How to reduce costs in plastic injection molding factories

For an Electronic product shell processing factory, the energy consumption of the injection molding process accounts for about 60%, so effectively reducing the energy consumption of injection molding machines is an important way to save energy in injection molding factories. With the continuous improvement of the energy-saving technology of injection molding machines themselves, reducing the overall energy consumption of injection molding factories requires comprehensive consideration from production management, processing technology and materials, and production workshop supporting facilities.

(I) Production workshop

The layout of the production workshop focuses on two aspects: Under the conditions of meeting production needs, optimizing the layout according to the production process, and meeting the requirements of flexible energy use under specific production conditions.

1. Power supply, while meeting the power required for stable production, there is an appropriate margin, so that the surplus is not too large and the useless power consumption is too large.

2. Build efficient cooling water circulation facilities and equip the cooling water system with an effective insulation and heat preservation system.

3. Optimize the overall production layout of the workshop. Many production processes have a combination of sequential processes. Reasonable coordination can reduce the time and energy consumption required for turnover and improve production efficiency.

4. Try to consider controlling lighting and other factory equipment separately with the most effective small units.

5. Carry out regular maintenance of workshop equipment to avoid damage to public facilities, which may affect normal production operations and increase energy consumption.

(II) Injection molding machine

Injection molding machines are major energy consumers in injection molding workshops, and energy consumption mainly comes from motors and heating.

1. Select a suitable injection molding machine according to the characteristics of the product. “Big horse pulling a small cart” injection molding processing often means a lot of energy waste.

2. Select all-electric injection molding machines and hybrid injection molding machines, which have excellent energy-saving effects and can save 20-80%.

3. Use new heating technologies, such as electromagnetic induction heating and infrared heating, to achieve 20-70% heating energy saving.

4. Use effective insulation measures for heating and cooling systems to reduce heat and cold losses.

5. Keep the transmission parts of the equipment well lubricated to reduce the increase in energy consumption caused by increased friction or unstable equipment operation.

6. Use low-compression hydraulic oil to reduce the energy waste of the hydraulic system.

7. The use of parallel action, multi-cavity injection molding, multi-component injection molding and other processing technologies can significantly save energy.

8. Traditional mechanical hydraulic injection molding machines also have a variety of energy-saving drive systems, which can replace traditional quantitative pump mechanical hydraulic injection molding machines with significant energy-saving effects.

9. Regularly maintain the heating and cooling pipes to ensure that there are no impurities, scale blockages and other phenomena inside the pipes to achieve the designed heating and cooling efficiency.

10. Ensure that the injection molding machine is in good working condition. Unstable processing may lead to defective products and increase energy consumption.

11. Ensure that the equipment used is suitable for the processed products, such as PVC processing often requires the use of special screws.

(III) Injection molds

Mold structure and mold condition often have a significant impact on the injection molding cycle and processing energy consumption.

1. Reasonable mold design, including runner design, gate form, number of cavities, heating and cooling water channels, etc., can help reduce energy consumption.

2. The use of hot runner molds can not only save materials and reduce energy consumption for material recycling, but also have a significant energy-saving effect in the molding process itself.

3. Profiling fast cooling and heating molds can significantly save processing energy consumption and achieve better surface quality.

4. Ensuring balanced filling of each cavity helps to shorten the molding cycle, ensure uniformity of product quality, and has excellent energy-saving effects.

5. Using CAE-assisted design technology for mold design, mold flow analysis and simulation can reduce the energy consumption of mold debugging and multiple mold repairs.

6. Under the premise of ensuring product quality, using lower clamping force molding can help extend the mold life, facilitate rapid mold filling, and help save energy.

7. Do a good job of mold maintenance to ensure effective heating and cooling water channel conditions

(IV) Peripheral equipment

1. Select auxiliary equipment with appropriate capacity to meet work requirements without excessive surplus.

2. Do a good job of equipment maintenance to ensure that the equipment is in normal working condition. Auxiliary equipment that does not work properly will cause unstable production and even poor product quality, resulting in increased energy consumption.

3. Optimize the coordination and operation sequence between the host and peripheral equipment.

4. Optimize the relative position of peripheral equipment and production equipment, and keep the peripheral equipment as close to the host as possible without affecting the operating conditions.

5. Many auxiliary equipment manufacturers provide on-demand energy supply systems, which can achieve significant energy saving.

6. Use fast mold change equipment to reduce the waiting time required for switching products in production

(V) Materials

Different materials consume different amounts of energy for processing. At the same time, poor material management or improper management of recycled materials will increase production energy consumption.

1. Under the premise of meeting the performance of the product, materials with lower processing energy consumption should be given priority.

2. Under the condition of meeting the performance and cost optimization, high fluidity materials should be given priority.

3. Note that materials from different suppliers may have different process conditions.

4. Dry the materials. It is best to use them as soon as they are dried to avoid wasting energy due to moisture after drying.

5. Do a good job of material preservation to prevent the materials from being mixed with impurities or foreign matter, which will eventually cause defective products.

6. Some products are allowed to add a certain amount of recycled materials, but attention should be paid to the storage and cleanliness of the recycled materials to avoid defective parts due to unclean materials.

(VI) Processing technology

1. Use the shortest molding cycle while meeting the product performance.

2. If there are no special factors, use the processing technology recommended by the supplier as much as possible.

3. For specific products and molds, save all stable equipment and process parameters to shorten the machine adjustment time when the next production is replaced.

4. Optimize the process and use lower clamping force, shorter cooling time and holding time.

(VII) Use new technologies

1. Use auxiliary molding technology, such as gas-assisted, liquid-assisted, steam-assisted, micro-foam injection molding technology, etc.

2. Use unit molding solutions to reduce intermediate links.

3. Use new technologies such as in-mold welding, in-mold spraying, in-mold assembly, and in-mold decoration.

4. Use new low-pressure molding technology to shorten the molding cycle and reduce the melt temperature.

5. Use energy regeneration system.

(VIII) Production management

1. Producing high-quality products at one time and reducing the defect rate is the biggest energy saving.

2. The maintenance of the entire production system is closely related to energy consumption. This involves not only the main machine, but also the peripheral and factory equipment. For example, if the workshop mold change crane fails, manual mold change is required, which will inevitably extend the equipment waiting time and increase the equipment energy consumption.

3. Equipped with a workshop energy consumption monitoring system to facilitate the company to implement energy analysis and improvement in a targeted manner.

4. When the equipment is shut down for maintenance, not only the maintenance content and items of the equipment itself should be checked, but also the condition of the connection between the equipment and other systems, whether the working performance is reliable, etc.

5. Regularly compare with industry benchmarks to see if there is room for further improvement.

6. Establishing reliable contracts and cooperative relationships with suppliers is beneficial to the company’s energy conservation management.