Set-up times and Scientific Injection Molding

Hello All! Pretty broad range questions. My management has asked what it would take to reduce our setup times due to needing to turn inventory over 6 times a year. I mold about 2000 different parts, not including the same parts in different colors and configurations. I have 10 presses, 80 to 700 tons. I've also been asked about implementing the scientific molding approach to our processing. (my big mouth...).

I guess I'm looking for suggested reference sources, equipment needed, training resources, etc. I know replies could be pages long. Been reading John Bozelli's articles, Routis stuff, anything that pop's up on Google. Any and all reply's,advice, ideas much, much appreciated. Any clarification and questions please hit me up. Thanks G.P.

This is the place to learn SM.
Also visit WJT Associates site for some advice on setup time reduction. Just ignore the non-PC stuff there. (Setup carts shouldn't be referred as " Taco Carts"!)

KOM

brent

Ok you need to standardize all of the molds and machines first! SMED as its called so you will be ready for the inventory turn over. That means mold lifting devices (MUST HANG REASONBLY LEVEL), water, connections, ejector connection, hydraulic connections and if possible nozzle tip orifices and radius. For this machines and no resin change over; part to part in 25-30 minutes.
Suhas has info on establishing robust injection processes and you can hire all sorts of folks as well. In reality it's a fact and best practices approach to getting the most parts with minimal scrap. After learning the how's and why's , I don't think you need anything other than process data and the skills to crunch the data to know you have reached your goal. We use cavity pressure on some molds but that's due to multiple cavities and 2K components. We don't use it for every mood, but it has its uses.
Rick.

You also need to have the equipment and procedures in place to have the resin ready to go when the setup is complete.

Also, if your company is willing to shell out the cash, RJG's eDART system is a great tool for scientific molding. I don't know if you've used it but basically every function makes a tech or engineers job easier

Standardize everything you can afford to. Use teams for mold changes to eliminate going from the front to back of press. Pre-stage everything needed for the changeover. Eliminate walking away from the press for anything. Eliminate the scavenger hunt. Being an extreme custom molder. We here, cannot standardize all of our mold plates or manifold all the molds due to the shear number of molds we have now and put into production on a yearly basis so we concentrate on improving the overall systems. Currently we average about 20 min. for a full mold change with material on presses sized from 40T to 610T. Last shot to First Shot. We conduct an average of 130 mold changes a week so it needs to be efficient.

Of course if you cannot get to making good parts quickly after the changeover it really won't matter. This is where Sc. Molding can really help, as long as the presses and molds are proper. Sc. Molding will not fix poor part design, machine capability, mold condition or crappy material.

Hi Guys! Thank you for the inputs. It's great to get ideas from various facilities. Keep them coming! Great forum! G.P.