Preface to 8^th Edition

Wim De Vos

CEO
SPE - Society of Plastics Engineers

Ronse, East Flanders, Belgium

The world of plastic products has been growing at an average rate of over five percent per year in the last decades, which makes plastics by far the fastest growing material on the globe. This growth is related to the versatile properties of polymers and plastics. Perhaps some of the most important aspects contributing to this spectacular growth are design and assembly. Making sure that plastic parts are designed optimally for assembly has become intrinsic and fundamental part of engineering of new products. Paul Tres has done a tremendously prolific job in bringing together in one concise book all the technical aspects of this process.

 The book is a 'must' for all those engineers, developers, and designers who are working on tomorrow's products. The detailed presentations provide many examples, clearly illustrated with succinct yet very effective drawings. This makes the book the ultimate outline of the perfect syllabus for all engineering classes in plastics and product development programs at any university.

At SPE, we know that we have to educate the OEMs and their product developers on the great potential and opportunities in designing and combining plastic parts with each other or with other materials. Paul Tres' Designing Plastic Parts for Assembly should be mandatory literature for all of them.

I truly believe that this book can open more doors and add opportunities in our plastics industry. The book is very well conceived and therefore experienced plastics engineers, as well as product developers (who might have only limited knowledge of the properties and behavior of plastics) can use it as a perfect, extremely helpful synopsis.