The Process of Plastic Injection Molding

By Jim Pickeringson

For decades, many hundreds of thousands of companies rely on manufacturing technology to help them produce, en masse, all the pieces and parts that go in to the manufacture of their product. Many millions of these parts are created through a process known as plastic injection molding.

For these reasons, it is in a company's best interest to do some research in to the plastic injection molding process to determine exactly how it can benefit them. Let us take a look at the doll manufacturer again. By implementing a system where each doll part is produced using plastic injection molding, they will ensure that each piece is a uniform size, shape and color.

Primarily, do you mass produce an object that is initially separate from your product, but that your product absolutely must have in order to function properly? An example of this would be vinyl o-rings and washers or suction cups, to name just a very, very few. If the answer to this question is a resounding "yes" and you do not have plastic injection molding capability, then you are wasting money every day your operation is in production.

This ensures uniformity across the board and eliminates costly production errors that may produce 450,000 of the doll hand correctly, but creates flaws in the remaining 50,000 only for the company to have to redo those doll parts. Obviously, this type of error would cost them a considerable amount of time and money and it could all be avoided with by using plastic injection molding machinery in the production process.

Overall, the process of plastic injection molding goes through 6 phases from beginning to end. First the molds are clamped in to place for production, then the plastic pellets are loaded in to the top of the machine so they may be melted in a super-heated condition -- this is where any dye may be added to the process, once the plastic has been melted it is then injected in to the molds.

However, once the analysis has been complete, many companies realize they will not only save a considerable amount of money with this process, but a considerable amount of time as well. - 21396

About the Author:

Jim Pickeringson writes about Plastic Injection Molding for manufacturing companies. He also has 20 years of experience in Injection Molding