Not Too Hot To Handle In Hudson | Roehr Tool's tech speeds up injection modeling process
Picture a jar of mayo, or a bottle of makeup or some other cosmetic product.
It’s glass or plastic, and it’s got a plastic lid that screws tightly to the top. There are dozens upon dozens of products that come in packages like these.
There are also dozens upon dozens of other plastic parts that are threaded or otherwise ridged or undercut in order to keep them fastened to one thing or another.
And making those threaded or ridged plastic parts can be tricky business. That’s where Roehr Tool Corp. of Hudson comes in.
Specialized System
Roehr specializes in making collapsing and expanding mechanisms that allow plastics manufacturers to make more of those things faster.
As Jim Cullison, Roehr’s vice president, explained, something like a threaded plastic lid is injection molded.
That is, hot, liquid plastic is injected into a mold and allowed to cool. You can imagine that when your injection molded part is threaded, getting it out of the molding machine poses challenges.
But thanks to Roehr, instead of having to get plastic parts off a molding machine by waiting until they’re completely cool and then unscrewing them, Roehr’s mechanisms either collapse to allow the product to fall away from the molding machine or expand to pop the product from the machine.
And of course, something like that is used across a variety of industries, including medical devices and auto parts.
On display at the Hudson plant are gas caps, prototypes for new nail polish jars and a contraption that trims dogs’ claws, as well as components that are installed inside automobile gas tanks and fluid dispensers used in certain manufacturing processes.
Time Is Money
Cullison, a mechanical engineer, has been working for Roehr for his entire career. He was hired by the company upon graduation from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell’s engineering program more than two decades ago.
“In molding, time is money,” he said. “Anything you can do to speed up molding is good.”
And Roehr’s mechanisms are designed not only to allow plastics manufacturers to make stuff faster, but are also designed to be low maintenance to reduce downtime for the companies that use them.
Roehr has a large presence in Europe and Asia, where many of its customers are located, and works with partners in India and other locations.
Most of its mechanisms are used on new molding machines, but the company does sell a few to manufacturers that want to retrofit old molding equipment with Roehr mechanisms.
Roehr has just 11 full-time employees and has been in business for nearly 40 years. The company was founded by George Roehr, whose father invented one of the first disposable hypodermic needles and made a fortune.
From that fortune, he gave his sons money to start their own businesses, and Roehr Tool was born.
Until recently, the company occupied part of a 19th century mill building. It was cramped and dark and hot and employees were constantly trekking back and forth across the place because it couldn’t be laid out in an efficient manner.
Not quite four years ago, Roehr was bought by Progressive Components, of which it is still a unit, and moved to its modern building at 399 River Rd. in Hudson, a building it shares with wind turbine firm Vestas and others.
The location also serves as the company’s regional distribution center.
Got news for our Industrial Strength column? E-mail WBJ Managing Editor Matthew L. Brown at mbrown@wbjournal.com.
Watch as Jim Cullison explains what goes on at Roehr Tools in Hudson:
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