Injection Mold 100% Visual Inspection - Short Shots and Debris not being found

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#11
You can not inspect quality into a part.
Not all processes can be controlled absolutely, either. There are physical and economic limits to process control - especially concerning raw materials and physical conditions. So, you can not inspect quality into a part, but you may have to inspect quality into a lot.
 
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A

Avogel

#12
Thank you everyone for the input. I would like to say that it helped, but consequently I have decided to leave this company.
It is small and I come from a larger corporation. I constantly butted heads with the ownership and operations manager.
The company will only get so big with the culture they have set.
It was a loosing battle from the start. Besides, it is my belief that their sole purpose for hiring me anyway was to get them TS Certified.
Through the implementation phase there was no support from the staff including the upper management.
I will wait for their customer dissatisfaction to manage the inevitable and I am not going down with that shipwreck.

Thanks again.
 

DanteCaspian

Quite Involved in Discussions
#14
Thank you everyone for the input. I would like to say that it helped, but consequently I have decided to leave this company.
It is small and I come from a larger corporation. I constantly butted heads with the ownership and operations manager.
The company will only get so big with the culture they have set.
It was a loosing battle from the start. Besides, it is my belief that their sole purpose for hiring me anyway was to get them TS Certified.
Through the implementation phase there was no support from the staff including the upper management.
I will wait for their customer dissatisfaction to manage the inevitable and I am not going down with that shipwreck.

Thanks again.
Glad you were able to find this out sooner then latter.
 

bobdoering

Stop X-bar/R Madness!!
Trusted Information Resource
#15
:applause:

More inspection does not address the root, it only adds overhead. You can't filter quality in, you need to build it in at the start.
On the other hand, the better you get, the lower the probability of making a defect, the less effective sampling is and the more you have to rely on 100% inspection (or if you are lucky, poke-a-yoke) to eliminate the defect from the process flow. It is a nice notion to eliminate a root cause, but some are too intermittent to ensure you have until a long time has passed. You need to protect your customer until then. Reality versus theory...
 
D

DominicE

#17
I have been in the automotive industry for 12 years now. I always seem to run into the same issues. My new employer (non union) is having an issue with short shots and debris not being found in-process and turning up at the customer.
The process is 100% visual inspection and in alot of cases, because of internal and external containment requirements, it is 200% sometimes 300% visual.
In my experience I would look at this as a systemic issue and would want to ensure that the operators and inspectors are given proper training, tools, lighting, and time to do their visual job. I would look at the process itself and implement 5s Lean, and quality alerts.
Ultimatly the I weed out the bad performers based on evaluations.
After that I always seem to scratch my head. I know that it could be a reflection of the culture, or executive commitment, but how do I report that to the Operations Manager and Owner?
I posted this to hopfully start a thread of ideas and brain storming.
Thanks,
With 15 years in injection molding for automotive I can say that those items are a good start, but they wont' solve your problem. Short shots are a process issue. You need to show the managment that a short shot is a problem and not 'part of doing business as a molder'. I know most molders believe they can not solve that problem, but 1 shipped zero ppm to Delphi and GM for 5 years straight with over 15million parts shipped yearly, so it can be done. Put more effort into locking in the molding process, determining what factors are key and monitoring the molding process (not the product) using simple SPC charts. We monitored the heats, injection times and the cushion, controlled those and then forced the shop to address tooling issues with gate size and vents.
Good luck
Dominic
 

k3nny

Periodic Visitor
#19
Interesting conversation.

Here is my 2 cents.

1. Debris and contamination.

Ask your material suppliers about the acceptable level of contamination they allow in final shipment to you. You will be surprised. Contamination isn't just from the machine. If the material is customer influenced - speak to your customer about the raw material. Some materials like Santoprene generate a significant amount of carbon from burnt material. If the material is specified by the supplier - consider alternatives.

2. Short Shot/ Flash

Inevitable in molding. However, over-correction is all to commonplace. Too many changes to the machine, mold, auxiliary will not allow you to determine what the actual process may be. Allow the machine to stabilize without changes - sample the run - quarantine product pending review. Get the tool corrected. Process changes to correct a tooling issue is lunacy. But make sure the process is evaluated first.

3. People

Obvious building block, filter out the poor performers. But more importantly, evaluate how they are able to communicate information. If they are only given a check sheet and no samples are taken for a defect found at a specific time - then you may be doomed from the start. Everyone has information, most of the time the operators will have the specific time / cavity / etc... Ever try to sit and do the operators job for 8 hours. Try it. See how well you perform. I did - its more difficult than you think. This helps to remove barriers as you will see the issues first hand.

The environment is key. What happens if someone finds a defect in your organization. Is someone immediately to blame or is the problem elevated and a focus placed on it.

Get commitment from manufacturing / tooling to resolve. Put a plan together.
 
T

Tom Brown

#20
I have an injection molded parts that is run-semi automatically. 0.5 operators are assigned to the job, and their function is to manually fill the boxes with 1,000 parts from the conveyor accumulator twice an hour, and fill the hopper with material, which should last about 45 minutes.

Any time the process stops and is re-started,we find a few flashed or non filled parts within the first few shots. The procedure is that whenever the machine has to be re-started, the accumulator is scrapped and the first 1- shots after start up are scrapped before we begin saving parts again.

After 6 months and over 1 million parts 0 PPM, our customer found 4 flashed parts and now wants a corrective action that will prevent this from re-occurring.

Part of the process is that the flash and non-fills are part of a start up, until things are settled in. We must rely on a human to follow the procedures and purge the system whenever a start up takes place, but how can you mistake-proof this type of operation without going to some type of vision system, that would totally wipe out all the profits from this job?

If you tried to built in this kind of mistake proofing up front, you would never meet the price targets on quotes. When <3PPM is not acceptable, what do you do?
 
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