Pacific Plastics Injection Molding announced that it has purchased a new customized automated loading system to expand its automation capacity.

The automation machine is part of PPIM’s plastic injection over-molding process and its new pick-and-place robotic equipment is designed to deliver high-volume production of enclosed blade cutters.

The machine’s robotic arm is able to pick up eight razor blades at once and place them into a mold. An onboard vision system camera ensures that the metal blades are in the mold before being over-molded with plastic resin. It can be easily adapted to manufacture other components for the electronics, biomedical, and consumer industries.

“Operating 24 hours a day, the automated loading system decreased production cycle times by nearly 34%,” Rob Gilman, general manager of PPIM, said in a press release. “This allows us to provide our customer with highly competitive pricing. Additionally, scrap is reduced by more than 50%.”

PPIM says it plans to invest in a second automation system sometime in the first half of this year.