Universal Plastics is a custom plastic products manufacturer with expertise in a range of processes, including custom thermoforming, injection molding (gas assist and structural foam), and custom blow molding for the medical, aerospace, transportation and general industrial markets.
We have expertise in large, complex and highly aesthetic parts and pride ourselves on our ability to offer unbiased, process-agnostic advice and multiple production processes for high mix / low volumes, low mix / high volumes and the breadth in between. All the manufacturing sites within the Universal Plastics family share a long history of providing their customers with high quality, large, complex molded parts and are known for outstanding customer service and engineering support. Each has dedicated staff, operating facilities and processes.
Universal Plastics can meet your end-to-end plastics manufacturing needs – we offer in-house tooling, design & engineering services and a full complement of secondary/finishing services including complex assemblies, high gloss painting (Class A automotive finish), global tool sourcing, RFI/EMI shielding, drape forming, warehousing, etc. Our products and the industries we serve are continuously growing and range from medical housings, airline interiors, sharps containers, toys, plastic trays, radomes, electronics housings, equipment covers, manufacturing aids and part protection for OEMs across aerospace, medical devices, electronics and numerous other industries. Universal Plastics is ISO9001: 2015 registered. Click here for our ISO certificates.
Universal Plastics works collaboratively with our customers to improve our business processes, skills and technology to continue to deliver innovative custom plastic product solutions that work at globally competitive pricing. We work with a long-standing and diverse set of customers, from fortune 500 companies, to smaller OEMs to start-ups, in a wide range of industries. Our customers have placed their trust in us to deliver the right product at the right price, the first time.
To discuss how Universal Plastics can meet your custom plastic parts needs, please contact us.
Custom Thermoforming: 2 factories (Western MA: Holyoke, Upstate NY: Albany)
Universal Plastics has been a recognized leader in custom thermoforming for over 50 years. Our expertise lies in various plastics manufacturing processes including heavy gauge thermoforming, pressure forming (including twin sheet forming), vacuum forming, fabrication and complex assemblies. Universal Plastics has a long history of providing high quality thermoformed parts to the medical, aerospace & aircraft interiors, transportation and general industrial segments.
We specialize in precision custom thermoforming, a plastic manufacturing process that converts a sheet of plastic into a highly detailed finished product, with less tooling investment than other plastic molding processes.
Across our three custom thermoforming sites, we have:
- 200,000 sq ft of manufacturing space
- Strong engineering team with expertise in product design & execution in a variety of industries, experienced in-house tool makers
- 22 pressure formers; 14 vacuum formers; 53 routing machines, including 26 5-axis trimming machines (full facilities list available upon request)
- Class A automotive quality high gloss painting services, with state-of-the-art paint booths capable of handling part sizes up to 11’x11’x3′
- Global supply chain network
- Designated Minority Owned Business
Injection Molding: Northeast OH: Middlefield
Universal Plastics Middlefield is an innovative facility specializing in injection molding, including gas assist molding, and structural foam molding to customers in the medical, laboratory & diagnostic, manufacturing, retail and registers/dispensing machines. We have a long history of supplying high quality large plastic parts with complex designs and high cosmetic requirements at competitive prices. With small, medium, and large tonnage presses ranging from 85-1,500T in our 150,000 sq. ft. facility, along with in-house painting and full secondary operations and assembly, we are well equipped to act as your one stop shop for large projects requiring a wide variety or plastic part sizes and finishing specifications.
In the early 1980’s this facility was one of the three original companies which developed gas assisted injection molding and continues to pioneer its use and application today. Since then, we have acquired the equipment and processing technology necessary to manufacture complexly designed parts and the quality culture required to produce consistent high-quality cosmetics on customer facing components. To date, we have commercialized 500+ gas assisted parts for leading OEMs. We welcome your visit so you can see our gas assist technology and capabilities.
Blow Molding: Western PA: Latrobe
Universal Plastics Latrobe is a custom extrusion blow molder which manufactures for medical, waste management, automotive, safety equipment, lawn and garden, recreational equipment and large capacity potable water bottles. Our 120,000sq. ft facility has blow molding machines ranging in size from 1.5 lbs. to 30 lbs. with part size capabilities ranging from 18 grams to 40 pounds and part dimensions as large as 36” by 66”. We have multiple shuttle machines with continuous extrusion capabilities as well as an expertise in numerous materials including HDPE, PP, PC, and PETG. As a complement to our blow molding capabilities, we also offer injection molding services with 2 machines in the 225 ton range.
Our wide range of machine size capabilities make us one of the most versatile custom blow molding facilities in the industry. Our mold and machine shop capabilities provide customers with a seamless and efficient process from concept to production capability.
Universal Plastics is registered with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to contract manufacture medical sharps collectors. We are ready to assist you with your next custom blow molding project.
To learn more about our company and how we can help you with your custom plastic parts needs, please contact us.
Partnering with customers to be the market leader providing plastic solutions, from birthing tubs to burial vaults, from farms to pharmaceuticals. From under the sea to outer space, we combine process & engineering expertise with business integrity to fuel customer success.
Universal Plastics strives to empower and engage its’ employees in a welcoming, clean and safe environment where they can maximize personal and company goals. We celebrate our employees for the value & ideas they bring to one another. We embrace passion, diversity, professionalism and continuous improvement.
We are a family company.
We are family-owned and our company is a family. This means we care about the members of our family – our employees across all sites and our extended family – our community. We treat one another with respect and always do the right thing, even when no one is looking. In our family, we reward new ideas, creative thinking, and entrepreneurial behavior. All ideas are worth considering and are as good as the ideas themselves, not who or where they came from or how they came about. We like to be different, to zig when everyone zags. We are smart cookies, but also understand that sometimes even a good idea doesn’t work out the way you thought it would – that’s ok, that’s how we learn. We take chances on people and ideas and change – that is how we all get better and our family becomes stronger. We sometimes have to make hard decisions for the sake of our family and when we do, we do so thoughtfully, with integrity and kindness. We own the responsibility to give back to our communities and feel privileged when we can do so. We are growing every day and still have a lot to learn but we can lean on the legacy of expertise and the incredible work ethic we have all demonstrated. We are growth-oriented, people-oriented and solution-oriented. We are strong, stable and here for the long, long, very long haul.
We exist in service of our customers.
Customer assurance is our mantra – we must be able to assure our customers of the service they have entrusted us with – to provide them with high-quality parts, on time and priced competitively. We stand by the highest quality standards we have established for our parts and are proud of our long history of expertise in manufacturing high-quality parts and delivering exceptional customer service. In order to accomplish this, we communicate clearly and hold ourselves highly accountable to our customers’ needs. Our customers are the reason our family exists; their needs brought us together and keep us together. We strive to provide them with our expertise, and with unbiased and process agnostic solutions to best meet their needs. We also provide exceptional service by listening and learning from our customers every day and developing an instinctive ‘feel’ for their needs. We are a stable supplier and want to be the single source partner to our customers’ every plastics need. We are professional and positive at all times, even during tough conversations or when information changes quickly. In our interactions with customers, we show them that we are growing, innovative, willing and able to change and go with them where their needs are. Our goal is to build trust, credibility and a lasting partnership with every customer. We demonstrate to our customers that we exist in their service across all levels of our family organization.