Silcotech North America recently held an internal Town Hall, where we came together to review our progress, celebrate achievements, and align on the road ahead.

Over the past year, we’ve continued to build on our momentum, including strong year-over-year sales growth, excellent audit performance with multiple 100% scores, ongoing investments in training and skill development, and a continued focus on safety, quality, and operational improvement. We also highlighted the importance of 5S and workplace organization, recognized improvements across our facility, and reinforced our commitment to addressing customer issues through corrective action and continuous improvement. It was equally meaningful to reflect on our community initiatives, including holiday donations and employee engagement activities, which remain an important part of who we are as a company.

Thank you to everyone at Silcotech for your hard work, commitment, and contributions. Events like this remind us that our success is built by the strength of our people.

This week, Silcotech’s leadership team, Isolde Boettger, Michael Maloney, and Yogesh Chauhan had the opportunity to attend Arburg Technology Days at ARBURG GmbH + Co KG in Lossburg, Germany.

Events like this are where the future of manufacturing takes shape.

Across the event, the team explored advances in:

• Next-generation injection molding platforms
• Integrated automation and turnkey production systems
• Digital manufacturing and production monitoring
• Technologies shaping the next generation of smart factories

For Silcotech, maintaining close collaboration with leading technology partners is essential. The innovations showcased, from advanced automation to digital production intelligence, are exactly the kinds of tools that help improve efficiency, traceability, and reliability in complex molding environments.

Industry events like Arburg Technology Days are more than demonstrations of new equipment. They are opportunities to exchange technical insight, strengthen partnerships, and continue pushing the boundaries of precision manufacturing.

Thank you to the Arburg team for hosting such a technically rich and forward-looking event.

By Michael Maloney

Multishot in-mold assembly, an advanced manufacturing approach that produces multiple, fully assembled components within a single molding process, offers considerable benefits – particularly in liquid silicone rubber (LSR) applications at volumes exceeding 100,000 units.

While the technique demands a higher level of tooling, process and material expertise, its benefits are substantial. Chief among them are reduced product risk, lower total system cost and improved manufacturing reliability.

At its core, multishot in-mold assembly fundamentally changes how products are designed and manufactured. Rather than producing and managing numerous discrete parts that must later be handled, oriented and assembled, components are formed and assembled directly in the mold following highly predictable and repeatable process steps. This dramatically reduces the number of variables—and therefore failure modes—within the finished product.

Reducing Product and Assembly Risk

One of the most significant advantages of multishot in-mold assembly is risk reduction. By eliminating separate part handling and downstream assembly operations, manufacturers reduce the opportunity for misalignment, contamination, damage or assembly error. The number of part-to-part combinations is drastically reduced, which simplifies validation and increases overall process robustness—an especially important consideration in highly regulated industries such as medical devices.

Inventory reduction is another immediate benefit. Managing large volumes of individual molded components introduces cost, complexity and risk, from storage and tracking to reorientation and feeding into assembly workstations. Whether handled manually or through automation, each additional step adds variability. Dedicated assembly automation, while effective, often carries substantial capital expense and long development timelines.

In many cases, part reorientation alone—using bowl feeders, vision systems and auxiliary handling equipment—can exceed $500,000 per part within a subsystem. By contrast, multishot in-mold assembly leverages the inherent orientation created during molding. Eliminating these secondary systems can reduce assembly-related capital and operating costs by 25% or more.

Early Design Collaboration Is Critical

Successful implementation begins long before steel is cut. Early collaboration between product designers, process engineers and brand owners is essential. Many engineering teams naturally approach product development assuming traditional discrete part assembly. Multishot in-mold assembly requires a different mindset—one that considers […]

Technicians from Silcotech improved their skills with ARBURG, Inc. robots recently with a hands on training workshop hosted by Arburg at Silcotech’s Bolton manufacturing facility. The training further strengthened its internal capabilities in robotic automation, process control, and advanced manufacturing.

Throughout the multiple training sessions, Silcotech’s technicians developed a deep understanding of robot programming for complex part-handling applications. This included creating new pick-up programs using four grippers, incorporating air blow functions, and managing controlled part drops into bins. Quality-driven automation was a strong focus, with training covering how to program bad-part drop positions using input queries, ensuring reliable part segregation and process integrity.

Arburg’s instructor emphasized efficiency and reliability, with teams reviewing and optimizing home sequences and learning how to structure robot programs through the creation of templates and the division of programs into organized zoom in and zoom out groups. Motion control and monitoring capabilities were expanded through the use of C-axis monitoring symbols, while peripheral integration was addressed by programming inputs and outputs for systems such as automatic box changing.

As the training advanced, participants were introduced to higher-level robot functions, including repetition logic, output pulse signals, and event-controlled torque monitoring. Additional instruction focused on programming part patterns with stacking to support efficient material handling and defining safety operating areas to ensure safe, repeatable automated operation. Each program was validated through robot dry cycle runs prior to production use, reinforcing best practices for commissioning and change control.

By structuring the training across multiple groups and levels of complexity, Silcotech ensured broad knowledge transfer while building strong internal automation capability. This investment supports greater process control, improved repeatability, and scalable production across demanding applications.

Silcotech continues to invest in its people and in strategic partnerships with leading technology providers like Arburg, reinforcing its position at the forefront of advanced manufacturing and automation excellence.

       In 2025, Silcotech reaffirmed its commitment to community impact with a meaningful donation initiative in support of Caledon Community Services. The annual raffle was once again the most successful since inception. The collaboration of all of the employees of Silcotech really highlighted the value of the raffle to the community. Along with monetary donations Silcotech employees also donated food and toys to support CCS’s Exchange.

President Michael Maloney enjoys a mouthful of Pani Puri provided by Halwayi Style

The Little Raffle That Could: At the center of the initiative was a company-wide raffle that engaged employees while generating additional funds for CCS. The 2025 raffle raised $9,000 for Caledon Community Services (CCS) and featured an impressive 160 donated holiday gifts, reflecting strong participation from employees and suppliers alike.

The annual raffle, which began approximately 20 years ago, has grown significantly over time. What started with contributions from just 10 suppliers has evolved into a large-scale initiative supported by a broad network of partners.

Each year, Silcotech invites its suppliers to collaborate by donating raffle prizes. According to Isolde Boettger, Vice President and Co-Founder of Silcotech, the company also purchases a number of gifts to ensure the raffle continues to grow and make as many employees as possible feel like winners.

“This year, between our own contributions and those from our suppliers, we reached 160 gifts,” said Boettger. “We are truly amazed by what people do. We’ve created something really special with our suppliers, and we couldn’t do it without them.”

Boettger noted that the strong response highlights the deep relationships Silcotech has built not only with its customers, but also with its supplier partners. She also emphasized the dedication of the internal team that organizes the raffle each year.

The organizing team — EHSQ Specialist Manpreet Kaur, Purchasing Specialist Raphael Boettger, and CEO Yogesh […]

Keeping It Local: CMTS 2025

Silcotech’s CEO, Yogesh Chauhan, along with Raphael Boettger, Manpreet Kaur, and Komal Dhaliwal attended the Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show (CMTS) in Toronto, Ontario, September 27–30, 2025. The team connected with industry-leading technology companies to explore new opportunities for collaboration and innovation.

As a locally hosted event, CMTS provides Silcotech with a unique opportunity to engage directly with suppliers and technology partners from the surrounding region, strengthening relationships that support quick communication, responsive service, and shared innovation. Working closely with nearby partners allows Silcotech to accelerate development timelines, streamline logistics, and implement new technologies more efficiently — key advantages in today’s fast-moving manufacturing environment.

With a focus on advancing precision silicone injection molding, automation, and smart manufacturing, the Silcotech team met with key collaborators to explore technologies that will expand capabilities and strengthen competitiveness into 2026 and beyond. Among them was Keyence, a trusted automation partner known for its industry-leading inspection and measurement systems, both inline and offline. Discussions centered on ways to enhance process control, quality assurance, and overall production efficiency through advanced automation solutions.

In addition to Keyence, Silcotech connected with several other potential partners across multiple areas of the business, including operations, process control, and design. These discussions aim to forge new relationships that drive continuous improvement, innovation, and operational excellence.

By continuing to engage directly with innovators across the local and national manufacturing ecosystem, Silcotech reinforces its commitment to investing in cutting-edge technologies that drive efficiency, sustainability, and product quality — further solidifying its position as a leader in advanced manufacturing, both in North America and worldwide.

Going Green — The Silcotech Team Connects With Marko & ARBURG At K 2025

Silcotech North America’s Vice-President, Isolde Boettger and President, Michael Maloney made the most of their trip to Düsseldorf this October, visiting the world’s largest plastics and rubber trade fair — K 2025 — and spending some highlight-filled time at the Arburg stand where they met with Marko Koellmer to discuss the company’s latest solutions and sustainability focus.

K 2025 (October 8th – 15th, 2025) in Düsseldorf, was themed “The Power of Plastics: Green, Smart, Responsible” and Arburg leaned into that message with a large, interactive presence. Arburg’s booth was anchored by the “All in! arburgSOLUTIONworld” communication concept and the arburgGREENworld pavilion. Arburg demonstrated their newest machines and hosted conversations about automation, circular economy initiatives, and turnkey systems.

At the Arburg booth, Isolde and Michael were able to see live demonstrations — from electric Allrounder’s designed for fast, resource-efficient production to automated LSR (liquid silicone rubber) setups — and discuss practical applications with Marko Koellmer, a long-standing Arburg business development manager.

Silcotech’s partnership with Arburg spans more than two decades. In fact, Silcotech ordered its first two machines from Arburg 27 years ago at K 1998. This long-standing partnership, now being championed by dedicated Arburg leaders like Marko, has been built on mutual innovation, trust, and shared goals. Arburg has really shown a commitment to developing their own knowhow and technical supremacy which Silcotech saw when visiting the Arburg booth this year. The highlights from Arburg’s demonstrations at K included:

• Sustainability in practice: Arburg’s arburgGREENworld showcased trainee-led projects and circular-economy demonstrations — a concrete framing for how machine builders and processors can reduce waste and incorporate recycled materials. Isolde, Michael, and Marko discussed examples where machine and process design directly reduce energy and material use.