In addition to the resin raw materials required for molding, the resources at the molding site include electricity for operating equipment and water for temperature control. Another factor that is often overlooked is “time”.

Since the resources and time required for molding cannot be reduced, the "Resource consumption CUT" here means to efficiently use resin raw materials, water, energy, and time to reduce waste.

What kinds of waste are there in resin raw materials?

Looking around the factory, piles of molding rejects, leftover material from every material change, plastic lumps from purging, and runners from every molding shot can also be considered waste, depending on perspective. In most cases, the resin produced in this way is disposed of.

What about water and energy?

Molding factory are hot, especially in the summer. This is due to heat radiation from all the equipment, including molding machines, dryers, material transport lines, and Mold Temperature Controller, and much of the energy used to operate them ends up as heat. Furthermore, a considerable amount of energy is used for air conditioning to cool down the hot factory interior.

Molding machines and auxiliary equipment have similar energy wastes

Molding factory are likely to have cooling towers installed to supply factory circulating water used to regulate the temperature of equipment and molds. The common open-type cooling towers evaporate large amounts of water every day. This is not just a waste of water; as only the water evaporates, impurities become concentrated and build up as scale inside pipes and equipment, reducing cooling efficiency and causing equipment failure.

Also, many factory use chillers. The chiller continues to operate regardless of the temperature of the water supplied from the cooling tower, and for the convenience of supplying cooling water to multiple dies, some dies have Mold Temperature Controller placed in front of them to warm them up. There are many cases where it is. You can see the waste of using energy to cool down and then using energy to heat it again.

If a part needs to be remade due to a molding defect, it will waste more time and energy than necessary. Furthermore, time is wasted in ways that are not visible to the naked eye, such as having to set a longer cooling time due to reduced cooling efficiency caused by the aforementioned clogged water pipes, or setup times taking longer due to equipment layout or operational factors.

Waste that seems irreplaceable at first glance should be able to minimize the consumption of resources by knowing the viewpoint, way of thinking, and appropriate countermeasures.

Here are some possible points for improvement.

The first thing we want to address to reduce resin waste is to eliminate defects. However, since this is related to everything else, let's put that to the side for now.

How to reduce resin waste;

How to reduce water and energy waste;

These are some of the above possibilities.
In the later thematic solution column, you will see specific methods and items.

Global Solution Promotion Department Yasuhiko Iijima