For example:

11. These limitations also
concern the process
of manufacturing the
product in the first place.

12. A designer wanting to create a more
ergonomic or flexible product shape
that appeals to the end consumer will
be hindered/held back if the material
sourced for them is glass.
For example:

13. With manufacturing
impracticalities preventing
design ideas from becoming
a commercial reality, many
designers are identifying the
use of traditional materials in
products like appliance lids or
baby bottles as an area in need
of innovation or change.

14. Plastics on the other hand are already used
widely in consumer products, and have been
the central component of numerous innovative
instances of product manufacturing...

15. The widespread use
of commodity plastics
for the casings of
appliances is just one
such example.

16. Wishing to innovate
further, more and more
designers are looking
at alternatives to
incumbent materials.

17. This is where high performance
polymers enable designers to revisit
their product design process.

18. Bringing not just new
possibilities in terms of
what the consumer gets
in terms of look and
performance...

19. Designers can also take
advantage of the relative ease
with which polymers can be
shaped.

20. This reduces the number of
manufacturing steps required to make
up the design cycle overall…

21. Allowing much greater
freedom and flexibility in the
product design phase, even
in the face of manufacturing
and materials processing
limitations.

22. Discover how switching over to high performance polymers can
revolutionize both your design and processing practices in:
The plastic vs metal processing challenge: How designer
engineers can win with high performance polymers
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