Pentagon Plastics opens its doors to students

Pentagon Plastics invites two students into their Horsham premises for work experience

Local Horsham business Pentagon Plastics will open its doors to Horsham students for work experience in June this year. If you’re unfamiliar with Pentagon Plastics, they’re an award winning plastic injection moulding business, providing bespoke thermoplastic products to a variety of industry sectors.  The comprehensive range of services provided by Pentagon are; Design Assistance, Development, Tool Making, Production and Post Moulding operations.

The work experience placement will be an exciting opportunity for the students, who are attending from Forest School for boys and Tanbridge House School. During their week with Pentagon they will gain an insight into the entire plastic injection moulding process from the early stages of quotation and design to the manufacturing of tooling and repeat production. Knowledge will be shared by working alongside their experienced team.

What’s involved?

The aim of the work experience is to give the students a full understanding of a manufacturing business.

“By spending time in each area of the business the students will gain a good understanding of our injection moulding services and have an interesting and insightful week with us” Gabby from business development has told us. The week is set out to include the following elements:

• Learning about the quoting process for new enquiries, reviews of requirements and tool design
• Learning about the sales and purchase order processes and taking a look into the administration side of the business
• Actively taking part in CAD design work and producing their own design on the in-house 3D printer for them to take away at the end of the week
• Learning about tool manufacture and working with their engineers in the toolroom to understand exactly how tools are made
• Working alongside their mould setters to understand the injection moulding process and machine operation

The above covers the first part of the week, which will give the students a better knowledge of some of their processes and will encompass some hands on experience within health and safety restrictions. The following part of the week covers further elements of the manufacturing business which will include:

• Working in the post moulding department to see the light assembly work that is carried out and the strict attention to detail required
• Understanding the quality control processes and production checks carried out by the quality department
• Spending time in the packaging department to understand the despatch process and quality checks before the products are released.
• Learn about material control and goods despatch processes

What the students will take away with them 

The students are in for a busy week filled with productivity and exciting knowledge that they can add to their CVs, giving them a hands on and theoretical advantage when looking to enrol in a higher engineering course or engineering based role. Pentagon Plastics are keen to help raise awareness of the career opportunities within the manufacturing industry.  So if you’re a parent with children who have a keen interest in engineering at school or you are a student who’d be interested in future opportunities, make sure you stay up to date with them through Twitter and their website. 

For any enquiries about work experience, please contact Gabby on 01403 264397.

Pentagon Plastics

Unit 4, Blatchford Road, Horsham, West Sussex, RH13 5QR, 01403 264397, [email protected]