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Injection MoldingProcessing

10 Advantages of Plastic Injection Molding

by Chirag December 12, 2017
written by Chirag

Using injection molding or the molded parts has proven to be excellent ways to manufacture parts and products. This technology carries plastic to a heated barrel. Plastic is placed in the molding cavity then and the final product is molded in the molding cavity.

Plastic injection molding is preferred over other plastic molding methods for some reasons. It is simple, efficient and consistent. Do not hesitate to manufacture parts/products using plastic injection molding if you own or manage manufacturing facilities. Let’s examine many of the reasons why many manufacturing facilities are adopting this method.

Plastic injection molding

If you are reading this blog, I suppose you know about plastic injection molding, one of the most common methods of mass production of plastic parts. To test this, plastic is supplied to the heated cylinder using this technique. The material is mixed, placed in the molding cavity, molded in the molding cavity and cured to the final product. Although you may not know, plastic injection has many advantages and advantages over comparative plastic processing and manufacturing methods. The top 10 merit of plastic injection molding is as follows.

 

1) It’s accurate

Plastic injection molding is really an exact method that it may fabricate nearly any kind of plastic part. There are specific design limitations, however, the molds which are made permit the end product to be really precise. Actually, precision is usually within 0.005 inches.

 

2) Versatility

Apart from being accurate, plastic injection molding is also flexible. It’s simple to change the color that the product is being produced in as well as the type of material that is being produced.

 

3) It’s fast

Plastic injection molding is fantastic for lengthy manufacturing runs because it is incredibly fast. The precise speed relies upon the how to go about the mold under consideration. However, only fifteen to thirty seconds pass in between each cycle time. This rate of production is a lot quicker than other available production methods.

 

4) Low labor costs

A part of the great point of plastic injection molding is that the device operates with automated automatic startup tool and improves efficiency. Because it is difficult to monitor the work of automated equipment that only works rarely, less work is required.

 

5) Environmentally Friendly

Because the majority of the plastic-type could be ground-up and reused for future production, there’s low waste in the plastic injection molding process.

Plastic injection molding

6) Well suited for creating high-strength components

A great advantage of plastic injection molding is the ability to add fillers to the ingredients during processing, thereby increasing the strength of the finished parts while reducing the density of the liquid plastics. Plastic injection molding is an ideal process for industries and products where parts must be strong

 

7) A smooth finished appearance

Plastic injection molding is usually a process in which the manufactured part has little or no finishing touch. This is because the shape of the collapsed part is closest to the finished appearance. Yes, the surface finish is really good except shape! Returning to the advantage of # 3 in this list, here is another example of how low injection effort can result in injection molding.

 

8) Multiple Materials

Simultaneous injection molding allows simultaneous use of multiple types of materials. For example, you can add a filler to the hopper and add strength, or change the properties of the plastic material.

 

9) Less expensive than plastic machining

Initial production of molds can be expensive at cost of several thousand dollars. However, once the shape is created, you can create very large quantities of plastic parts with minimal cost. Because of this, a large series of plastic processing can cost 25 times more than plastic injection molding.

 

10) It’s broadly applied

Plastic injection molding is among the most widely used plastic producing processes. Just browse around, you will see lots of items that were likely made through the process for sure.

December 12, 2017 1 comment
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Tim-wood
Injection MoldingProcessing

7 Types of Waste in Injection Molding – “TIMWOOD”

by Chirag December 11, 2017
written by Chirag

As a trainer and consultant in lean manufacturing. I stumbled upon the 7 types of wastes – TIMWOOD. This kindled my curiosity to consider the different sorts of waste inside a typical Injection Molding process and classify them in to these 7 kinds of waste.

7 Types of Waste

Naturally, Injection Molding is really a complex procedure that involves coordination among various departments. There’s great potential for reducing waste in the Molding Process.

1. “T” for Transportation – The unnecessary movement of people or parts between processes.

e.g.

  • Moving molds from storage to the press and vice versa
  • The movement of resin from warehouse to the press
  • The movement of tools and auxiliary device
  • The unnecessary movement of finished goods or semi-finished goods before they are shipped

Address transportation issues by

  • If possible, placing the process nearby, using material that shifts from tactics to process without significant delays
  • Expansion of production route
  • Acquiring multiple storage locations
  • Not creating extended or complicated material handling system

 

2. “I” for Inventory – Holding unnecessary material or parts when not needed

e.g.

  • Extra resin inventory – Stocking more resin than necessary
  • Surplus parts inventory – Producing parts more than necessary
  • Extra machine spare/expendable items/tools

To avoid getting over stock, you can

  • Adjust the development process to achieve smooth flow
  • Work with a small batch size
  • Adhere to the first-in-first-out principle of stagnant material.
  • Reduce switching time

 

3. “M” for Motion – Unnecessary Motion that contributes no value

e.g.

  • Opening and closing the security gates for removing parts from the mold/tool without using sprue robots
  • Manual de-gating and extra secondary operation
  • Reaching too far over for handling parts
  • Walking around for searching tools

Reducing motion waste by

  • Improving workstation layouts to avoid excessive walking or bending
  • Organizing techniques to allow parts to transfer easily from one hand to another
  • Redesigning work layout to reduce change in direction of material
  • Reduction of batch size

 

4. “W” for Waiting – People or parts that wait for a work cycle to be completed

e.g.

  • Waiting for Machine – Barrel heating, mold heating/cooling, hot runner manifold, machine failure, machine maintenance
  • Waiting for Material – Preheating
  • Waiting for Men – Paper making for quality inspection/approval, missing schedule
  • Waiting for Mold – Tool repairing, tool adjustments under out-of-tolerance conditions

The key to eliminating waiting waste is

  • Procedures
  • Following checklists for activities where available
  • Keeping the work area to specified standard

 

5. “O” for Over-processing – Using equipments that are not necessary for the work

e.g.

  • Making parts which are of tighter tolerance than is needed by Customer
  • Over rejecting/over inspecting parts beyond customer needs
  • Using bigger press/greater tonnage press that is needed for that mold
  • Produce parts with more cycle time
  • Running multi-cavity tool with cavities off leading to more cycle time/part produced

Reduce over-processing by:

  • Standardizing best approaches for workers to follow along with
  • Setting obvious specifications and quality acceptance standards

 

6. “O” for Over-production – Generating parts than precisely what it takes

e.g.

  • Producing more parts than customers need
  • Making more parts in anticipation of more orders
  • Making many parts due to schedule problems
  • Running a mold when only one part is required from multiple cavities

Avoid over-production by:

  • Dealing with smaller sized batch sizes
  • Making more reliable processes
  • Creating stable schedules
  • Balancing cells or departments
  • Using accurate forecast information which reflects the particular demand

 

7. “D” for Defects – Rework, Scrap, Incorrect documentation

e.g.

  • Making wrong parts – wrong specifications/color/wrong Rev
  • Wrong set up – secondary operations
  • Parts with missing documents/documents with errors
  • Packaging parts with incorrect/wrong box labels
  • Mixing two various parts while shipping

To reduce the regularity of defects, attempt to

  • Institute sufficient training to enhance workers’ skills
  • Improve processes
  • Source capable suppliers
  • Reduce operator error
  • Lower the surplus stock
  • Improve transportation plans

 

There’s also another kind of waste – Skills wastage which is recognized as the eighth kind of waste

e.g.

  • Allowing untrained/under-trained Labor or Operator to function specialized equipment
  • Insufficient specialized training sources for that molding operations personnel
  • Underutilizing human sources for doing rudimentary tasks

 

Identifying these kinds of wastes and classifying them in to the 7/8 kinds of waste could be useful in creating a Lean Molding Shop. As more shops around the world adjust to Lean culture, this exercise could be interesting for that Injection Molding Business.

December 11, 2017 0 comment
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