company profile
Polymer Corporation
Custom Manufacturing for Subsea Industry
As much of the business in the subsea market is custom fabrication, companies such as Polymer Corporation fill a valuable niche as a business partner. MTR spoke with Fred DeSimone to discuss the company's present and future. Please finish the following sentence: "Polymer Corporation is ... " FD Polymer Corporation is a manufacturer of custom plastic parts for low to mid-volume applications. We specialize in Liquid Resin Casting and injection molding for highly-engineered products. Its Polymer Marine division is a leading producer of plastic parts and assemblies for use in offshore, oceanographic and defense applications. Polymer Corporation recently changed ownership: How was the company strengthened by this move? FD The company was recently acquired by its management team and Prospect Partners, LLC of Chicago. Prospect is a leading lower-middle market private equity firm managing $270 million in two funds. The financial strength of Prospect, coupled with the management team's many years of expertise in manufacturing plastic parts, has significantly strengthened the company, and sets the stage for accelerated growth through internal development and select alliances and acquisitions. Polymer Corporation has been in business since 1979 and currently has two facilities in Massachusetts. The company is looking to expand in the near future and open up a West Coast location. What do you count as the core advantage of your company versus similar custom manufacturers? FD The core advantage of Polymer versus similar custom manufacturers is its ability to help companies design/develop products and bring them to market quickly, and also provide the services to meet production demands from initial prototyping and low volume runs through higher volume manufacturing. Most of our longer-term customers, particularly in the marine industry, have come to rely on our technical expertise during early stages of product development. Many consider our engineering department to be extensions of their own. Polymer's unique Liquid Resin Casting process lets designers produce high-quality parts economically at low volumes. In the Marine Industry this can be as little as 2550 parts per year up to a few hundred. LRC can accommodate complex parts that are not well-suited for either machining or other types of molding. Features such as compound curves, thick walls and cross sections, under-
Case Study: Hydroid
A major customer of Polymer Marine is Hydroid, LLC. located in Pocassset, Mass. Hydroid is a leading developer of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. Polymer has manufactured plastic parts for Hydroid since 2001. The majority of components get mounted to the exterior of their world-renowned REMUS vehicles and include control fins, antennae, and other parts that have delicate transponder and transducer elements encapsulated within them. Polymer also produces an acoustic transducer "towfish" device with embedded electronics, lead weight and cable assembly. Since LRC has mild processing conditions and slow-curing resin formulations, encapsulations are a natural fit for this process, and flexible silicone molds allow for casting parts with complex geometries. The end result is that the electronics are environmentally sealed in an ergonomic "housing' shape that minimizes drag on the AUV and also protects the encapsulants from the harsh marine environment. Polymer offers a wide range of polyurethane materials from very soft (Shore A-15) elastomers to rigid (Shore D-90) plastics. The ability to produce these complex parts in low volumes with a quick turnaround time has helped Hydroid to become a leader in the field of AUVs.
22 MTR
May 2009
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