A template approach to manage mould-testing stage in a plastic injection mould project

Abstract

Two major tasks are involved in the mould-testing process stage for any mould project: (a) to troubleshoot and make decisions during the internal/external mould-testing; and (b) to perform dimensional inspection of satisfactory moulded parts. In any plastic injection mould industries, the mould-testing process stage is often the most hectic. The main reasons behind the buzz of activities are that enormous amounts of data need to be sorted and managed and decisions have to be made dynamically. The mould-making industries also rely heavily on field experts during the decision-making of the mould-testing process stage. It is both time-consuming and unproductive to manage the large amount of data, and sending field experts overseas to oversee the mould-testing and to make decisions is an expensive fraction on the company's expenses. The template approach can be executed to overcome the problems faced. The reason being that the expertise on the decision-making during the mould-testing is not unique. These expertises can easily be consolidated into a knowledge database and novice personnel could simply obtain the information from there and make similar decisions as the field experts. This template approach also offers an avenue to manage the data systematically through a proper channel of recording the necessary information without duplication. A case study was also presented to demonstrate the use of templates in managing the mould-testing stage of a mould project.