Definition: Factory: a building or group of building for the manufacture of goods.

Abstract view is that the mold is our factory. In a car factory where the end product is the automobile than our factory as a mold is similar. This view is not unknown to people but it is not considered by most.

The environment is where we place the factory. By this do we place the factory in an old neighborhood, with no support and or in a brand new neighborhood with all the amenities that people like and make life easier? Is the environment consistent or does it change all the time.

When a mold is initially test shot it should have parameters, these are what material is to be shot, what temperature should this material be at, what temperature should our mold be at and if we were so fortunate to have had run mold flow than how fast do we fill it and what pressure do we use to pack out our part. In reality all these things happen within the mold itself.

The environment is now our machine, shop and personnel whom are operating or directing the conditions we shall place onto our mold (factory). The questions to ask in your shop or your vendors shop are there molds which run better on one machine versus another machine. Do operators complain that why are we running the mold here when it runs so much better over there. Or the real question is why when the mold was test shot we got beautiful parts and now we cannot make good parts? This is a real tool maker issue and also an environmental issue for our mold/factory.

This goes back to the environment, but what really happens is that we go in and change the mold, so as to accommodate the environment at hand, not necessary a good thing. This is especially true when our environment is going to change; it is not the final machine this mold/factory is going to run in.

Since the mold is the factory which produces our product, should not the conditions within our mold be those that are monitored and controlled? As previously written and discussed these may be a review for some, but the mold temperature, melt temperature, fill rate (fill time) and plastic pressure are minimally the few that should be monitored for our tool/ mold/ factory.

When asked about this or to investigate these areas it is found that they are results. For example fill time results can now be found on many machines, this time is the result of how much speed, pressure, is set, where our start point is set and where our transfer position is set. Can we go in and set everything the same on this machine as we did on its sister machine and get the same results? NO! Well it be close? Possibly! Well we need to make minor adjustments? More than likely...

Now the author may take some comments from the above statements, but what is being stated is based on over too many years of hands on work. Machines today are very good and very repeatable but they all require calibration at some point, and as each individual is an individual so are machines.

If the molder or processor makes a change and thinks about the mold as the factory, than recording the fill time, plastic pressure, steel temperature, plastic temperature are going to be the first steps in having a smooth running factory.

If one is a tool maker, and builds and test shoots tools outside the final environment where a tool is headed, than understanding that environment is key to eliminate the issues that it does not work. These would be which machine and what can it do as far as speeds, feeds, and pressures, whose raw materials, and anything else about the environment so as to eliminate the in and out phenomenon that always takes place. 

 SL Silvey

 silveysplastics@hotmail.com