More and more successful companies are today shedding their peripheral activities enabling them to concentrate on their core expertise, and when they need up to date specialised knowledge, they call in the acknowledged experts – professional consultants.

And when the expertise required involves polymers they call in the best available – from the Plastics Consultancy Network.

Consultants form a vital part of any management team, a valuable resource that can be used whenever required and without the significant overhead cost of full-time staff. They are a variable and controllable cost, used only when required, and need never become an overhead.

There are few businesses today that are not exposed to global influences. The PCN has members throughout the world and individual members can tap into pools of knowledge to provide both global and local solutions to major or local issues.

Our focus on the plastics sectors involves us in sharing the knowledge and information generated from many years of experience in all areas of the polymer businesses. Our commitment is to helping clients find effective solutions, actively, quickly, creatively and at minimal cost.

PCN members work as individuals or in project teams.  The Network exists to enable your project, however large or small, to be accurately directed to the most appropriate consultant.

What is the PCN?

The PCN is a professional network of the best independent polymer consultants in the world:

  • Every PCN member is an independent, highly qualified and experienced polymer consultant. Membership is controlled and is restricted to professional consultants – it is not available to people who are simply ‘between jobs’.

  • Every PCN member has a proven track record in polymer consultancy and years of experience in industry. They can bring this experience to your company at a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house resources

Selecting a PCN member consultant guarantees a professional response to a professional’s need.

The one stop shop for all you need to know about plastics – from the experts

Driven by your needs

Every market is under price pressure and it is not surprising that many companies are recognising the need to reduce overheads and fixed costs. They are seeking to replace fixed costs with variable resources which are used and paid for only when required.

Professional companies use professional contract resources for a range of services ranging from legal to security services to reduce overheads and fixed costs. Controlling and reducing these allows companies to get in front of the trend and leave the competition behind. Reduce your costs now before they reduce you!

PCN is no different.

Expert knowledge is available on a contract basis from members of the PCN to reduce and control costs. There are no overheads or fixed costs when you use PCN consultants.

PCN Members provide an ideal answer to your needs for expert assistance. They provide:

  • The highest quality variable cost services and resources.

  • Services that are designed specifically for the polymer industry and at a fraction of what it would cost to provide the same resources within the company.

The PCN is the future for companies in today’s polymer and processing marketplace.

You pay for results as you need them

Project management and teams

Running a major development project using many the different skills that are not available in-house can be difficult and dangerous. Using a PCN member as a Project Manager can provide the high level skills you need at minimum cost.

Select a PCN member with the right skills as a project manager, who will then put together a professional project team with all the skills to meet your needs.  Project costs can be fixed at the start of the project and at the end of the project the team can be dissolved with no residual costs.

Projects will be delivered on time, on budget and with no overhead costs.

Contacting the PCN

Tapping into this level of skill has got to be difficult, hasn’t it? No, it isn’t.

To contact any member of the PCN simply:

  • Go to the Consultant Sector

  • Select the area you need help in

  • Choose a possible consultant from the list

  • Check that the selected consultant has the required range of skills

  • Contact the consultant direct

If you are unsure of your exact needs, then email your inquiry to the PCN at: query@PCN.org

For a more general discussion of your possible needs, telephone either the PCN Chairman (Pravin Mistry) or the PCN Webmaster (Dr Robin Kent).

The role of the consultant in the polymer industry.

Background

During the buoyant 1980’s there were many people in the polymer industry who were offering their services as consultants. Their success, if at all, may have been due to the fact that expanding companies were having difficulty in finding staff to cope with the rapid expansion experienced by most related organisations in the UK and worldwide.

Unfortunately, some of the consultants who worked during this period were neither experienced, nor well equipped to carry out many of the commissions that they had accepted. As a result, consultants as a group were often regarded as being an expensive luxury, and sometimes of doubtful benefit. Furthermore, clients often disregarded the consultant’s advice, since in a boom time it was still possible to remain in business in spite of the company’s apparent inefficiency.

In 1988, the Plastics Consultancy Network (PCN) was formed to provide clients with a network of bona fide, qualified and professional consultants. The PCN is a method for potential clients to choose an appropriate and experienced individual consultant or to quickly gather together a team of experienced people to undertake tasks that were too large or time-consuming for the individual consultant. The typical PCN consultant has many years of theoretical as well as practical experience, which is instantly available to potential clients.

The PCN celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018, and has been affiliated with the British Plastics Federation for the past 16 years. It also has overseas members in the USA and Europe and is expanding the network throughout the world.

The changing workplace

The world-wide and UK manufacturing recession that started in the late 1980’s is now a thing of the past but the confidence of the early 1980’s is unlikely to ever return. The commercial and industrial landscape has changed forever. Most companies that traded successfully through the recession found that they were acutely short of experienced and senior staff as they began to expand into the 1990’s. Their uncertainty meant that they were reluctant to take on additional full-time senior employees until they were totally convinced that the economic climate had strongly improved. From the late 1990’s, the trend is towards low numbers of “core” staff and increasing numbers of contracted and results-oriented staff.

It is interesting to note that consultants and experienced freelance staff are already being used extensively in other industries. It has become far easier for consultants to work at a distance from their client’s office, with the rise of personal communications and the Internet. The trend towards “home-working” as an acceptable alternative to office-based means that even large companies have effectively “contracted out” many of their core services.

This is one of the main reasons why the independent and qualified consultants find many companies contacting them. They can expect more demand for their services, because technology in the polymer industry is developing very quickly.

The skill areas

The current members of the PCN can work in all of the following disciplines.

  • Materials and design – additives & property modification, analysis, materials selection, product design, product engineering, tool design and sourcing.

  • Processing – All the plastics processing methods, such as injection, blow moulding, extrusion, thermoforming, rotational moulding, welding etc are covered.

  • Secondary Operations – finishing and decorating, testing, welding and fastening.

  • Commercial – Expert witness and legal, export & import, legislative and regulatory, marketing and market research, mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning/restructuring, forecasting, technology transfer and licensing.

  • Sustainability – Environmental, recycling, recovery, circular economy

  • Markets – Automotive, Electrical/Electronic, General, Medical, Packaging

  • Other skills – Authoring, benchmarking, degradation, literature and patent search, project management, recruitment, training, translation, trouble shooting, web site design and manufacture.

The cost savings

Technical and development appointments, as well as most middle management positions within the plastics industry cost from £45,000 per annum upwards, and that is before other payments such as company cars, NI charges, pensions, and of course day-to-day expenses. A PCN consultant is a only paid when required, on a “day by day” fee basis, or alternatively on an overall job fee basis, which is agreed before the project commences. Therefore the client is aware at the beginning how much it will cost and overheads are reduced.

Consultant’s charges are often much lower than generally believed, and quotations are available for consideration before each project commences. Consultants are particularly useful to small and medium sized companies, who do not regularly employ technical staff.

A fresh mind applied to a problem often accelerates the solution.

The future

Qualified consultants are here to stay. This is mainly due to the fact that methods of trading have changed dramatically and these changes will oblige manufacturers to alter their methods of operation.

At the PCN, we see the role of the PCN consultant expanding with clients and consultants effectively working together for their mutual benefit.