The Rodon Group Blog

K’NEX Brands, the only U.S. construction toy company focused on Building Worlds Kids Love™, and its sister company, The Rodon Group, a custom plastic injection molder, recently ramped up their advocacy efforts on behalf of American manufacturing.

In business since 1956, The Rodon Group makes billions of parts each year in its 125,000 square foot facility, including manufacturing over 30 billion parts since 1992 for the K’NEX building toy system. With over 105 injection molding presses, Rodon is one of the largest family-owned and operated injection molders in the United States.  

We often field phone calls from inventors or product designers who are looking for a plastic injection resource.  While, that is our core business, it is important to understand the difference between The Rodon Group and other small injection molding companies.

We specialize in high-precision, high-volume projects (we're talking millions, here).  To get a better understanding of the capabilities of The Rodon Group, we created a Q & A filled with useful information.

What are the minimum quantities you can order?

Get an insider's peek at the Rodon Group facility with the inventor of K'NEX, Mr. Joel Glickman.

Take a tour of our plastic injection molding factory with the inventor of K'NEX toys, Mr. Joel Glickman through our YouTube channel.

In this video, you'll learn how we're able to make millions of parts per year using our state of the art technology operated by our experienced plastic injection molding professionals.

Enjoy!

After decades of trying to fend off poor quality and sometimes harmful goods from China, the Consumer Products Safety Commission is making some headway.  While, the number of recalled and rejected Chinese products has dropped significantly, there is still a great deal to be done.  And, the CPSC continues to improve their monitoring efforts.

In 2007, after the lead paint toy scare, a group of American liaisons were sent to China to work with manufacturing companies to improve their product safety standards.  However, there was no way to enforce compliance.  So in 2008, the US government passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which requires third-party laboratory testing to ensure imported products meet U.S. safety standards.

Even with additional enforcement, problems with product quality have continued to persist. The size of the problem required additional intervention.  So in January of 2011, the Consumer Protection Agency ramped-up efforts by placing a permanent staff in Beijing.  The staff of this satellite office is working with manufacturers throughout China to ensure that these companies understand our product safety requirements.

Wind-lock is located in Leesport, PA and is a master distributor of tools and accessories in the exterior and interior wall construction market. Ron Chelli is the President of the company.

In the summer of 2011, an American Blogger named BirdAbroad, an American living in China made headlines when her pictures of a fake Apple Store went viral.

After the media frenzy dust had settled, at least 5 fake Apple stores were uncovered.  The total number throughout all of China could keeping growing.  In an effort to protect their brand image, Apple has filed a lawsuit against 50 fake retail business owners.

Since then, more head-to-toe retail rip-offs were announced.  Some of the notable brands with retail stores that are being copied in China are Nike, Ikea and Disney.  Apparently, Starbucks Coffee has faced this problem for years. This total brand takeover not only costs businesses in terms of sales, but it undermines their brand experience, an asset that most companies spend years and millions of dollars to promote.

All of our equipment and molds are cooled using water that runs in a closed loop throughout the building.  This water is pumped into cooling towers which are designed to remove heat from the water as it runs over louvers inside the towers.  The heat is removed using a fan mounted to the top of the unit.  The fans on the new towers will use less than half the power of the old.  Because of the newer technology we actually have more cooling capacity on the same footprint as we had with our older towers, which were 20-30 years old.  The new towers are also designed to reduce water loss. 

As far as the process of swapping out the towers, a 60-foot crane was required to remove the old ones and stack them onto a waiting flat-bed trailer to have them re-cycled for their steel value. The new ones were delivered on two flat-beds, and the fan housings, composite cooling fan-blades and the fan motors had to be installed into the new ThermalCare cooling towers, prior to mounting in location. They then had to be positioned carefully and welded to the existing steel tower supports. Prior to this, the tower supports had to be sand-blasted free of old paint and rust.
We had two of our contractors here on July 2, 3 and even the 4^th of July, working around the clock to have them prepped for Tuesday morning.

Yes, it's true, plastics are the hottest new trend in jewelry this year.   From bangles to earrings, some of the worlds top designers including Prada and Missoni are making fashion history with plastic.

If you are in the plastics business, whether you sell plastic materials, create molds or manufacture plastic parts, you understand the versatility of this medium.  It is this versatility that has set the stage for designers and manufacturers.  These new creations come in a myriad of colors, textures and sizes.  And, you can create a great statement with large light-weight plastic jewelry for less money than other materials.

Magazines and retailers throughout the industry are paying a lot of attention to this trend and you should too.  If you are reading this article, you are probably in the business of plastics.  And, while few of us are going to start making plastic jewelry, the attention paid to this material by the fashion world helps everyone understand the benefits of using plastic in producing products of every kind.  The consuming public will look at plastics in a different light as designers continue to express their creativity with this versatile material.

A toy that’s “Made in the U.S.A.”? These days, that might sound like a contradiction in terms, what with so many playthings produced in Asia. Yet, it turns out that one of the most innovative, stimulating, and just plain fun toys in the stores is just that - made in America, with pride, unmatched quality, and total commitment to environmental responsibility, no less.   

It’s K’NEX, a construction system comprising hundreds of different building blocks that children of all ages can use to create everything from fully-functional robots to model racetracks to working roller-coasters to ... well, you name it. And every single K’NEX rod, connector and brick - some  30 Billion  - have been manufactured in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia. They then travel to over 40 different countries around the world as the various K'NEX construction systems.      

On April 25th, 2012 Irving Glickman will celebrate his 100th birthday and a manufacturing career that has spanned seven decades. As a pioneer in the development of synthetic rubber, Mr. Glickman saw the greater potential of thermoplastics and in 1956, he founded The Rodon Group. Today, Rodon is one of the largest family-owned and operated injection molders in the United States serving a diverse group of industries including consumer products, medical, construction, pharmaceutical and toys. The company has grown from a modest four press operation to 105 molding machines with robotic capabilities.