Molding Tricks

for Higher Profits

Time- and money-saving techniques for injection molders

By Bill Tobin

Cultura Creative RF / Alamy Stock Photo

Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo

 Contents

The Expert Syndrome 3

The Philosophy 4
The Mold 9
Filling the Mold 12
Cooling the Part 15
Beating Your Customers 17
at Their Own Game
Handling the Bullies 18
About the Author 23

Marco Beric / Alamy Stock Photo

2 Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 2

 Chapter 1

The Expert Syndrome

When I first got into the molding business, I was a new kid on the block.
I had the typical two weeks of follow-Bob-around training, then I was
dumped onto the midnight shift. All the hourly workers were old
enough to be my parents.
My greatest asset was Bill. He was a few years away from retirement and a mentor. When I had a problem,
I would stay over and ask him. He'd pull out a collection of notebooks and somehow find the same question I had
with a solution and an explanation. He encouraged experimenting. He was a firm believer in making mistakes:
"You rarely take the time to learn why your successes work. Learning why you failed is the best education."
In molding, when you make one change, you're upsetting a system. Hopefully you get the result you were
troubleshooting. Most always, you also get a few other changes along with it. It's always a question of balancing all
the variables for the best productivity. This comes as a result of learning.
Knowledge comes from many sources. Take advantage of them all. Even though I've been teaching courses
on molding for decades, I almost always learn something new from each class or client that I work with.

Book learning. There are many

publications on molding. Many dive into
highly complex math and chemistry. All
are limited by the knowledge of the
author. I read one book that espoused
the view that everything could be solved
by using a design of experiments
technique. In a certain sense, this is
correct. However, the economics of being
a molding engineer employed by a
production company won't allow you to
Cultura Creative RF / Alamy Stock Photo
spend an entire day making scrap and

collecting data to solve a processing problem. Books are a good knowledge base, but just because the author has
a degree in “plastics” from a university doesn’t make him an expert.
Computer training. There are several good electronic training courses. This is a more dynamic form of
book learning but, unfortunately, e-courses also are limited by the expertise of the author. There's a very good
comparison to those battlefield computer games and actually being in the armed forces. While the theory might
hold in both situations, it's very different in real life.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 3

 Gadgets. One machine manufacturer has come out with a program that will walk you through a series of
experiments when a new mold is to be qualified. It helps you optimize the cycle. Wow! Nevertheless, it doesn't
explain why it told you to adjust this and that. It neatly stores this information inside the machine's computer in
a proprietary code that cannot be downloaded to any other machine.
There are several manufacturers of transducers/signal processors. These take a peek inside the mold to
tell you what's happening to the plastic. Once you've got things all set, they'll automatically adjust the machine
to repeat those conditions. Nifty! However, you need to optimize the settings first. In reality, all this equipment
does is minimize or eliminate machine variability. (Isn't that really a preventive maintenance issue?) If you
wander through your molding machine's menu, you'll find something similar concerning screw position and oil
pressure. While this is secondhand information compared to an in-mold transducer, with a well-maintained
machine, the information is excellent.
Computer simulations. Several companies sell programs that neatly mesh with your CAD drawings and
mold designs. These are excellent for seeing how the plastic will flow in the mold and where to put the gate.
Keep in mind that simulations work in a “perfect world” of heat transfer and material properties. Since most
molders or customers will not pay to have their specific material — grades, additives, coloring agents, and so
forth — characterized, they use generic properties for their simulations. Garbage in usually results in garbage
out. Computer simulations are excellent tools to help you avoid some common mistakes in design and
processing, but use them only as tools. The data they give you are indications of what will happen when you
start up the mold. They are never perfect predictors.

Computer simula.ons are excellent tools to help you

avoid some common mistakes in design and processing,
but use them only as tools.
The data they give you are indica.ons of
what will happen when you start up the mold.
They are never perfect predictors.

Lectures, trade shows, professional publications and consultants. Just because you've been doing
things for years doesn't mean you know it all. We are all constantly learning. The problem with seminars, trade
shows and consultants is simple — time and money. Sending a few folks to a show or a seminar should be done
with the idea that — and this is important — those who go, will teach those who didn't. Managers manage,
engineers build stuff. While it's a nice perk for them, they are usually useless when it comes to passing along
this information to those who need to use it. If the seminar, webinar, or tradeshow is about molding, send the
techs! If you bring in a consultant, make sure he or she doesn’t leave without demonstrating that the problem
has been solved and that the folks have been educated so you won't have to bring him or her back to do the
same thing on another machine! If it's an in-house seminar, demand that a textbook be included. Otherwise,
two weeks later the attendees will be lucky to remember 5% of what was taught.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 4

 The school of hard knocks. China has not
signed the copyright treaty. Technical publica_ons are
nearly impossible to find, unless you use the internet.
They tend not to like consultants:
“What's to stop you from learning from us and
then showing it to our compe__on?”
When I was consul_ng in China, I watched my
client's troubleshoo_ng expert: He'd stand in front of
the machine and start adjus_ng stuff. When I asked
through my interpreter why he made an adjustment, I
was told, "I fix it." Even though I bought him lunch, he
never referred to having seen a par_cular defect
before and applying a similar solu_on or what the
generic cause of a defect was and the technique he'd
use to correct it. It was his form of job security. Knob
twis_ng in the dark isn't a par_cularly profitable way
to run a company.
The beauty of the school of hard knocks,
however, is that if you keep an open mind, listen to
others, and try to learn something each _me you face
a problem, you just might learn a few new tricks that
weren't in the books you read, the seminars you
abended, or the simula_ons you ran. In this school,
you work with those who are more experienced than
you and you ask a lot of ques_ons. When you get the
“we always did it that way” answer, look it up on the
internet. Very few things are actually novel. Someone
else, who'll explain the reasons, has dealt with most
problems. All you have to do is find it. ♦
Molding Tricks for Higher Profits
How to Be a Molding Expert
• Always keep learning. If you truly understand it, you
can explain it to someone else. Keep in mind that this
business is about maximizing profits, not molding
parts.
• Don't be afraid to experiment or fail. If it's a huge
problem (“yields are too low”), do a shooBng star
experiment: Pick one defect on one mold and solve the
problem. Based on what you learn, apply that to all the
other parts.
• Never fall for the "acceptable yields," "scrap
allowance," or "explainable variance" excuses. Always
aim for 100% salable parts, produced at or below the
projected cost. SeNle for nothing less. Saleable parts are
rarely cosmeBcally or dimensionally perfect. They do
what they are supposed to do and the end user is
saBsfied with the quality. Being too criBcal in-house is
your worst enemy.
• Time and money are two commodiAes that, once lost,
are never recoverable. Think efficiently — you don't
have to think outside the box, because there is no box.
• Learn the tricks that aren't in the books, simulaAons,
or on YouTube.
• An expert can be described as someone with 20/20
vision in a room full of blind people. You're an expert
when you can draw on experience and "book learning,"
admit you don't know it all but are willing to learn, and
are able to show others. ♦
5
 Chapter 2

The Philosophy
Injection molding is a fully automated, high-volume process usually
requiring thousands of parts at a minimum. If you want to do any
activity, you need to “get your head in the game,” as coaches continually
say in post-game interviews.
Start out thinking this way:
• It is unacceptable to run anything at less than full cavitation.
• Filling all cavities at the same rate is mandatory.
• There is no excuse for poorly functioning molds and equipment — preventive maintenance is always
more profitable than repairing a breakdown.
• Machines are always cheaper and more reliable than people. You'd be amazed what you can do with
a sprue picker with a little creativity. Full automation inside the molding machine gives consistent
cycles, higher yields, and increased profits.

Molding is all about profits. Asking a few

innocent questions will point you to
where you need to put your efforts. The
technique is a Pareto chart: Look at all
your jobs for the past few months. Draw
up a chart showing what each purchase
order really cost you (including the re-runs
for rejects, etc.). Make a bar chart
showing the actual profit per 1000 parts.
Keep in mind that losing money on small

Albert Karimov / Alamy Stock Photo

jobs is still lost money, even if the large
jobs make a high profit.

Applying the 80/20 Pareto principle works out to 80% of the money lost comes from 20% of the jobs. Now you
know where to start looking!
Looking only at your “losers” makes up another Pareto chart. This _me, as a group, find out where you're losing
money:
• Higher material costs you couldn't pass on to the customer.
• Longer cycles you couldn't pass on to the customer.
• Poor yields.
• Molds or machines in need of maintenance.
• Longer than budgeted setup/change-over _mes.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 6

 Let's look at each item.
Material costs. This is a cost you have no control over. Many buyers play the game of saying they only
adjust the material cost once or twice a year. Each time you get a purchase order for parts, look at the current
cost of resin. If the material cost is out of line with what you initially quoted, tell the buyer that you can't accept
the PO without an adjustment to the current market price.
Longer cycles. If you've done everything in your power to improve the cycle time and you are still giving
away all your profits, it's time to renegotiate. Contact the buyer and give him the new price before you accept
the PO.
Expect a lot of screaming and yelling when negotiating prices on material costs and longer cycles, but
look at the upside:
1. You'll get some kind of a price increase because the buyer needs the parts.
2. If the buyer says he'll pull the job, don't accept the PO and give him the mold immediately. This
assumes you already have a “withdrawal policy” you submitted with your original quote requiring
payment for excess resin, work in process, finished goods, custom packaging, and so forth.
This is called “thinning the herd.” You hold on to the jobs that keep you in business and let someone else
take the jobs where you're losing money.
Poor yields/molds or machines in need of maintenance. I've had many techs tell me "that mold doesn't
like to run in this machine." This is usually a correct statement but it's an excuse for lack of, or poor,
maintenance.

Expect a lot of screaming and yelling

when negotiating prices on
material costs and longer cycles…

I had a client tell me to work on this. It shouldn't have happened. My client had a good maintenance
program. The mold ran fine in any other machine. But in this machine the fill rate was unbalanced, a few
cavities would produce occasional flash, and several other cavities would show burn marks.
I looked at the machine history. Several months previously the machine had broken a tie rod. It was
immediately replaced and (they thought) all was well. Tie rods cause the machine to build clamp pressure. They
are actually springs. We jigged up some plate steel on the forks of a forklift, put a dial indicator on a magnet,
and shut the mold at full clamp and then measured each rod's stretch. Sure enough, the new rod stretched less
than the ones that had several thousand hours on them. This meant one corner was seeing more pressure than
the rest of the mold. A new mold with good parting line preload and deep run-outs from the vents had no
problems running in this machine. This particular mold had minimal parting line shut off and the vent channels
to atmosphere were deep enough. Uneven clamp pressure was causing all the problems.
Several solutions were available:
1. Ignore the problem and don't schedule this mold/machine combination.
2. Try to adjust the tie rod tension — not practical. When you replace a tie rod, replace the entire set.
3. Refurbish the mold.
My client chose the third option.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 7

 Maintenance must be almost an obsession if you want good produc_vity. The cost of maintenance is
minimal compared to poor yields.
Longer than budgeted setup/change-over Fmes. This is always a func_on of scheduling, tools, and
training. An idle machine or half-done setup is like a taxi simng at the curb with a $500+/hour meter running,
cos_ng you in lost profits.
Mold changeovers must be scheduled like a new job. Is the material available and already dried? Are
the required people available (this might mean they eat lunch late)? Are the proper length knockout rods
available and straight? Are the hoist rings semi-permanently abached to the mold so you don't have to hunt for
them? Does the job require secondary equipment not normally available — welders, drills, etc? Where are the
packaging materials, instruc_ons, and setup sheets? Are all the cooling hoses available in the proper lengths so
that you don’t have to make new ones?
Set up a video camera and film a mold change. How many _mes are people wandering around looking
for a wrench, clamp, knockout rod, or water line? Did someone leave to troubleshoot another machine,
bringing the changeover to a halt?
Analyze and train accordingly. With purging compounds, pre-dried materials, mini hoppers, portable
dryers, and mold-mounted cooling manifolds, you can be up and running with any machine less than 300 T in 45
minutes. Larger machines can be done in an hour. Super machines (1500+ T) can be done in two hours. This is
what you strive for.
Look at your chart for the “bad actors” and respond accordingly. Look at your preven_ve maintenance
program: Is it scheduled like any other job or is it on the get-around-to-it list? When you start solving the
problems with the bad actors, you'll find what you've learned neatly leverages over to the rest of your
opera_on.
With good maintenance, op_mal yields, trained people, and appropriate part pricing, even if the buyer
threatens to pull the mold, you don't have to tell him how you operate. The other guys with sloppy procedures
will be losing money. You only have to keep in touch with the buyer if you want to get the job back . ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 8

 Chapter 3

The Mold
While it might sound dumb, the mold will determine the cycle and the
quality of the parts. The mold should accomplish two things: First, it's a
hole we fill with plastic. This determines the shape of the parts. Second,
it's a big heat exchanger. But these two concepts must work together.

Parting Lines and Vents

We first need to determine how the mold will open and close—this is the parting line. Many times, it's contoured, so
the fit must be perfect. It also needs to stay closed because momentarily there will be a lot of hydraulic pressure
pushing the mold open while the machine's clamp is trying to push it closed. If you do it properly, the parting line
has a few thousandths of an inch of preload. This is when the two mold halves have touched; when full clamp is
applied, the steel compresses like a spring to ensure a complete seal.
Trick #1: Determine your preload
(let's pretend it's 0.002 in.) but instead of
closing up one entire mold half, grind a 2-
x-2-in. square around the leader pins,
0.002 in. lower. Then grind away any steel
that isn't the shut off or the leader pins.
Since pressure is pounds/square inch,
you've reduced a substantial amount of
square inches. This means you can achieve
the required pressure to keep the mold
closed with a lot less pressure from the
press, lowering energy costs and reducing
Simon Kadula / Alamy Stock Photo
machine wear and tear.
Since the mold is full of air when it closes, the plas_c has to displace it to fill the mold. This offers us two
op_ons: Push the air out through the vents or don't have any air in the first place.
Pushing the air out or not is the difference between a good part or burns and flow lines. Vents have three
components: The vent depth, the land, and the vent to atmosphere. The liquid viscosity of the melt determines the
vent depth. Materials like nylon have a thin and watery melt and require a very shallow vent depth. ABS has a
rela_vely thick molten melt and can allow a deeper vent. To help molders, the material manufacturers usually
specify the vent depth. The land is ground at the vent depth long enough so that if any material squeezes through
the vent it will immediately cool to a solid. But we have to do something with the air and the “fumes” that precede
the melt. This is easily done with a channel to the outside air. If you used trick

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 9

#1, you need only get past the shut-off area. The advantage to this is that the gunk that condenses from the
resin must now fill up the area you've ground away before it will inhibit the fill.
Vents need to be in front of the material flow so that the material doesn't trap it. Here's where your flow
simulations can assist you. More vents are better than fewer vents. 9
Trick #2: Grind a flat down as many ejector pins as possible equal to the vent depth. Each pin is an extra
vent. Because the pins move, they are also self-cleaning. This is also an excellent solution to the weld
lines/burning around through holes in the part because the plastic will trap air as it goes around the pins.
Trick #3: The easiest way to deal with venting problems is to remove the air from the cavity before you
fill it. Here's how:
1. 1. Block off all the vents.
2. 2. Install a normally open (a few thousandths of an inch) poppet valve in the mold and connect it
to a vacuum line.
3. 3. The vacuum line hooks into a solenoid that is attached to a small tank.
4. 4. The tank has a separate line that connects to a vacuum pump.

When the mold closes, the solenoid opens the line to the tank that immediately sucks out all the air. The
vacuum is usually large enough to offset the leaks from the ejector pins, slides, and occasionally damaged
parting line. The machine injects a quarter second after the solenoid opens. As the material is injected, it flows
over the poppet valve and seals it closed. When the machine goes into packing mode, the solenoid closes and
the pump again empties the tank. No air, no venting issues . . . problem solved.

Mold Cooling

There are only a few concepts to keep in mind when it comes to cooling the mold:
1. Heat travels from hot to cold — never the reverse — depending on the heat conductivity of
the material. Metal conducts heat relatively fast compared to the heat transfer properties of
plastic.
2. Thick sections contain more heat than thin sections per square inch of cooling.
3. Heat transfer between two surfaces is inefficient. Air is an excellent insulator.
4. Water transfers heat best with turbulent flow. Water will always follow the path of least
resistance. The volume of water through a line controls cooling better than the
temperature.

Even cooling is the key. A normal waterline will control a mass of metal three diameters around it. Place your
waterlines accordingly. Direct cooling into the core and cavity is always preferred to cooling the plate and
hoping the part will cool.
Try not to loop water circuits. Looping causes two problems. The first is simple line resistance — the
longer the circuit, the harder it is to get water through it. Each time you loop a circuit you run two risks: You can
kink the hose and restrict the circuit or you can hook the loop back into itself, causing a blind circuit where no
water flows at all.
Balance the flow: When everything is hooked up, use a flow meter on each circuit and restrict the lines
with high Reynolds numbers (extremely turbulent). This will force pressure to the lines with restricted flow and
improve their turbulent flow. This is accomplished using the valves on the manifold. But this has to be done
each time you start up the mold. Of course, the techs don't do it, and the cycle slows down as a function of the
least efficient circuit.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 10

 Trick #4: Buy and install waterline manifolds on each half of the mold. Use a fire hose connector on the
machine's manifold. This way you hook up the mold and balance the waterlines once. Remove the handles on
the manifolds so no one can readjust them. Faster setups, balanced circuits . . . problem solved.

Insert Molding

Inserts are some_mes a necessity, but hand loading them usually means inconsistent cycle _mes and low yields.
If you address this when the mold is built, you can vastly improve your profits. Start out by realizing that insert
loading and part removal can be done automa_cally without very spendy robots. You would be amazed what
you can do with the lowly sprue picker and some innova_ve end-of-arm tooling. The picker can come in to
unload the molded parts, move laterally, and load a new set of inserts and then get out of the way, unloading
the molded part and picking up new inserts.

A customer is really buying your expertise,

because your competition only has machines, molds, and resin.
For this reason, don't give it away.

Even if you have an operator hand loading the inserts in a jig during the molding cycle for the picker to
pick up, your cycle _me will be consistent and your yields will be higher, with more parts per hour produced
than by hand loading and unloading the inserts and parts.
Tricks when the customer pulls the job. A customer is really buying your exper_se, because your
compe__on only has machines, molds, and resin. For this reason, don't give it away. Tell your customers that no
one is allowed on your produc_on floor for insurance reasons. This keeps your tricks private. When the job
goes, keep in touch with the buyer. Auer a few weeks or months, the buyer will want to give you the job back
because nobody can do it as well as you do. Raise the price, re-install your tricks, and enjoy the profits.
1. Purchase your own manifolds for your cooling (ROI is weeks in reduced produc_vity and shorter
setup _mes). Pull the manifolds off the mold and keep the waterline hoses. The next guy will have
to figure out your cooling pabern.
2. If you used “vacuum ven_ng,” simply remove the equipment and close the poppet valve, and let
the next guy deal with burns, shorts, and flow lines.
3. Keep your robot, end-of-arm tooling, and the program you wrote to control the robot. Let the
next guy hand load the inserts. ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 11

 Chapter 4

Filling the Mold

When filling the mold, you should keep in mind you are putting a molten
liquid into a metal mold that is well below its melt point. The second the
plastic touches the mold it solidifies.
Fortunately, it cools from the outside in, so there is a period of time that the melt can travel down its center to
completely fill the mold. As a general rule, plastic cools at the same rate. For this reason, you should always fill from
a thick section into a thin section. If you did the reverse, the thin section would freeze off before you filled and
packed the thick section.
Plastic molecules are very long, many of them with branches. Because of this, one end of the molecule can be
in a liquid phase while the other isn't. This “stretches” out the molecule and gives us the property of “apparent”
viscosity. What this means is that when the plastic is moving quickly through the mold it is a relatively thin liquid.
However, plastic molecules prefer to be tangled together. Once the movement slows or stops, the molecules that
are still in some form of a liquid state contract back into their preferred tangled geometry. Pressure follows the path
of least resistance. Adjust the gate sizes until every cavity gives an identical
part weight within 5% of the overall part-
weight average. If a cavity's part is too
heavy, it's filling first and over-packing—
this will be the problem cavity that will
s_ck all the _me. If it's too light, you'll
over-pack the other cavi_es to fill this one
out, otherwise it will be full of flow lines,
sinks, and voids.
Because of this phenomenon, it is
in your best interest to fill the mold as
quickly as possible with liquid plas_c and
Itsanan Sampuntarat / Alamy Stock Photo
then hold it under pressure to offset the

thermal shrink, because it allows the plas_c to reform back into its preferred molecular orienta_on.
Injec_on molding is a heat-transfer process. We heat the plas_c to a molten phase, inject it into the mold, and
cool it into a preferred shape. You need even heat transfer. Think of the humble box. We tend to put the ejector pins
in the corners for ease of ejec_on. We tend not to put cooling in the corners. Thus, the heat builds up in the corners
and edges of the box and the wall warps inward.
Rule: Warp always goes toward the hot side.
For this reason, we try to cheat. We cool the cavity at the recommended temperature, but we lower the
core's temperature in an abempt to cheat, using temperature to offset the poor posi_oning of the core's cooling
lines.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 12

 Because this is a heat-in, heat-out process, the melt should be at the middle of the recommended
temperature range. If the temperature is at the lower end, it will indeed shorten the time it takes to cool, but it
will also solidify faster, resulting in short shots. The upper end of the melt point range will allow easier filling but
the excess heat will lengthen the cycle time to cool off.
Filling should be done as fast as practically possible. Unless you've put a vacuum pump on the mold (see
Chapter 3), you have to have the plastic push the air out of the mold through the vents completely. This means
the vents have not been squashed with excess or uneven clamp pressure and are clean enough to let the air
easily out. More vents are better than fewer vents — vent at the last point of fill, vent the ejector pins, and vent
the lifters and the parting lines. When the mold is full, the machine continues its injection pressure and
compresses the plastic. At some point in time, it can no longer compress and the liquid turns hydraulic. This is
where the plastic attempts to open or “blow” the mold. This is why you have a cushion on your load setting.
Once the melt approaches becoming hydraulic, the machine should switch over into packing mode until the
gate has frozen over and sealed the liquid inside.
The mold will only hold so much volume. Switch to packing mode from the position of the screw.

A simple test to determine if you have a void or bubble

is to heat the affected area with a flame.

Packing

Plas_c is a compressible material. It also is larger in volume when it is liquid and smaller when it is a solid. If the
plas_c isn't fully pressurized to offset this shrinkage as a liquid, one of two defects will show up. When the
material shrinks as it cools, if the outer wall of the part is sou, the shrinkage will pull the wall inward. We call
this "sink." If the mold's surface is cold, the outer wall is strong enough to resist this pulling and the material will
pull away from itself. This is called a "void." A simple test to determine if you have a void or bubble is to heat the
affected area with a flame. If it is a bubble, the internal gas will heat up and expand outward. If it is a void, there
is no gas and it will collapse.
Packing _me has a geometry/temperature/pressure rela_onship.
Geometry: Determined by the size of the gate. Large gates take longer to close than smaller gates.
Temperature: Gates will only freeze off when they become solid. The hober the melt or the mold, the
longer it will take to freeze off.
Pressure: The higher the internal pressure of the melt in the mold, the stronger the frozen gate must be
to keep it in the mold. High packing pressures will increase the _me for the gate to freeze off.
To determine the packing _me, first get your fill figured out. Set the packing _me too long. Weigh the
parts, not the full shot. If they are small parts, weigh many of them and get the average weight. Begin
shortening the packing _me and con_nue weighing your sample parts.
When the average part weight begins to drop, this means the molten plas_c in the part is leaking back
into the runner system. Increase the _me slightly un_l the part weight stabilizes. Add an addi_onal half second
and that's your packing _me set point.
Because gate freeze off is a temperature/_me rela_onship, when the overall cycle changes, the gate
freeze-off _me is also changed. When you speed up the cycle, the mold's temperature increases, and the melt
temperature decreases. When you slow down the cycle, the reverse happens. If your water supply isn't at a
constant temperature, your gate freeze-off _mes will vary along with your yield rates.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 13

Tricks When the Customer Pulls the Job

A customer is really buying your exper_se, because all your compe__on has are machines, molds, and resin. For
this reason, don't give it away. Tell your customers, no one is allowed on your produc_on floor for insurance
reasons. This keeps your tricks private. When the job goes, keep in touch with the buyer. Auer a few
weeks/months, the buyer will want to give you the job back because nobody can do it as well as you do. Raise
the price, re-install your tricks, and enjoy the profits. If you must give your customer process condi_ons, do the
following:
• Melt and mold temperature range, per manufacturer range.
• Purchase mold-mounted manifolds and balance your waterlines for even cooling. Remove the
manifolds and give the next guy only the hook-up pabern, not the rates of flow.
• Fill speed — give a number. What you should be doing is filling as fast as possible and switching to
packing mold at a predetermined screw posi_on.
• Shot size and cushions — keep in mind that an eight-ounce shot is a weight. In a machine with a
small barrel, there will be a long stroke on the machine. With a larger barrel, the distance will be
shorter. Be polite enough not to tell the new molder the size of the barrel. Just give the
measurements. ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 14

 Chapter 5

Cooling the Part

If your original RFQ to the mold builder said, "Design and build a mold to
produce part XYZ to print specifications on a 25-second cycle," hold his
feet to the fire until that's what you've got!
Don't fall for the trick: “We'll process the dimensions in with mold temps and cycle times.” If you raise the mold
temp, you extend the cycle. If you lengthen the cycle time, you're using the mold as a shrink fixture. While a second
on an eight-cavity mold in a machine running a 20-second cycle at $100/hour machine rate might not seem like
much, figure out the profit and machine time you lost in a half million parts! When the part dimensions are out, fix
the mold! It is always more profitable than “processing it in.”
Since the mold is supposed to give the part its shape, how cool does it have to be? The common practice is
“touchable,” meaning you can pick it up with your hands. But usually the mold has taken way too long to get to this
temperature. The scientific answer is 80% of the heat distortion temperature (HDT). Any cooler is a waste of time.

At 80% of the HDT, there will s_ll be

Aleksey Popov / Alamy Stock Photo
thermal shrinkage. There will also be
post-mold stress relief
shrinkage/distor_on. But, it's beber to
see this distor_on sooner than later. I
worked on a grille project once. It was
twis_ng, so produc_on leu it in the
mold longer. Sure enough, when it
came out of the mold, it was dead flat
but warm. They packed them
immediately in boxes and shipped
them off. Months later the customer

was complaining about warped parts. It turned out the internal heat in the warm parts and the number of grilles
packed into the box was enough heat to stress relieve them. Hence, they came out looking like a potato chip. They
remolded the parts but this _me they had a Lazy Susan shrink fixture allowing a ten-minute air cool while clamped
in the proper geometry. Problem solved.
If you set up a simple spreadsheet and look at the cost of shrink fixtures compared with the cost of extended
cycle _mes and capacity you can't use for future jobs, you'll usually see the payoff is very fast and profitable.
Keep in mind you are cooling the melt into a solid state — you are not quenching it! When ini_ally injected
into the mold, the plas_c molecules are not in their preferred molecular geometry. It takes only microseconds for
them to reform into their preferred state while liquid. But if they become solid too quickly, you now have a part
with a large amount of internal stress and it will definitely warp.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 15

 Even cooling starts with good mold design (as discussed in Chapter 3). It requires turbulent flow in the
water lines for the best efficiency. This is a matter of consistent setups and temperature control.
But sometimes there are overly thick parts that will “blow out'” when not cooled long enough because
the liquid center is still under packing pressure and will soften the outer walls and then bleed out. A good
example of this are the electrical insulators used on electric cattle fences.
They are made from polypropylene and have some areas that are a half-inch thick! Because of this, my
client had a 24-cavity mold built that had to run on a two-minute cycle to avoid the blow-out phenomena. The
high cavitation was to offset the slow cycle. I suggested that we cut the cycle to 45 seconds or less. He said he'd
tried it with every chiller he had and still got blow out, not to mention brittle parts. The problem here wasn't
heat transfer from the steel to the plastic — it was the fact that plastic is a really poor conductor of heat, so it
takes a long time to come to its 80% HDT to remain stable.

Sometimes a little hillbilly engineering

is the perfect solution.

The solu_on was simple. The blow out showed up about 10 to 15 seconds auer the part was ejected.
This showed the part ini_ally was structurally cool enough to hold its dimensions un_l the internal heat warmed
it up again. At first, we simply took a 55-gallon drum, filled it full of warm water and ejected the parts into it.
Water's heat conduc_vity is approximately 15 _mes greater than air. As the internal heat from the part
migrated outward, the water absorbed it, keeping the part cool. This evolved into a cable watering tank, a small
propeller mixer, and a screen conveyor to offload the parts. With a lible _nkering, by the _me the parts
dropped from the conveyor, they were dry. The heat from the parts kept the water warm, so we didn't do any
quenching. At the end of this project, they were molding parts at 29 seconds/cycle and s_ll sealing them at the
machine rate with the two-minute cycle!
Some_mes a lible extra air-cooling is necessary. We were molding toothbrushes out of cellulose acetate,
which is notorious for holding onto its heat. While dimensions aren't terribly important in a toothbrush, in order
to put the brush through the bristling equipment it had to be flat and not bent like candy canes. In this case,
instead of extending the cycle _me, we ejected the parts from the 16-cavity mold down to a slow-moving
conveyor that went under the press (taking about five minutes) before they landed in a box. We put a hood over
the conveyor and then installed a home air condi_oner to blow down this tunnel to where the part dropped to
slowly cool the parts, having found a simple fan wasn't cool enough.
It's no sin to use shrink fixtures, water baths, cool air, or any combina_on of these to allow the parts to
dimensionally stabilize. Some_mes a lible hillbilly engineering is the perfect solu_on. ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 16

 Chapter 6

Beating Your Customers

At Their Own Game
As noted in previous chapters, the injection molding business is really all
about money.
Your customer couldn't care less if you're losing money. In fact, he'd prefer it because it keeps you hungry and, as
he'll always tell you, “There are a dozen guys in the lobby who'll run your jobs cheaper and faster and make better
parts!” What you missed in this verbal assault was, if that were true, you wouldn't have been given the job in the
first place.
How do you protect yourself? With a policy manual. When you look at the language on a PO from one of the
Big Three, you'll see that the rules of this game are highly stacked in their favor. There is no need for you to agree to
any of it!
Send your policy manual as an attachment with every response to an RFQ. Only accept the job when the
customer agrees to your policy.

Exit strategy. Write a policy that, in

its simplest form, creates an exit strategy
for your customer. He pays for all
outstanding invoices, raw materials, work
in progress, custom packaging, finished
goods, and so forth in cash before you'll
hand over the mold.
Ownership. Anything
manufactured under the auspices of a PO
and duly paid for belongs to the customer
and will be shipped with the tooling.
Evgenii Krasnkiov / Alamy Stock Photo
Anything you paid for belongs to you and
does not have to be given to the new molder (this is especially fun when you don't give the other guy shrink fixtures).
If the buyer insists you sell him all the secondary jigs and fixtures, do what a Chinese molder did when one of the Big
Three tried to pull a job: He calculated the profit he should have made from molding the parts, added in 10% to cover
the costs of the jigs and fixtures and used that as the sale price for giving everything up. (Cute, yes?)
Intellectual property. Customers are not allowed on the production floor to observe production. They have
purchased only parts; anything else is stealing your secrets.
Pricing. Don't accept a release from a blanket PO until you are using up-to-date resin pricing. Each time you get
a release, respond with a new price quote based on the material. Don't begin the job until the buyer has agreed to
the new pricing structure.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 17

 Tasks. A favorite trick of the automo_ve business is to assign tasks, such as, "reduce costs by 5% overall
in the next six months." The threat is that if you don't, they'll pull the jobs. Certainly, send in proposals, but also
add in the costs you'll incur. If they don't pay for them directly, don't do it! If they want to “amor_ze” the costs
in the part price, don't ever believe there will be enough produc_on to cover the costs and s_ll give you a profit.
This is a buyer's trick — don't fall for it.
Quality. The defini_on of an acceptable part is one that does what it was designed to do and is visually
acceptable. It is not a part that has all dimensions to print and is totally free of any visual defects. There is no
industry standard requiring viewing something under magnifica_on and harsh ligh_ng for several minutes. Make
that part of your policy manual. The only cause for a reject will be a func_onal test, not a dimensional inspec_on.
Your policy on a ques_onable reject should be wriben out:
1. You'll no longer ship this part before you inspect everything in your facility.
2. You'll inves_gate the cause and implement changes so that it doesn't re-occur.
3. You'll submit five parts per cavity only for re-approval.
4. Once approval has been documented, produc_on will resume.

(Yeah, this is a nasty trick. This process will take several weeks. You are innocently trying to correct the
problem, while your customer's produc_on has come to a halt. What will usually happen is that the “reject” will
disappear.)

Your Opera?on

An idle machine is a taxicab wai_ng at the curb with the meter running. Semng up a new job shouldn't be
something you “squeeze into" normal opera_ons.
Maintenance is key. Each machine should be capable of running any mold that's scheduled into it. If the
machine is old and _red, either get it rebuilt or sell it. Molds wear out. Don't tolerate blocked off cavi_es. When
you purchase a mold, design it to be maintained with front-loaded cavi_es. Purchase spare cavi_es ini_ally. It's
more profitable to swap out a cavity in the press than go down for a few days to completely disassemble a mold
and replace a cavity.
Use portable dryers, micro hoppers, and purging compounds. Profit wasters are lemng the machine sit
idle while the material dries. While purging compound may seem expensive, it's cheap compared with the
material and _me you waste flushing the machine with regrind.
Staging. Think of a mold change like semng up a play at the Super Bowl. While the play might be brilliant, it
turns into a farce unless everyone is in their place and knows what to do. Before a mold change, someone must be
accountable to have everything ready. You're throwing money out the window if someone wanders around looking
for a wrench, you have to make up a water line, or can't find the appropriate packaging materials.
Qualifying the mold. Never run a mold in produc_on if you don't know what it will do. Take the _me
when you ini_ally run it to work out all the variables. Your produc_on folks should be cooks: If they follow the
recipe properly, the results are always what you'd expect. The crew who qualified the mold are the chefs —
everything should be both understood and wriben down. There are no magic setup tricks — there's no
notebook in a tool chest with secret semngs.
Quality. There's no magic in quality: Either the part is acceptable (“to print”) or it isn't. If the customer
gives you a “devia_on” to accept parts he would normally reject, he just changed the quality standards. Accept
the devia_on as “one-_me-only.” Don't run the job again un_l the designs have been permanently modified as
an engineering change. Make sure everyone in your facility and the customer has the same view of what is
“acceptable.” ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 18

 Chapter 7

Handling the Bullies

Buyers have an interesSng problem with molded plasSc parts.
Plastics are seen by the purchasing department as commodities, something easily purchasable anywhere at a low
cost. Commodity buyers worship at the altar of lowering costs and not having to pay for the molder's inventory level.
Their pay and bonus are all tied to “supplier management.” They attend classes and seminars learning all the tricks
they can use to cause the molder to drop an already agreed-upon price on a continuing basis.
Contract law 101: Please be aware that I am not a lawyer. Before you implement some of these policies,
check with your own legal counsel and take a few courses from the Small Business Association.
When we buy something at a store, there are many laws that protect us. However, molds and injection
molded parts fall under a different set of laws — specifically the Uniform Commercial Code. This has to do with the
concepts of a professional buyer and seller.

Because every commodity in

business is usually unique, this allows both
buyer and seller to write their own “law”
for the transac_ons. Moral: If it isn't in
wri_ng, it doesn't apply (no verbal
agreements). Therefore, minimize phone
calls and keep things in wri_ng. Most
states now accept e-mails and electronic
signatures as legally binding contracts, as
long as the e-mail contains all the
elements required for a valid contract.
Aleksey Popov / Alamy Stock Photo
To keep confusion down,
commercial law also has the concept of a “company agent.” This states that only one person on each side of the
transaction has the authority to do business or modify the contract.
There are three rules in commercial law you should keep in mind:
1. The last document to change hands before the actual work begins is considered to be the valid
document, encompassing all the terms and conditions. All prior documents and agreements are
considered to be invalid.
2. Both agents are required to read their mail in a timely manner.
3. If one party changes the agreement without the written consent of the other, the entire
agreement is considered in breach.

The lesson here is obvious but mostly ignored (until something goes wrong). Remember all the almost
microfilmed stuff on the back of your customer's RFQ? That isn't junk. It is their policy of doing business with you.
Since their legal department wrote it, it is usually very one-sided in the customer's favor.
To counter this, attach and reference on your response your terms of doing business. You, too, can microfilm
on the back of your response. Note: When you finally receive the PO, make sure it references your final offer by
date and quote number.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 19

 Topics you might want to cover:
• Payment, per your terms. One late payment and no credit will be further extended; COD for the
next six months.
• Rejects: Only five samples should be ini_ally returned along with documenta_on showing they
are measurably different from previously accepted shipment and, indeed, out of specifica_on.
Manufacturing and future shipments will cease for six weeks minimum un_l you find, correct, and
qualify the part to be free of defects.
• Devia_ons: This allows out of spec but useable parts to be temporarily used. Devia_ons will last
no longer than 30 business days and not be extendable un_l a legi_mate engineering change is
processed. Auer 30 days without an ECO, all shipments will cease.
• Specifica_ons: All products will be molded to commercial tolerances and inspected per the
Society of Plas_cs Industry visual and dimensional standards. Anything else (CpK tolerancing,
sta_s_cal control charts, etc.) will be considered exceeding common standards and charged
accordingly.
• Discon_nuance of business — the procedure to discon_nue doing business with each other will
be as follows:
• No_ce must be given in wri_ng, and all produc_on will stop immediately.
• The customer must pay for all material purchased for the job in ques_on, all goods-in-
process, finished goods, and all outstanding invoices before the mold can be pulled.
• Any customer owned tools, jigs, and fixtures would also be shipped.

Get your policy on discontinuing business

on every document you exchange.

Note: There is a common trick corporate lawyers use if this policy isn't in place and agreed to — they say
they want the mold. You refuse to give it to them because of outstanding moneys owed. They go to court and
get a judgment against you (called a business interrup_on judgment), which can be equal to three _mes the
money they lost because you caused this interrup_on in their company. Moral: Get your policy on discon_nuing
business on every document you exchange. This is kind of a “pre-nup” agreement in the business world. With
this in place, they have no case in court.
And here are my favorites:
• Threats/in_mida_on: The customer can “threaten” to relocate its business either verbally or in
wri_ng. The second _me this happens, a leber of discon_nuance will be sent and work will
cease for that job.
• The customer has no right to the supplier's financial data or on-site inspec_ons. Financial
reports can be obtained from credit repor_ng agencies.

Do these work? Here is an example: Najas Haster owns a company called Prevent in Bosnia and supplied
Volkswagen with seat covers. To lower its supply chain costs, VW started pushing. What VW did not realize was
that Mr. Haster is one of the richest men in Bosnia. Rather than bow to VW, Haster simply refused to ship,
interrup_ng produc_on in six European produc_on plans, idling 28,000 VW workers and uncounted numbers of
workers at other suppliers’ plants. Haster is very rich and successful. He has the money, _me, and capacity to
bring VW and, previously, BMW to their knees for this type of bullying.

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 20

 Lesson for buyers: When a molder, who only does a few thousand a year in sales, is your sole source for
a custom part, the molder controls you, not the other way around.
With all this in mind, remember what it is you are selling as a molder: Your expertise and delivery
performance reputation, not plastic parts. Your customer's buyer would love to “inspect” your plant, steal your
tricks, and see how you use your gadgets to the fullest. He is also on the perpetual hunt for your quality/profit
improvements, after which he will demand a price reduction. He does not need to see your operation. More
importantly, cost isn’t king. If you don't believe me, think about the last time your customer paid for overnight
air freight because he messed up the order forecast.

Real world examples from my consulting clients

Buyer: You're making too much profit. We need a price reduction.

Molder: Profits are good. You agreed to our pricing when you placed the job with us. The price was
quoted based on our expertise (which we can control) and the material cost (which we cannot control). The
cost of your parts is the combination of those two. If the material price goes down, we'll pass the savings along.
If it goes up, we will raise the price. How much or little profit we make is our problem, not yours.
Buyer: We are on a just-in-time manufacturing plan. I expect you to have inventory on hand to deliver
goods as we need them.
Molder: We are neither your bank nor your warehouse. We expect a frozen order forecast for the next
four weeks and a planning forecast for the following six weeks. This is a rolling forecast updated weekly, adding
the fourth week to the frozen forecast. If you want a standing stockpile for us to ship from, we can negotiate a
min/max production purchase order. For example, you authorize the next three-month shipments on one PO
and ship in releases from there. Either you will pay for the entire authorized amount in six months or when we
reach a minimum inventory level, where we will need to rebuild to another three-month supply, whichever
comes first. You get the economy of scale of a large order paid in proportion to your releases for only a small
storage fee. Failure to buy “dead” inventory within the allotted time will put all your jobs on a COD basis until
the account is paid in full.
Buyer: In order to improve our cash flow, we will now be paying on an N-60.
Molder: Our quote stated a net 30 starting of receipt of parts at your facility. If you cannot pay within
that time initially, we will ship on a COD basis. Once your check clears, we'll ship your parts, not before.
Buyer: I'm giving you a task to reduce all your prices by 5% in the next six months.
Molder: We agreed on the price when we got the job. If you would like to pay us for better or new
equipment that will improve our productivity, from those savings (if any) we'll pay you until the equipment is
paid for and we own it, and then adjust the price in proportion to the savings.
Buyer: In order to do business with us, all the equipment you use must be less than three years old.
Molder: By doing a certification on your parts, it proves our equipment is accurate, precise, and well-
maintained to produce to your standards. You awarded us the job based on price, quality, and delivery. We will
stand by those metrics. You are paying for parts, not how shiny our equipment is.
Buyer: You quoted the job based on a 22-second cycle. We know you have improved it to 17 seconds
and increased the yield. We want a price reduction based on those improvements.
Molder: We pride ourselves on continuing to improve our productivity, allowing us to take on additional
jobs when we have more available machine time. We would agree to your proposal if you were buying machine
time by the hour and yield. However, you are purchasing parts at $/1000 pieces. If our cycles slowed or yields

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 21

degraded, we are convinced you would not agree to a price increase. Like you, we need to make a profit to stay
in business. So, we politely decline to lower the cost."
Buyer: There are other molders we've cross quoted, who can do this job cheaper, better, and faster. If
you can't meet their new pricing, we'll consider pulling the job."
Molder (put in writing to the buyer): Per our conversation on XYZ, we consider this a threat. You only
get one per job. Doing business with us affords you the luxury of a painless supply of quality parts. We would be
interested in seeing the documents you have used to come up with this idea and will consider our actions
accordingly. You have always been free to move your business elsewhere to improve your own profits. Please
refer to our Discontinuance of Business policy on the back of our quote on how to change suppliers for this part
with minimal disruption to your supply chain. If in future conversations we feel you've made another threat, we
will initiate the Discontinuance of Business regardless of your supply chain status.

Keep to the rules. Business is easy:

They order, you ship, they pay.
Why make it complex?
If you want yelling and drama,
raise teenagers.

This list is literally endless. However, the two takeaways you get here are simple:
1. If there's an agreement in place, that's the one you follow.
2. It is OK to say NO to your customers. Most of the tricks they will pull on you are bluffs,
because they need an ongoing stream of parts more than you need the business from them.

Keep to the rules. Business is easy: They order, you ship, they pay. Why make it complex? If you want
yelling and drama, raise teenagers. ♦

Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 22

 About the Author

Bill Tobin teaches seminars and helps clients

improve productivity through his consultancy,
WJT Associates. Throughout his decades-long
career, he has held roles including senior
manufacturing engineer, production manager,
and materials specialist at major US companies.
He can be contacted at www.wjtassociates.com
or by e-mail at bill4012@hotmail.com.

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Molding Tricks for Higher Profits 23