How Starlim-Sterner manufactures small components by the billions

Starlim-Sterner is a big player in the market of silicone components. The company currently produces 14 billion small components a year, specialising in making small silicone components, as well as offering multi-component injection moulding.

If you’re a customer of Starlim-Sterner, you can expect big things, says the company: Large factories; large machines; an equally large amount of expertise but, small components. With its office in the Austrian town of Marchtrenk, the company specialises in both manufacturing small components from silicone, as well as multi-component injection moulding. Whether it’s one, two or three components, it doesn’t matter as long as at least one component is made from silicone. 

Injection moulding machines manufacture products in enormous quantities. “We recently finalised a project with one of our customers which involved a year’s worth of components totalling 400 million,” explains Karl Großalber, head of sales. “We have eight injection moulding machines working on one project.”

As a contract manufacturer, Starlim-Sterner says it is sharply focussed on mass production. The international group manufactures 14 billion products per year – that’s equivalent to almost two small components per person. Its production sites are located in Canada, Germany, Italy and Austria, with a sales office in China.

All-in-one solutions

A substantial amount of the company’s manufacturing output is for the life science sector. Seals, valves, protective caps, surgical tools, dummies, jets – Starlim-Sterner currently produces around 1,100 different products. The in-house product development team assists customers, checking whether products will work in real life by using simulations before production goes ahead.

“For example, we can show our customers whether their new seal will be 100% reliable in reality, taking into account all external factors such as pressure and temperature. In this way, we can make any changes before any sort of prototype is produced. This saves customers a lot of time and money,” explains Leopold Pühringer, head of starlim//sterner’s product development team, describing the advantages of the ‘Finite Element Simulation’.

“We follow the full-service provider principle,” explains Großalber. “From development, to design, to tool manufacture, to production and all the way to logistical solutions tailor-made to customer requirements - we can offer the full package. And if one of our customers wants to have a silicone component in pale lavender-blue and covered with stars, we have partner companies who can do just that!” he adds.