Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

With 17 manufacturing plants across nine countries – USA, Mexico, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Latvia, Sunningdale provides one-stop turnkey plastics solutions for industries including healthcare, automotive, consumer and IT. Through processes such as mold fabrication, injection molding, and precision assembly, the plastic components manufactured have various uses including medical devices for COVID-19 testing, robotics surgery, genome sequencing, and automotive parts such as stereo systems, navigation systems and speedometers.

Sunningdale previously relied heavily on an on-premise infrastructure for its operations, which included incompatible third-party applications. This was compounded by complex licensing, with each app or platform requiring a different license.

Pre-tested to FDA food-contact requirements and ISO 10993 (subparts 4, 5, 10, and 11) requirements for healthcare applications, the Evoluscend mold-release additive for high-temperature polymers is available to manufacturers globally.

This new cost-efficient solution has given the company flexibility to scale operations based on evolving business needs without impacting costs or capacity. With the cloud transition, on-premise servers in Sunningdale’s headquarters effectively downsized from 94 to 62, which optimized resources and saved costs.

Recognizing the inefficiency of hosting critical and sensitive workloads in a disparate environment, Sunningdale sought a consolidated digital platform that would allow it to continue hosting some applications on-premises while ensuring uncompromised costs and security.

The system encrypts data both at rest and in transit, with technologies including Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer (TLS/SSL), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) which runs regular updates automatically. The security upgrade is in line with Sunningdale’s new focus on security and threat protection as they gear up to service bigger clients.

Materials supplier Avient Corp. has introduced a mold-release additive for high-temperature polymers that is formulated without intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The new Evoluscend additive, part of Avient’s Colorant Chromatics portfolio, can be used to enhance the high-pressure injection molding process.

Implementation support to help Sunningdale with their migration process was provided by Microsoft FastTrack, a service that helps customers onboard Microsoft cloud solutions and drive user adoption. SAP S/4HANA on Azure was Sunningdale’s pick to ensure maximum operational performance and scalability without compromising capacity, as it could run in both local and cloud environments.

While supply chain disruptions have been exacerbated by current macroeconomic conditions, Sunningdale Tech Ltd, a Singapore-based precision plastics engineering company has taken to the cloud to weather evolving global supply chain challenges.

As technology continues to enable change and improve productivity in the workplace, Sunningdale also plans to leverage mixed reality through HoloLens for business visits, so virtual meetings can take place even when participants cannot be present in person. This will allow Sunningdale to develop a wide variety of HoloLens-driven use cases in the future with a combination of Microsoft cloud solutions, including the enablement of smart manufacturing using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist as well as more realistic virtual visits. This was made a reality when one of Sunningdale’s engineers conducted a demo for a customer who was unable to travel to the Singapore factory.

To ensure a seamless transition and migration to the cloud, Sunningdale worked with Microsoft and its trusted partner SoftwareONE. This collaboration allowed Sunningdale to simplify its product licensing management process, so it could now pay for a single software-as-a-service subscription instead of going through different channels and payments for separate software licenses.

Benson Ang, Manufacturing Program Lead at Microsoft said “As a leading manufacturer and trusted strategic partner, we believe that digital transformation is key to helping enterprises future-proof their business. We’ve seen impact at scale in the Microsoft Cloud with Sunningdale, as it shaped its culture of collaboration while boosting business productivity. We hope to continue working with Sunningdale to accelerate transformation as we empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

To reach its goals, expand its resources and skill sets to increase its expertise, Sunningdale will continue to work Microsoft for both hands-on and online training for its employees.

Besides hardware and software upgrades, Sunningdale recognized the importance digitalization would play in building an empowering culture by providing employees with the right collaborative tools and resources to work and connect securely, no matter where they were located in the world.

The additive integrates directly into plastic materials and migrates to the surface to facilitate de-molding, helping to reduce cycle times and boost productivity while protecting the mold and manufactured plastic parts. Evoluscend is effective across a range of high-temperature polymers, including PPSU, PES, PSU, PEI, LCP, PPS, and PEEK, said Avient. Furthermore, it can be combined with polymer colorants where color design is desired in a mold-release application.

With its migration to the cloud, Sunningdale can connect its on-premise networks to Microsoft 365 (M365) with Azure ExpressRoute. This enables Sunningdale employees from various locations around the world to collaborate conveniently and efficiently – they can hold meetings online and share files through SharePoint with anyone within the company.

PFAS chemicals, aka forever chemicals, are used in a broad range of products but have come under scrutiny in recent years for their environmental impact and potential health risks. Globally and domestically, regulatory agencies and legislative bodies are taking steps to reduce or eliminate their use.

a PFAS-free alternative to traditional products, supporting manufacturers' sustainability goals and regulatory compliance initiatives;

As enterprises become increasingly distributed in a world of hybrid work, online meetings and the exchange of business-critical documents and information have become a vital part of employees’ workflow. Sunningdale’s transition to the Microsoft Cloud helped empowering employees to collaborate securely and flexibly in a hybrid world of work.