Establishing a standard or Standardization is at the forefront of many large companies. It is not easy for a large team to all work in sync without some process established for everyone to follow. This not only applies to kan-ban systems and getting paperwork done but to maintenance tasks as well.
Creating a standardized process for handling all of your company’s injection molds can save a huge amount of time. It is important to have a plan for what happens after a mold comes out of the press. There are many steps that are typically forgotten about or go unnoticed by management to get a mold ready for its next production run. Molds can be similar but each will have its own quirks and it can be helpful to have this documented.
If your company already has a standardized process for every step of the maintenance and cleaning that goes into every mold, then congrats, you are ahead of most. For companies that don’t have this figured out here are a few things to keep in mind.
An injection mold is doing a lot of work for your company and is put under a lot of pressure to perform. In order to meet the performance requirements it is important that the mold is removed and inspected from time to time.
Inspect the tool for any wear of items. Is there slight galling of ejector pins or worn edges on shutoffs? It is a good practice to document where the mold is most likely to wear first so all technicians know where to inspect.
When a mold has parts that wear out it is important to have spare parts on hand. It is very handy to have a way of tracking what spare parts you have in stock and what parts may need to be ordered or made. It is also helpful to have the ability to track how many of a specific spare part have been used. This gives your company the ability to see what breaks the most and take action to stop it in the future.
On top of tracking what spare parts you have it is important to have your mold drawings and models organized and readily available. If a piece breaks and is not on hand a model or drawing will help get a new piece made fast. Knowing where the drawing is means the tool builder will have access to the necessary information faster.
Taking the molding process even further, there is so many different options to secondary equipment used to support a mold and molding machine. This ranges from the water temperature controllers used whether it be hot or cold, a hot runner controller, robots, end of arm tools, sprue pickers, conveyors, part sorters, water lines, ejector bars, etc. With all of this auxiliary equipment it is important to know which pieces should be used and how to set them up. Creating a standard way to document this is key to quick changeover times for a molding process.
Creating a standard process for all the different aspects of a manufacturing facility can be a daunting task. However each process improved pushes the company forward.