Hello Product Design and Development Division (PD3) Members!
It is a nice spring day as I write this, and it is great to see people at the park getting more active and ready for their spring and summer plans. The PD3 board has also been active this spring with their participation in ANTEC. PD3 was highlighted in many facets at ANTEC this year. We helped organize the Glenn Beall Symposium, were honored as a Patron Ambassador for the SPE Foundation, and had one of our Members receive the prestigious President Cup Award! You can read some of the highlights about the Glenn Beall Symposium in this newsletter. We are also profiling Mark MacLean-Blevins in our newsletter to help highlight why he was a worthy recipient of the President’s Cup. Having such a prominent role at ANTEC gave credence to the praise I bestowed on our board in my previous Chair message. Beyond the PD3-centric highlights for us at ANTEC, I enjoyed attending the conference in St. Louis. The three-day conference consisted of great technical presentations, where I was able to increase my knowledge of PFA-Free Lubricants, the utilization of AI to accelerate UL-screening process for flame rating, and development of machine-learning algorithms for in-process optimization of injection molding. Additionally, this was a great event for me to reconnect with individuals I have not seen in-person since the pandemic. ANTEC certainly lived up to its reputation that it is the conference to grow and strengthen not only your knowledge but also your network! I look forward to next year’s event in Philadelphia.
Besides being active at ANTEC, PD3 has been busy with our Design for… webinar series. We had two great talks about metal-to-plastic conversion and how to better utilize design of experiment (DOE) methodology to optimize secondary plastic processes. Through the Design for… webinar initiative, we have been able to bring presenters both within and outside our current membership. This is exactly what we are trying to achieve with this webinar series: help educate our membership while engaging the greater design community. We will look to continue our webinar series with seminars from Dow on “Challenges and Opportunities with Circularity in Plastics” and from Sussex IM. Please follow us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on all our activities. You can access our LinkedIn Page here. Finally, if you are interested in giving a presentation, please reach out to me to get on the schedule.
The final item I’d like to address in this newsletter message is to thank our corporate division sponsors. We have been blessed to have many different sponsors that help us fund the activities and initiatives we have undertaken. The sponsors we currently have are leaders in the design field, and share our passion for highlighting the benefits of plastics in design when utilized responsibly. I encourage you to learn more about each of them, and how they may be able to move your design initiatives forward.
That wraps up this message, please enjoy the rest of the newsletter!
Erik Foltz
Chair, PD3 Board of Directors
