Plastic tubing manufacturers have a few methods at their disposal for creating the products that their clients need. The most common method is extrusion. Plastic extrusion is a fairly simple process that can be used to create plastic tubing out of many different kinds of materials at relatively low cost and in large volumes. It involves short lead times, can be automated to a reasonable degree and it involves very little waste of plastic materials, which makes it attractive from a cost standpoint and from an environmental sustainability and responsibility standpoint as well.

The extrusion process involves taking a stock of raw plastic, usually in pellet form, and placing it in a hopper that is suspended above or directly connected to a conveyance channel. Once released into the channel by the hopper, the plastic gets forced down the length of the channel by a long shearing screw. The turning of the screw, combined with supplemental heat provided by heating elements, causes the plastic to become molten. At the end of the channel, the plastic is forced through an extrusion die, which causes the plastic to take a tubular shape. It emerges on the other side of the die as plastic tubing, and it can then be cut to length and sent for additional processing if necessary.

Plastic tubing manufacturers also make variations on the extrusions process available, such as pultrusion. Pultrusion involves the incorporation of a material other than plastic in order to make a composite tube product. Extrusion and pultrusion are the two most common methods for the construction of plastic tubing. Other manner of molding methods can be employed, but plastic tubing is usually extruded. Plastic tubing manufacturers can take a single manufacturing process and use it to produce a wide variety of different tubing products.