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?

I think that most molding factory have cooling towers installed to supply the factory circulating water used to control the temperature of Equipment and molds. In the open cooling tower that is often seen, a large amount of water evaporates every day. This is not just a waste of water, but impurities are concentrated by evaporating only the water, which adheres as scale to the piping and equipment, causing a decrease in cooling efficiency and equipment breakdown.

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.

Molding machines and auxiliary equipment have similar energy wastes

In most cases, molding factories are hot, especially on site. It is particularly tough in the summer. This is due to heat radiation from various devices such as molding machines, dryers, material conveying lines, and mold temperature controller, but most of the energy required for operation is heat. Furthermore, a considerable amount of energy is used for air conditioning in order to cool the inside of the hot factory.

In addition, if it is remade due to molding defects, time and energy will be wasted more than necessary, and the cooling efficiency will decrease due to the previous clogging of the water pipe, so it will be necessary to set a long cooling time, and the equipment layout and operation Due to various factors, it takes time to set up, and the time disappears in the invisible part.

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