// AI for custom thermoformers
AI for custom thermoformers, tested on quotes and letters your desk already finished.
For contract thermoforming companies forming heavy-gauge parts and thin-gauge trays and packaging for OEMs and for food, medical device packaging and industrial customers. Start with part and tooling quote requests, or with the resin compliance letters customers keep asking for. Either becomes a free AI proof of concept on copies of 20 to 30 requests you've already closed. Nobody logs in to your shop system. The call belongs to your reviewer, whoever on your staff knows that work best.
- First job
- Quote requests, or resin compliance letters
- From you
- 20 to 30 closed requests, copied after the NDA
- Never
- A part priced, a material declared compliant, a statement signed
- Reviewer
- Named by the owner up front
- Price
- Range now, fixed price before signing
- Out of scope
- Defense and aerospace
// Jobs we would test
Start at the estimating desk or the quality desk
Part and tooling quote requests
A customer's part drawing and request read into a draft quote sheet for your estimator: sheet material and starting gauge as stated, minimum finished wall, draw and tolerance callouts, any flame or food-contact requirement the customer named, tooling type, trimming, annual quantity, and each field a person has to settle.
See the quote request pageResin compliance letter requests
A customer's request for material paperwork matched to the part's resin: your sheet supplier's letter, the food-contact or flammability statement the customer named, the dates and grades on each document, and what's missing, for your quality manager to review and send.
See the compliance letter pageFirst-article wall checks
Thickness readings at the points a print names set beside the minimum wall each one calls for, in one sheet for your quality lead.
Sheet purchase requests
A won job's material, starting gauge, color, texture and cut size or roll width written into a request to your sheet suppliers, for your buyer to send.
// Why these two jobs
Your desk starts from someone else's sheet
Thermoforming comes after the extruder. SPE's Thermoforming Division tutorials call it a secondary process, one that begins once a sheet house has extruded the material, and they point out that a former never uses the whole sheet. What's left has a long list of names, web, skeleton, edge trim, selvage, and the tutorials insist it is never called scrap. Both jobs start from that fact. A quote has to say what sheet comes in and what finished wall goes out. A compliance letter has to trace a part back through the sheet to the resin. Your reviewer can lay every draft beside the quote or letter your team actually sent.
Thick and thin are different desks, and the line between them moves. One SPE tutorial puts heavy gauge above about an eighth of an inch, while a 2016 Medical Design Briefs article puts it near 0.060 inch on sheet from 0.010 to 0.450 inch. SPE sums up the economics as a few pieces in heavy gauge or very many in thin gauge. A heavy-gauge request usually means a single tool and a router path; a thin-gauge request can mean a many-cavity tool and a steel rule die. A fair test has to tell those apart the way your estimator does.
Customers name a flame test without always naming the right one. A 2007 paper on UL's site for code officials says UL 94 does not cover materials used for building construction, finishing or contents, that model codes don't recognize its small-scale ratings, and that most of its results stop applying above 13.0 mm thick or one square meter of surface. A rail customer brings its own rule: 49 CFR 238.103(b) has a railroad require certification that a representative sample of its combustible materials was tested by a recognized independent laboratory, a request that can land on whoever formed an interior panel. A callout like that needs reading by a person before anyone answers it.
Food and medical customers ask about the package as a whole. ISO 11607-1, in its 2019 edition with a 2023 amendment, covers materials, preformed sterile barrier systems and packaging systems for terminally sterilized devices, so a tray request from that side can carry more than a resin name. Food customers ask by food and temperature, and recycled content adds another line: the division's third-quarter 2026 Thermoforming Quarterly featured PET thermoform recycling. Every request you answered already shows how your desk handled those questions.
One limit covers both jobs. The proof of concept never touches your shop system, a live quote or a live customer letter. It never prices a part, decides that a material complies or signs a statement. An estimator approves every quote and a quality manager signs every letter. Defense and aerospace work stays out, and the standards above are named for context only: nothing on this page is legal, regulatory or engineering advice.
// How the test runs
Three steps, one desk at a time
- Step 01
Pick the desk, name the reviewer
Your owner picks quotes or letters and names the reviewer, usually a lead estimator or a quality manager. Written success criteria, a price range for the live job and a signed NDA all come before a single print moves.
- Step 02
Run it on closed requests
Send 20 to 30 requests already quoted, or 20 to 30 letters already signed, with the prints and supplier letters behind them. We call this run the sandbox, a free test on paperwork your team has finished. Prints that can't leave the plant get look-alike stand-ins, built with your reviewer.
- Step 03
After a yes, a month of live requests
New requests get the same draft for about 30 days. Your estimator approves each quote and your quality manager signs each letter before a customer sees it. Adding a second job is a separate decision at its own price.
Priced per job. You get a range before the proof of concept and a fixed price before you sign.
Rob sets the range on the call from three counts: quote requests a month, customers who ask for letters, and how many sheet suppliers' letters you keep on file.
// Questions
Questions thermoformers raise early
We run heavy-gauge and thin-gauge lines. Does one test cover both?
Will AI pick a starting gauge or price the tool?
Can AI tell us a sheet is food-contact compliant or passes a flame test?
Do you need access to our ERP or quoting workbook?
We form trays for medical device packaging. Can those files be in the test?
Rob Eason, founder
// Book a proof of concept call
Start from a folder of closed requests.
A 30-minute call with Rob about what you form, heavy gauge or thin, which desk you'd test first and roughly how many requests it sees in a month. Prints and supplier letters stay with you until the NDA is signed.
- Co-owned a 60-employee financial services firm and sold his share to his partner.
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- Takes every proof-of-concept call himself.