Here’s a quick article that outlines the benefits of the manufacturing mindset that is changing the way manufacturing is being done. The implementation of lean manufacturing through trying to make value flow at the pull of the customer prevents and eliminates the 7 categories of waste in your processes: Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-processing, Overproduction, and Defects.
Learn more about lean manufacturing by reading the full article HERE.
Many complex and critical parts of machinery are difficult to make since they have challenging shapes and sizes. Furthermore, some injection molding companies do not always have the expertise, knowledge and equipment to make these complex parts. That’s why, when choosing your injection molder, it’s necessary to find out whether the molder has the specialization to mold complex parts using injection molding.
The Pathway to Molding Complex Parts
Molding complex parts of varying shapes and sizes and using a variety of materials is an art as well as a science. The molder should have in-depth knowledge of different materials and a thorough understanding of the injection molding equipment. This will ensure the end customer gets a high performing and precision part.
The Process of Molding Complex Parts
The process of making complex parts with injection molding depends on using scientific methods, the latest analytical tools and process technologies to ensure the resultant parts offer high quality performance. Usually, the process is divided into four stages. These stages are as follows:
Designing the complex part
Selecting the right material
Designing the mold
Process control
Designing the Part: It’s important that the part is accurately and precisely designed, taking into consideration its end use. Designing the part allows for changes and adjustments during the initial stages and this helps reduce the overall cost of making the part as well as the timeline to make the part. During the designing phase, more emphasis is laid on maximizing the design to ensure it can be manufactured seamlessly and fulfill its end-use requirement.
Material Selection: This perhaps is one of the most important steps in the entire process of injection molding. When it comes to complex materials, often multiple materials are required. Hence, there is a need to select polymers that are compatible with one another as well as ones that can bond permanently and offer faultless performance.
Mold Designing: During the mold designing process, it is important and critical to keep a close watch on the mold cavity parameters, such as temperature and pressure. This is the stage where changes and adjustments are made in real-time to ensure the resultant complex parts are consistent in quality and performance. The mold design is dependent to a certain extent on the end-use of the part and the materials being used to make the part.
Process Control: Based on the design of the product and end-use, the appropriate injection molding technologies are used. There is a wide range of complex molding process, such as overmolding, multi-shot molding and insert molding, that can be used based on design and end-use. For instance, if there is a need to make the part appear attractive and stylish and give it a good grip, overmolding is often used during the injection molding process. This helps to reduce vibrations, improves resistance to UV rays, and it also enhances electrical insulation, thereby increasing the longevity of the part.
Injection molding can be customized to make any type of part, complex or otherwise. Each part is made using a set of production processes that help to hasten the production and molding of the part while maximizing its performance and quality.
As one of the fastest growing scientific and engineering technologies in the world, Nanotechnology holds an incredible amount of potential, especially in the manufacturing and plastics industries. But it is also being used in fields such as bioscience, medicine, engineering, pharmacology, material sciences, and defense.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
What is Nanotechnology? It involves the engineering of functional devices or systems by controlling matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Now you begin to understand the near limitless potential. Scientists now have the ability to manipulate the atomic structure of the very molecules that make up the materials in the world around us.
This enormous growth potential and set of possibilities has given industries like manufacturing exciting improvements. The very structure of materials can be changed and improved through nanotechnology. For example, the plastics industry has embraced the use of nano-materials to provide plastics with greater conductivity, increased strength, flexibility and durability, and unique surface characteristics, etc.
Other nano-scale materials can be used in thin films to make them anti-reflective, self-cleaning, ultraviolet or infrared-resistant, antifog, anti-microbial, scratch-resistant, electrically conductive, anti-stick, water-repellent and oil-repellant…the list goes on.
NanoMoldCoating
Our own NanoMoldCoating product is one of these innovative new polymer films that creates optimal solutions to most of the typical issues in injection molding. The coating dramatically increases production output, while reducing costs associated with manual part removal, costly mold release agents, part scrap, slow cycle times, and repetitive mold maintenance due to sticking problems.
If you’d like to find out more about Nanotechnology or NanoMoldCoating, please feel free to contact us HERE and we’ll be glad to answer any questions you have.
While far from certain, the future of plastics manufacturing in the United States is showing some current trends that are worth watching closely. “Economists and analysts are watching trends in manufacturing closely, as it’s an industry that is in part driving the economic recovery in the United States.”
Here’s a good article that summarizes the most important trends including 3D printing and robotic technologies.
The world of injection molding has advanced substantially, and new approaches are being adopted continuously to reduce costs. Most of these approaches look to methods of lean manufacturing to save material, eliminate secondary processes and operations, and use smaller presses.
Here are some more tips to reduce cost in the injection molding industry.
External Gas Molding
Also, known as EGM, external gas molding was initially developed to remove sink marks from the mold components. However, this technique can help reduce the weight as well as material cost by allowing the molder to mold thinner walls across the ribs. These thinner walls do not have any sink marks.
So, using gas-driven molding can actually help reduce costs. However, if you are using gas-assisted technology for molding components, it is necessary to design the component carefully. The engineers would have to change the order of the design sequence to ensure accuracy and precision of the part.
In this technique, gas is injected between the inner mold surface and the plastic resin, after the mold has been filled. The injected gas applied pressure on the resin and as it cools and shrinks, the resin is pushed against the opposite surface of the mold.
In-Mold UV Painting
This technology has been developed by a Danish company and is a unique method. The method can be used for insert molding and multiple component molding. It uses the stack molding process, wherein the center of the stack is divided into rotating core columns. The central motor indexes each column at 90 degrees, thereby giving the column four sides. This particular feature of the design ensures the stack mold is not just lighter, but also faster acting.
This technology manages to incorporate four different steps into a single cycle. These steps are injection molding, spray-painting the component, UV curing the sprayed paint and finally taking out and packaging the component. The technology can also be successful and can reduce costs if the molder develops a good paint delivery system and uses the right UV curing technology. Once these two processes are in place, they offer superior part performance. As the just molded part is painted, it ensures optimal bonding between the part and paint.
Better Equipment
In many cases, the equipment you use to make the molds is even more essential than the methods. Low quality or cheap equipment will not only produce lower quality molds, but will also lower productivity and increase down-time used for cleaning or repair.
That’s why Nano Mold Coating is the ideal choice for plastics and rubber processors in today’s competitive manufacturing environment. Our coatings dramatically increase production output, while reducing costs associated with manual part removal, costly mold release agents, part scrap, slow cycle times, and repetitive mold maintenance due to sticking problems. Find out more about our Nanotechnology HERE.
For more information about how you can reduce costs in the injection molding industry, please feel welcome to contact us.
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