DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS
Improve Molded
Part Quality
T
he injection molding process, while simple
in concept, is complex in execution. Typical
injection molding machines have many
adjustable parameters that affect the quality of fin-
ished plastic parts. Quality can be described in
terms of mechanical characteristics, dimensional
conformity and appearance.
To ensure failure free operation, it is necessary to
quantify the effect of product performance proper-
ties on the molding condition. Since there are many
process parameters involved, determination of the
molding condition is very complicated. In addition,
no established design rules are available.
In 50 Words
Or Less
• The effect of process parameters on the force
required to open an injection molded closure
for medical infusion bottles was investigated
using design of experiments.
• Analysis of the results shows injection
speed, mold temperature, melt temperature,
cooling time and ejection speed were the
most significant parameters.
72 I JULY 2003 I www.asq.org
Traditionally, molders have sought the best molding con-
dition through a combination of many years of working
experience and trial and error, but this method is time con-
suming and costly. Due to the global competition in the
injection molding industry, the trial and error approach to
determine process parameters no longer suffices.
Several researchers have attempted various approaches to
determine process conditions that will not only reduce the
time to market but also result in high quality of molded
parts.1 One of the most efficient methods of process opti-
mization and systematic investigation of the process is
design of experiments (DOE). This method consists of pur-
poseful changes to the inputs of a process to observe the cor-
responding changes in the outputs.2
Practical Use of DOE
Medical products, while sharing many material and process
requirements with other injection molding applications, also
differ significantly. After molding, the product is often subject-
ed to washing or cleaning steps, dried at high temperatures
and assembled into final form using ultrasonic sealing.
A thermal sterilization product using either ethylene oxide
or radiation is applied to the final product before it leaves
the plant. Finally, the product experiences shipping, ware-
housing and shelf life conditions at various temperatures
and humidity levels before it is used.3
The plastic part we studied is the closure for infusion bot-
tles, which is shown from four angles in the illustration. The
closure is molded in high density polyethylene and has com-
plex geometry plus many functional properties. For this arti-
cle, we selected only one functional property—the force to
 Due to the global competition
in the injection molding
industry, the trial and error
approach to determine
by Maurício Bagueira de Vasconcellos Azeredo, process parameters no
Sérgio Sodré da Silva and Kamel Rekab longer suffices.

open the closure, shown in another photo. We selected TABLE 1 Process Parameters
this property because of its importance to product perfor- And Their Two Levels of Work
mance. Extremely high forces will make it difficult to
Process parameters Low level High level
open the product. On the other hand, low forces can result
in damage during handling, shipping or warehousing. Injection speed (percentage setting) 40 75
Mold temperature (Celsius) 25 45
Experimental Approach Melt temperature (Celsius) 205 235
The approach we used involves an experiment that Holding pressure (bar) 25 45
included all the parameters that could affect the selected
Holding time 2 3
functional property. The process parameters under con-
Cooling time 10 25
sideration are presented in Table 1. For each parameter,
two levels of work were selected. The high and low values Ejection speed (percentage setting) 5 25
of each processing parameter indicate the maximum and
minimum values at which the
plastic part could be molded
with no process disturbance.
We conducted the molding TABLE 2 Design Matrix for Seven Factors and Two Levels
experiments using a 12-cavity
injection mold on an Engel Injection Mold Melt Holding Holding Cooling Ejection Force to open
Run speed temperature temperature pressure time time speed the closure
100-ton injection molding
A B C D E F G y1 y2 y3
machine. The experiments
included eight combinations 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 64.33 73.43 70.95
at two levels according to a 2 -1 1 1 -1 -1 1 -1 42.77 41.15 39.49
2III7-4 fractional factorial 3 1 -1 1 -1 1 -1 -1 71.62 78.44 73.96
design.4 Under each treat- 4 -1 -1 1 1 -1 -1 1 65.51 62.48 59.05
ment, we made three replica-
5 1 1 -1 1 -1 -1 -1 63.02 64.12 62.67
tions. We used a tensile
device to measure the force 6 -1 1 -1 -1 1 -1 1 44.12 46.46 32.33
needed to open the closure. 7 1 -1 -1 -1 -1 1 1 68.59 70.89 71.53
Table 2 shows the coded test 8 -1 -1 -1 1 1 1 -1 41.04 44.02 41.89
matrix with response values.

QUALITY PROGRESS I JULY 2003 I 73

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

Analysis of Results We also built an empirical model to relate the signifi-

We analyzed the results by calculating the
main effect and then identifying the most sig-
nificant parameters. We used three methods to
identify the latter: the first method, a numerical
analysis carried out in a standard way through
the analysis of variance technique (ANOVA),
and the next two, graphical analyses using
average effect plots and a Pareto diagram.
FIGURE 1 Average Effect Plots
90
80
Mean force (N)
cant parameters with the predicted force. The validity of
the empirical model was checked by means of residual
analysis and coefficient of determination calculation.
Main Effects
The main effect is a quantitative measure of the impact
of the parameters on the response. Based on the data
from Table 2, we calculated the average response for each
variable and its effect. The effect is calculated by subtract-
ing the average response at the low level from the aver-
age response at the high level. Table 3 shows the process
parameters and the average response and effect for each.
We carried out the ANOVA5, 6 to identify the most
important parameters to the force to open the injection
closure. Table 4 shows the ANOVA results.

+A
70
-B +C +D -E -F +G Based on the F-distribution, for a parameter to be sta-
60
-D +E +F tistically significant at the 5% confidence level, its F-ratio
+B -C -G
50 has to be larger than Fc (0.95, 1, 16) = 4.49. When using
-A
40 this methodology, only injection speed (A), mold tem-
30 perature (B), melt temperature (C), cooling time (F) and
Factors
ejection speed (G) are considered significant.
Additional information about the significance of
effects may be obtained graphically from the average
FIGURE 2 Pareto Diagram of Half Effects effect plots and the Pareto diagram. The average effect
plots7 give the relative importance of each effect on the
15 response. Figure 1 shows how the force to open the clo-
sure is affected by all the injection molding parameters.
10
|Effect / 2|

The plots indicate the most variation in the average force

needed to open the closure is coming from injection
5
speed (A) and the least is coming from holding time (E).
Another approach to represent the significance of
0
A B C G F D E
Factors
TABLE 4 Analysis of Variance Results

Average Response and Effect Source of Sum of Degree of Mean

TABLE 3 F0
variation squares freedom square
For Each Process Parameter
A 3110.84 1 3110.84 226.34*
Process Average response
Effect B 452.23 1 452.23 32.90*
parameters Low level High level
C 356.51 1 356.51 25.94*
A 46.69 69.46 22.77
D 40.46 1 40.46 2.94
B 62.42 53.74 -8.68
E 34.27 1 34.27 2.49
C 54.22 61.93 7.71
F 120.15 1 120.15 8.74*
D 56.78 59.38 2.6
G 178.65 1 178.65 13*
E 59.27 56.88 -2.39
Residual 219.90 16 13.74
F 60.32 55.84 -4.48
Total 4513.01 23
G 55.35 60.81 5.46
* (p-value<0.05)

74 I JULY 2003 I www.asq.org

 effects is the Pareto diagram of the absolute value of all
half effects. These values are presented in Table 5. More
details on this method can be found in Understanding
Industrial Designed Experiments.8
The Pareto diagram in Figure 2 indicates injection
speed (A) is the most important parameter and holding
time (E) is insignificant.
The average effect plots and the Pareto diagram sup-
port the ANOVA findings. There is no conflict among
the three methods. The most important parameters are Product Usage: Closure opening and performance.
injection speed, mold temperature, melt temperature,
cooling time and ejection speed. At run one, for example, the predicted force to
open the closure can be calculated, substituting
Regression Model the regression model A = 75%, B = 45˚C, C =
We fitted an empirical model using only the most 235˚C, F = 25 s and G = 25%, as follows:
important injection molding parameters. We built this
model using multiple regression analysis.9, 10 It can be
used to obtain the predicted values of forces at any point ( ) ( ) (
ŷ = 58.08 + 11.38 75 - 57.5 - 4.34 45 - 35 + 3.86 235 - 220 - 2.24
17.5 10 15 ) (
in the region of experimentation. The fitted regression
model is: ( ) 10( ) 15( ) 7.5( ) 10 (
ŷ = 58.08 + 11.38 A - 57.5 - 4.34 B - 35 + 3.86 C - 220 - 2.24 25 - 17.5 + 2.73 25 - 15 = 69.47
17.5 )
( 17.5 ) 10 ( ) 15 ( ) (
ŷ = 58.08 + 11.38 A - 57.5 - 4.34 B - 35 + 3.86 C - 220 - 2.24 F - Since )
17.5 +
7.5
the ( )
G - 15 values for run one are
observed
2.73
10
64.33, 73.43 and 70.95, the residuals are e1 = y1- ŷ
) ( ) ( )
B - 35 + 3.86 C - 220 - 2.24 F - 17.5 + 2.73 G - 15
10 15 7.5 10 ( ) = 64.33 - 69.47 = -5.14, e2 = y2 - ŷ = 73.43 - 69.47 =
3.96 and e3 = y3 - ŷ = 70.95 - 69.47 = 1.48. The val-
ues of y1, y2, y3, ŷ, e1, e2 and e3 for each run are
where: presented in Table 6.
ŷ = Predicted force. Figures 3 and 4 (p. 76) present the plot of
A = Injection speed. residuals vs. the predicted values and normal
B = Mold temperature. probability plot of the residuals, respectively.
C = Melt temperature. Both check the validity of the model.
F = Cooling time. The residual plot in Figure 3 looks for indepen-
G = Ejection speed. dence of the residuals and for inequality of vari-
ance in the data. An increasing or decreasing
pattern may indicate the residuals are not inde-
pendent. This plot reveals neither an obvious pat-
TABLE 6 Residuals tern nor inequality of variance.
The normal probability plot
Run A B C F G y1 y2 y3 ŷ e1 =y1- ŷ e2 =y2- ŷ e3 =y3- ŷ of the residuals in Figure 4 tests
1 75 45 235 25 25 64.33 73.43 70.95 69.47 -5.14 3.96 1.48 normality. Because no points
fall any great distance from the
2 40 45 235 25 5 42.77 41.15 39.49 41.24 1.53 -0.09 -1.75
line, the error terms appear to
3 75 25 235 10 5 71.62 78.44 73.96 77.17 -5.55 1.27 -3.21
be normally distributed.
4 40 25 235 10 25 65.51 62.48 59.05 59.86 5.65 2.62 -0.81 Figures 3 and 4 and the calcu-
5 75 45 205 10 5 63.02 64.12 62.67 60.78 2.24 3.34 1.89 lated value for the coefficient of
6 40 45 205 10 25 44.12 46.46 32.33 43.47 0.65 2.99 -11.14 determination (R2 = 0.935) sup-
7 75 25 205 25 25 68.59 70.89 71.53 70.44 -1.85 0.45 1.09 port our conclusion that the fit-
ted model is a good prediction
8 40 25 205 25 5 41.04 44.02 41.89 42.21 -1.17 1.81 -0.32
equation.

QUALITY PROGRESS I JULY 2003 I 75

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

Product Performance REFERENCES

Understanding which factors were critical to the
cap opening indicated what had to be controlled to
improve product performance. Improvement in
performance means easy and safe opening.
Using an empirical model of the critical injection
molding parameters and the opening force allowed
us to estimate the studied product property and
made it easier to achieve the ideal opening condi-
tion. DOE, thus, seems to be a quick, efficient and
cost saving way to investigate the injection mold-
ing process.
TABLE 5 Absolute Value of Each Half Effect
A B C D E F
|Effect / 2| 11.38 4.34 3.86 1.30 1.20
1. S.L. Mok, C. K. Kwong and W.S. Lau, “Review of
Research in the Determination of Process Parameters for
Plastic Injection Molding,” Advances in Polymer Technology,
vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 225-236.
2. S.R. Schmidt and R. G. Launsby, Understanding
Industrial Designed Experiments, Air Academy Press, 1994.
3. Karim Amellal, Costas Tzoganakis, Alexander Penlidis,
et al, “Injection Molding of Medical Plastics: a Review,”
Advances in Polymer Technology, vol. 13, no. 4, p. 315-322.
4. D.C. Montgomery, Introduction to Statistical Quality
Control, Wiley, 1996.
5. G.E.P. Box, W.G. Hunter and J.S. Hunter, Statistics for
Experiments, Wiley, 1978.
6. D.C. Montgomery, Design and Analysis of Experiments,
Wiley, 1997.
7. Schmidt, Understanding Industrial Designed Experiments,
see reference 2.
8. Ibid.
G 9. Norman Draper and Harry Smith, Applied Regression
Analysis, third edition, Wiley, 1998.
2.24 2.73
10. Box, Statistics for Experiments, see reference 5.

MAURÍCIO BAGUEIRA DE VASCONCELLOS AZEREDO is

FIGURE 3 Plot of Residuals a project engineer at Laboratorios B. Braun S.A., São
Vs. Predicted Values
12 Gonçalo, Brazil. He earned a master’s degree in production
10 engineering from Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio
8
6 de Janeiro.
4
2
0 SÉRGIO SODRÉ DA SILVA is a professor of statistics and
e

-2
-4 quality control at the Universidade Federal Fluminense. He
-6 earned a doctorate in operations research from Florida
-8
-10 Institute of Technology, Melbourne. Da Silva is a member
-12
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 of ASQ and an ASQ certified quality engineer..
ŷ

KAMEL REKAB is a professor of mathematical sciences and

software engineering at Florida Institute of Technology. He
FIGURE 4 Normal Probability earned a doctorate in statistics from the University of
Plot of Residuals
Michigan.
12
10
8
6
4
2 Please
0 comment
e

-2
-4
-6 If you would like to comment on this article, please
-8 post your remarks on the Quality Progress
-10
-12 Discussion Board at www.asqnet.org, or e-mail
-2.5 -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 them to editor@asq.org.
Z

76 I JULY 2003 I www.asq.org