Pittsfield, MA--Hi-Tech Mold & Tool, Inc. is an ISO 9001:2000 and AS9100-certified custom injection molder that manufactures a variety of parts for the medical industry, including sterilization trays and silicone mats and bars that fit in the sterilization trays to hold medical instruments. Hi-Tech also produces components for disposable fluid collection systems, ear tips for hearing test equipment, syringe bodies, filtrate systems, and trays and containers for specimen testing.

According to Ann Fyfe, the company's manager of sales, marketing, and customer care, Hi-Tech has years of experience in molding high-end engineering resins. Its team of experienced and highly skilled designers, tool makers, and processors are "collectively involved up front" on projects and throughout them. The company welcomes highly technical and demanding projects and, if a customer needs a service that the company doesn't offer, Hi-Tech will explore the possibility of implementing that service, says Fyfe.

"Hi-Tech welcomes highly demanding and technical challenges from our customers, because it helps us continually raise the bar and enables us to bring on new technologies that help us grow with our customers' needs," says Fyfe.

One of the company's customers requested help in reducing the weight of its product, as well as the cycle time, in order to be able to compete globally. "Through our collaboration, we took a large part running a 50-second cycle, to a part that weighed 35% less and now runs at a 27-second cycle," said Fyfe.

The company provides in-house design to help customers achieve the best design for manufacturability. Beginning at the concept stage of part development, Hi-Tech promotes close teamwork at all levels by linking the design engineer with the resin supplier and its own in-house engineering, mold making, and processing personnel. Partnering toward a common goal at this early stage allows Hi-Tech's engineers to anticipate and prevent potential manufacturing issues before they occur. Information obtained early in the development cycle is used to manufacture custom tools that are designed for optimum manufacturability of the part, as well as part-to-part repeatability in production. Hi-Tech combines sophisticated CAD/CAM technology with CNC milling, boring, and electrical discharge machining (EDM) to design and build close-tolerance molds for all types of engineering resins.