In his previous job, Dax Hamilton, founder of Blackhawk Technology Group, witnessed firsthand the frustrations that companies faced with plastic welding that stemmed primarily from its high operating cost, damage to surrounding materials and wastage. He also saw the cost-saving potential of direct diode 980nm welding technology. Therefore, during the initial 6-8 months after its inception, Blackhawk concentrated on building a system to observe defects and joint integrity of welded materials. With sharp cognizance of the dynamic market trends and technology inclinations, Blackhawk, despite being a relatively new player in the laser plastic welding space, has become the vanguard of change ensuring cost-efficiency and operational excellence through what Hamilton calls, “the market’s first commercialized laser plastic welding inspection system.”

While delving deeper into the services of Blackhawk, the first or perhaps the most crucial aspect that comes to the surface—one that always keeps the company a step ahead in its competitive market—is that in addition to focusing on building laser plastic welding equipment like everyone else, Blackhawk provides holistic advice also. Hamilton says, “a lot of our customers are medical device manufacturers, and we help them all the way through the process. We take the role of a consultant and help them in selecting materials, colors, and additives and ultimately, offer them prototyping services in our lab. We assist them in gaining FDA approval and simultaneously provide inspection and quality control services.”

In addition to its consultative approach, Blackhawk provides flexible solutions for low and high volume production and strives to leverage every new advancement in optics and laser sources. Blackhawk’s uniqueness is moulded by two major competencies: laser plastic welding technology and machine vision inspection equipment to control quality.

Blackhawk provides flexible solutions for low and high volume production and strives to leverage every new advancement in optics and laser sources

Irrespective of their client’s functional domain, Blackhawk is capable of delivering precise laser plastic welding solutions that match to any and all of their conditions or criteria such as color, type of material, or composition to name a few. For example, one of its biggest customer, a medical device manufacturer was facing constraints regarding the production of a new model of inhaler that they were going to launch, and their choice was white material to white material, which is one of the most challenging materials and color to work upon with laser plastic welding. Blackhawk was able to help them by working with plastic resin companies to come up with laser compatible compounds. Evidently, Blackhawk’s customer journey starts from material test stage and extends all the way to process development and production. In another winning instance, Blackhawk helped a pharmaceutical company by working closely with resin suppliers to successfully bring out the products with the same color that the client desired. A fair portion of Blackhawk’s clientele includes medical device manufacturers; consumer electronics and automotive electronics manufacturers are amongst the other major categories of clients they cater to.

The company’s success streak soon drew the attention of Dukane, a major plastic welding company, who acquired Blackhawk. With the acquisition, Dukane was able to expand its portfolio of solutions. Hamilton briefs, “nothing will really change for us with the exception that we will be operating from their west coast division. Our first kind of joint project is to develop and integrate machine vision inspection system into the laser plastic welding system. So, now we can inspect in real-time as we are welding and it will be a game changer in the industry as nobody can do this.”