From medical equipment to furniture and home decor, you may be surprised at the number of products you can manufacture using custom rotational moulding. There’s really no limit as long as you have an innovative design and one mould.

Why use rotational moulding instead of metal?

For a start, plastic is cheaper than metal, and there are fewer costs involved in labour and production time. Polyethene is strong, durable, UV resistant and well suited to endure the harsh Australian climate. This makes roto-moulding an excellent manufacturing method for any outdoor products. Water tanks, agricultural equipment, sports equipment, children’s playgrounds and pool accessories can all be created using the roto-moulding method.

Rotational moulding and the medical industry.

Technological advancements mean that roto-moulded plastic products are becoming useful in healthcare because they’re hygienic, durable and resistant to rust. Medical products such as surgical instruments, components of medical devices and containers for dialysis machines, can be manufactured with roto-moulding. Basically, anything that requires hollow plastic parts.

Roto-moulding gets stylish.

Another new area where roto-moulding is starting to make a splash is homewares and decor. This is because you can create a variety of shapes and designs with molten plastic and produce a large number of them cheaply and efficiently. Unlike metal, you can also get creative with colours. Some of the products designers are dabbling in include outdoor furniture, bathtubs, beds, stools, lamps and bookshelves.

Rotational moulding and reliable products in agriculture.

Roto-moulded products are really creating positive changes in the agricultural industries. This is because farms use a variety of equipment that requires strong, durable, UV resistant products such as cattle feeders, fertiliser tanks and cartage tanks. The portability and lightweight nature of plastic is also a huge bonus on a farm, as it’s more easily transported.

If you have a product in mind that would be suitable for custom rotational moulding contact us today. With Global, you can rest assured that we test every product for quality and efficiency and are involved in the manufacturing process every step of the way from design, to delivery.

Plastic design and manufacturing using rotational moulding is a modern method for modern products – enabling new products to be designed to be light, strong, and durable.

Rotational moulding is producing increasingly creative designs and shapes, and solving many common product limitations! Once a mould is made, even complex products can be repeatedly reproduced with ease.

New product designs are often commissioned to reduce weight, increase volume, or both. For example, a diesel tank can be made to fit the available space in a vehicle, and unbelievably lightweight machine casings can be produced with incredible precision and efficiency.

Innovation is constant, and new product concepts are making their way to the market each and every year.

Here are some products examples of what has been made recently.

• Food-grade safe equipment: seedling planters, heavy-duty molasses cartage tanks, aquaponics equipment.
• Chemicals: agricultural sprayers, pest control equipment, diesel tanks.
• Agricultural: Fan cowl cover, toolboxes, tractor canopies.
• Homewares: Furniture, toys, sporting equipment, gardening equipment.
• Medical: surgical equipment, therapeutic aids, cabinets for equipment.
• Industrial: Bunded tanks, machinery casing, fire-fighting tanks.

Finishes are as varied as the products that are made.

Finishes include a fine polish look, or can be textured or unfinished, so your product can shine brightly or feel more hardwearing. Details or instructions can also be embossed permanently in the mould, so important details will never fade or rub off not matter how much they’re used.

 

Advantages of rotational moulding design:

UV-Stabilised

The polyethylene used in rotomoulding is protected from long-term degradation caused by the sun. It is so durable that it’s used in rural water tanks for Australia’s harshest places, as well as livestock feeders and troughs that sit in the scorching sun for days on end.

Rustproof

Plastic products don’t rust, and agricultural tanks have been using plastic for years. Now, toolboxes, diesel tanks, machine casings and even trailers are being made with plastic that will never rust – and will last longer before having to be replaced.

Durable

Where alternative product designs risk weld lines that corrode and are a weakness, rotomoulding products are a durable one-piece design. So diesel tanks, engine casings, and even a complete box trailer, are highly impact resistant and incredibly durable.

Strong

Uniform wall thickness can be achieved by experienced rotomoulders. When using uniform all the way to the corners and angles, as the molten plastic takes shape, you have a very strong and very durable product.

Lightweight

Polyethylene products are lighter than other materials such as metal, wood or concrete. The benefits include:

• Lighter products: The products themselves are light enough to make products like toolboxes and grain hoppers.
• Improved logistics: Transport becomes cheaper, especially for large products or large production runs.
• Easier installation: For example, septic tanks and water tanks require less people and equipment to install.

 

Manufacturing

Affordable moulds

Moulds are relatively inexpensive to make. In Rotomoulding, molten plastic is rotated within a mould; a low-pressure process. This makes them affordable to reproduce to rapidly scale production (as opposed to injection moulding). For example, complex shapes would require a cast aluminium mould, while a large industrial fluid tank would be crafted from sheet metal.

Fast and economical reproduction

A quickly scalable manufacturing process. With each mould made, continual production can commence at low cost. Needing basically only an oven and plastic, and with a short lead time, production can be scaled according to production needs.

Environmentally friendly

The plastic used in rotomoulding is 100% recyclable. The rotational moulding production process uses no chemicals, gases, or dangerous toxins during production. By investing in high-efficiency machines and leading industry standards, rotomoulding companies can actively support low-carbon footprint business practices.

Global Rotomoulding can take your product from ideation right through to manufacturing. We’ve designed customised products Bell, Thales, Booth Transport, and can do the same for you. Get in touch at /custom-rotomoulding/.

There are many reasons why our customers are drawn to rotomoulding when it comes to producing quality plastic products. One of the most attractive, however, is that the cost of manufacturing is significantly lower than other methods such as injection moulding.

Quality moulds.

Rotational moulding and plastic go hand-in-hand. At Global, we use low-density polyethylene as the material of choice for the rotational moulding process. This is because it’s light, durable and crack resistant. Using low-density polyethylene means that the moulds we produce can be very detailed, while being less costly than injection moulds, which need to be heavier to endure more pressure.

When producing products using rotational moulding, the mould is often the biggest investment during the entire process. Once the mould is perfect, you can rest assured that each product, as a result, will be top notch.

Cost-efficient manufacturing.

Once we’ve made a mould that produces the exact product you’re looking for, it’s easy for Global to replicate these. This means that you aren’t forking out too much money for offshore manufacturing. It also means that you can make orders in smaller runs without having to sacrifice quality, or order in bulk unnecessarily to meet minimum requirements for manufacturing. In saying this, Global have seven ovens over two sites and can handle high capacity production while minimising risks by spreading the load. Global can handle small or large product runs without stressing your wallet.

A final product that will last.

With rotational moulding, you’re not only getting your products made for less, but they’ll also have a long lifespan. Sound too good to be true? Have a look at how durable the Tuffmate2000 trailer is!

Global collaborated with Trailers 2000 to make this beauty a reality. Rust resistant? Check. Strong as a rhino? Check. Crack resistant? Check. UV stabilised? Check. Impervious to chemicals? Check. When you collaborate with Global, you’re getting exactly what you need.

Want a quality product for less? Contact Global today to discuss how poly rotational moulding can make your design a reality.

Designing a new product needs to meet the brief, and if you’re thinking of using plastic you probably have a few questions. So, going through our list of case studies, we’ve created a list of the common constraints we’ve been able to solve while designing custom marketable products for our clients.

Must be lightweight.

Weight is a huge factor in a lot of product design. It not only affects the end use of the product, but also shipping and installation.

Many products are currently made of metal, which makes them very heavy. A mining machine recently designed for Ludowici used to take up to four men to move, because it had heavy fabricated metal guards. Now, thanks to rotomoulding, it can be moved by a single person.

Another example is installation. Septic tanks, traditionally a concrete design, were not easily moved. Today, with modern rotomoulded septic tanks, they can be easily maneuvered. In fact, some are moulded with lugs in them as they can be carried.

Durable enough to thrive in harsh conditions.

The durability of rotomoulded products is largely a result of having no joins or welds. Rotomoulded products are hollow, made by rotating molten plastic in a mould until it takes the desired shape. And once it does (if it’s been properly designed) it is virtually stress-free and less likely to break.

The Ludowici safety guard protects a machine used in mining that vibrates at an incredibly high frequency for long periods of time. So now, as well as being easier to manoeuvre, it’s been made to be virtually indestructible in these conditions (it is also rust-free and cheaper to manufacture).

It’s replacing steel, so it needs to be strong.

Rotomoulding can produce products that are both durable and lightweight, but also have incredible strength. This can be important when designing furniture, or large tanks, and was a requirement for the new plastic box trailer, the TuffMate 2000.

The trailer is lightweight, resistant to chemicals, can handle extreme Australian temperature fluctuations, and strong enough to carry a load without buckling. It looks great as well. Such a feat of engineering was achieved that there’s a test video of a TuffMate 2000 being smashed with a sledgehammer and hardly making a mark.

Resistance to rust and corrosion.

Being rust-proof has already come up a few times in this article. Steel and other metals were for a long time the go-to material for strong, durable products, and rust has been a costly side-effect. But in many cases, products are being re-designed using plastic.

The standard box trailer is still predominately made from steel. Anyone that has a trailer with a few years on it knows rust is unavoidable. A plastic trailer however cannot rust, even if left in the back yard with a small puddle of water. It’s completely safe.

Rust-prone metal products can often be redesigned using plastic, and it can save a bundle in procurement costs. Booth Transport redesigned their storage boxes to prevent rust and corrosion, destroying their equipment and causing further damage to their vehicles. They are now the talk of every trade show they attend and are in distribution for the rest of the industry, which has exactly the same problem they did.

Must have a low production cost.

For any manufacturing project, keeping product costs a minimum is a must. This is where rotomoulding excels, as moulds can quickly reproduce high-quality and often complex-shaped products consistently and affordably.

With marketable products such as the fan cowl for Croplands, low production costs are part of the brief. Other products, like tanks and mudguards made for Thales, seek to make considerable savings from fabricating custom products with steel. A major benefit of choosing rotomoulding is the ability to scale your products with minimal lead time, material costs, or labour – especially when compared to metal fabrication.

Do you need your product redesigned for plastic? Global Rotomoulding can take your idea from concept to distribution. We’re Australia’s experts in custom rotomoulding.

Here at Global Rotomoulding, because we work in the business of innovative plastic design, we also create highly customised products.

These products utilise all the benefits that polyethene and rotomoulding have to offer. We take you through an important step in our customised services – namely, concept design.

We know rotomoulding

When it comes to rotomoulding, we’re in the know-how. We choose to specialise in this method of manufacturing because we believe that it is efficient and cost-effective. Furthermore, it produces more durable and lightweight products to suit a variety of environments.

We’ve designed a selection of products from scratch, many that have solved ongoing problems associated with previous use of steel or metal as a product material. We know a thing or two about plastic, trends in its use and what it will and won’t do as a material. We have experience moulding it into particular shapes to carry a diverse range of substances. We bring all of this knowledge and experience to the table when designing a new product.

Concept design

We provide each of our customers with full concept design, complete with product specifications and measurements. This will allow you to visualise your product and reflect on its uses and features before moving onto full product design. It will be the basis upon which mould production begins, so is detailed and verified by a number of experts.

Below are a few of our most recent concept design drawings which spearheaded a number of highly innovative and successful products currently available for purchase on our website.

Our plastic septic tanks have made installation much, much easier! Many septic tanks are made from concrete which is difficult to move and clean. Our plastic septic tanks are lightweight, durable and more affordable.

Our bunded plastic troughs, used for agriculture, are also a more lightweight but sturdy solution for farmers who frequently work alone. They can be moved by one person even though they are large enough to provide water for a herd of livestock. As you can see in the concept drawings, their double walling allows them to be weighted down with water once arranged in the desired location.

For more examples of our leading plastic designs, please head over to our design capabilities page. These projects have been undertaken with a range of accredited brands who have sought Global out to find solutions to ongoing problems experienced with their previous products.

Why our customers choose Global

Businesses come to us to design their products because we only make quality goods and we provide personalised service. Our research and development skills are honed by our passion to find the best method of manufacturing. We aren’t too big for our boots either! If we’re unsure about anything, we will call upon a range of experts in their fields, namely world-class product engineers who will verify facts and suggest improvements. We have alliances with professional experts in every step of the design process so that you can rest assured, nothing is left up to chance!

Do you have a product concept in mind that you need assistance designing and producing? Contact us today!