Lamson & Sessions (Cleveland) produces thermoplastic conduit, enclosures, wiring outlet boxes and accessories for the electrical, construction, consumer, power and communications markets. Among its specific products, the company manufactures millions of injection-molded PVC electrical wiring boxes and junction boxes per year.
To obtain approval from Underwriters Laboratories and the Canadian Standards Association, each box requires a gasket seal to prevent water intrusion. For more than 20 years, the company used die-cut foam gaskets with adhesive backing to perform the sealing operation. But with 13 different box sizes and an increasing production schedule, the manual application of the gaskets became increasingly unwieldy and expensive. Variation in the size of the gaskets could also result in poor seals.