6. Conclusion

6.1 Technology

Thermoforming is a major plastics transformation process, on a par with extrusion –– and injection molding. Compared with its direct competitors, injection molding, blow molding and rotational molding, thermoforming offers intrinsic advantages in terms of lower tooling costs, better adaptation to small production runs, and faster lead times for a given customer request.

Thermoformer manufacturers are seeking to enhance these advantages by developing machines that are increasingly, if not fully, automated. On a batch machine, not only are the sheets loaded and the thermoformed object unloaded automatically, but each time there is a production changeover, the previous mold is dismantled, the table is reconfigured (see §