Preventative Mold Maintenance

It can be assumed that everyone knows why preventative mold maintenance is important. As the saying goes “prevention is better than cure.” Yes, that saying goes for machine and equipment maintenance too. When your injection mold breaks down, the costs of downtime, repairs, and financial damages resulting from delivering bad parts or not even able to ship parts at all would make preventive maintenance a financially attractive option. So, when a molder does not want to invest in preventative maintenance, it might ironically be okay for them to lose their proverbial shirts and go shirtless.

If we routinely inspect and make sure our personal belongings, especially those that are expensive, such as cars, houses and gadgets, are in the perfect condition, how much more when it comes to investments like our job that provides the income to pay for all our personal belongings?

So, how do our personal belongings relate to mold and molding machine maintenance? Well, if the mold or equipment fails due to negligence, then the delivery would be jeopardized and put our company finances and good standing at risk! When our paymaster is at risk, we on the receiving end would be ultimately vulnerable for the negligence!

So, even though preventative mold maintenance can be time-consuming and a pain in the neck, it is needed to prevent serious consequences and costly repairs in the future. That said, I hope we are able to see how preventative maintenance is a crucial factor to a successful long-term molding business, and, on a personal level, if we want to achieve sustainable success.

Continue reading this article and you will be learning about:

·        Preventative mold maintenance and its importance

·        Reasons why mold owners do not practice mold maintenance

·        Basic and advanced mold maintenance procedures

What is Preventative Mold Maintenance?

Preventative mold maintenance refers to the periodically scheduled maintenance tasks done on the injection molds, such as inspections, assessments, cleaning, repairs, and replacements of worn-out components to keep the injection mold in tip-top condition to prevent avoidable part quality lapses and production interruption.

Why is Preventative Mold Maintenance Important?

1.     Preventative maintenance methodically remedies minor issues on the injection molds and resolves potential tooling failures pre-emptively to ensure the injection mold reaches its optimal lifespan.

2.     With appropriate preventive mold maintenance, the molder is able to consistently produce high-quality injection molded parts.

3.     Longer downtimes and costly rework and post molding corrective measures such as sorting, unscheduled repairs or expedited mold replacement can be effectively prevented. There are a number mold maintenance issues that are caused by negligence and are totally avoidable when mold preventative maintenance is regularly done. These issues include:

·        Products produced may not pass quality control. When a mold is not routinely inspected, problems such as residue or buildup, cracks, rust and other damages within the mold can be clearly seen in the end products. This results to rejected parts, which will lead to more production cycles and added costs, if you want to maintain quality and output.

·        Mold damage beyond repair. Without preventative maintenance, small issues, which could have been easily taken care of, can blow up into major failure that will require serious repairs. Or worse, it can damage your mold beyond repair, causing its premature failure and unnecessarily spending on a new one. Which, by the way, would cause a couple of months of production downtime, i.e. income loss, damaged customer relations, customer claims, etc. Good luck with that!

·        The injection molding machine can be damaged when a mold fails while in production.

Why Won’t Mold Owners Practice Preventative Maintenance?

With the importance that preventative maintenance has, it can be easy to assume that injection molders, and not to mention, mold owners, would want to implement the practice. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. But why wouldn’t they want to keep their molds in perfect condition?

To understand this, here are some reasons why.

1.     There is downtime in maintenance. And downtime can be a businessman’s worst enemy. After all, downtime stops production and limits your return on investment. Mold owners will definitely go for continuous production than waste time on maintenance procedures.

2.     It requires additional manpower commitment. Just like downtime, which halts income and entails costs, the personnel needed to conduct preventative maintenance will need to be compensated. And this is personnel who are not directly involved in the production. As far as most business owners are concerned, they will want to spend on production more than anything else.

3.     Preventative maintenance is thought of as an option, rather than a necessity. Even with the awareness of mold maintenance importance, owners still choose to skip on it because they think it is not a must.

The above are definitely some wrong mindsets on preventative maintenance. However, it does show us how working with a molding supplier with the correct operating philosophy is important. And it can let you, as a purchasing or supplier development professional, maximize your return on investments, lessen supplier disruptions, hit management KPIs, promotions and bigger bonuses.

What are the Mold Maintenance Procedures?

Now that you know just how important mold maintenance is, below are the basic steps towards achieving a fully functional, efficient and perfectly conditioned mold.

Mold Maintenance Procedures

1.     While the mold is still in the press, the parting surfaces, core and cavity have to be carefully cleaned with a mild solvent and soft fabric and compressed air. Grease and resins that accumulate and any build-up from vented gases should be gently removed. This should be done at the end of every shift.

2.     When the mold is removed from the press, the above step should be performed, plus the following:

3.     The mold needs to return to room temperature before removing from the press. If not, condensation can form on the mold, leading to the development of rust.

4.     Make sure that no water is trapped inside the mold. When there is water, rust can build up. Water lines should be drained and blown free of residual water.

5.     Remove residual dirt and grime from parting surfaces, core and cavity.

6.     Both halves of the mold should be sprayed with light rust preventive lubricant. Do so by moving the ejector system fully forward. Once done, retract the ejector system and close the mold.

7.     All bolts, plates and the likes should be checked and put in place securely and tightly.

8.     Keep the last part product of the cycle with the mold as a copy for quality basis.

9.     When taken out of storage for a new production process, open the mold and run another cleaning cycle using a mild, clean solvent and soft fabric on the parting surfaces, core and cavity of the mold. This removes the mold anti-rust, as well as remaining dust and other substances that may be in the mold.

Things to remember:

1.     NEVER use hard tools on any mold inserts surface.

2.     NEVER use towels to wipe highly polished mold surfaces.

3.     Avoid too much clamp and high injection pressures.

4.     Do not forcefully and hurriedly open and close the mold.

There is no question about the importance of preventative maintenance, not just for your molds, but also injection molding tool maintenance. And if you want your plastic injection mold function smoothly for a long time, this is one task you need to make a part of your regular to-do list. After all, you would not want your injection mold to break down in the middle of a molding process, which will, undoubtedly cost you way more than any maintenance tasks would.

This is why it is important for mold owners to work closely with their mold manufacturers and suppliers, ideally in the same company. Doing so will significantly reduce the risks and costs that come with the injection molding process. And this is what you would want for your molding program.

If you have more questions about plastic injection molds and their maintenance procedures, simply send us a message. We specialize in plastic injection mold make and have been an injection molding mold manufacturer for years. With our experience, we will be able to provide the answers you seek. So, do send us a message to mold@hlmold.work.