Faulkner Moulds wins UK ‘Toolmaker of the Year’ award for the third time
Faulkner Moulds is UK ‘Toolmaker of the Year’ for a third time, after winning a prestigious Plastics Industry Award in the ‘Supplier Partnership: Toolmaker’ category.
The Yorkshire-based company was praised by judges for their “impressive diligence in ensuring the project’s success”, when they manufactured a complex 2+2 impression twin-shot tool for an oral medical device.
Faulkner Moulds delivered the tool over a week ahead of deadline and it created sellable parts at the first trial – an extremely challenging achievement for twin-shot tooling.
The Plastics Industry Awards was hosted in London Hilton on Park Lane and the Toolmaker Partnership award was presented by HASCO’s General Manager, Chris Whitlam, who has sponsored the event for many years.
Managing Director, Duncan Faulkner said, “This award-win is particularly meaningful to us as it is very much the team’s achievement. The team handled the entire project successfully, with some general direction from me. It shows our focus on training our apprentices, and developing and empowering our whole team, is really paying off.”
This year, Faulkner Moulds celebrates its 25th anniversary. The company has always used HASCO as a preferred supplier from the start, recognising that the use of quality components and steel is a big selling point for customers.
In the winning project, Faulkner Moulds used the precision of their machining technology to produce highly accurate shut-off faces and split lines, to within 2 to 5 microns, which eliminated the traditional manual fitting process. Previously, two over-moulding tools had been used.
Faulkner Moulds’ new single, twin shot, high-volume production tool is guaranteed for 1 million cycles and is designed to double the production rate.
Faulkner Moulds’ customer, Glen Wells, General Manager at St Davids Assemblies, said, “I was very impressed with Faulkner Moulds’ thoroughness in terms of technical detail during the design process – it really stood out. We had exceptional customer service throughout the whole project, and the support was second to none – we could not ask for more.”