How efficient is your mold maintenance?Mold performance and mold-maintenance efficiency are two very different but closely connected goals of today's mold-repair shop. Mold performance has been an issue ever since the first part hung up in a cavity. But maintenance efficiency--i.e., the approach used to repair molds--has taken a back seat to the overall task of producing plastic parts. The idea of maintenance efficiency has always been more about making sure a mold is production-ready rather than how this is accomplished. If a mold-shop supervisor has more molds sitting redtagged (needing work) than are getting pulled on a weekly basis, then is his shop efficient? Probably not. Will anybody notice? Probably not. So why is maintenance efficiency important if the molds are ready when needed? Everything in plastics manufacturing gets scrutinized for cost-effectiveness nowadays. Every step--from the inception of the part design to the mold design, the mold build, and finally production--has to pass muster to pass through a muster or inspection without censure. See also: Muster . But maintenance is normally ignored and left to the devices of craftsmen behind the bench. The rule has simply been to do whatever it takes to get a mold back in the press and keep it running. Do that, and all else is forgiven. But in today's highly competitive market, companies are beginning to look closely at the strategy employed to meet mold-performance or production goals. Budget factors such as excess tooling usage, unscheduled unscheduled Adjective not planned or intended Adj. 1. unscheduled - not scheduled or not on a regular schedule; "an unscheduled meeting"; "the plane made an unscheduled stop at Gander for refueling" mold stops due to maintenance-related issues, and excessive toolroom labor hours because of flashed manifolds This is a list of particular manifolds, by Wikipedia page. See also list of geometric topology topics. For categorical listings see and its subcategories. Generic families of manifolds
Mold owners and company bean-counters are now giving closer scrutiny to mold maintenance. Common shop issues that we deal with every day are having costs associated with them so that they can be measured by the people footing the mold repair bills. So be prepared. Henceforth From this time forward. The term henceforth, when used in a legal document, statute, or other legal instrument, indicates that something will commence from the present time to the future, to the exclusion of the past. , we must concern ourselves with how we maintain molds. Three typical diseases To get a better understanding of how mold performance and maintenance efficiency are connected to profitability, let's examine the basic goals of each (see Table 1). As with every goal to improve a process, there are usually challenges or barriers that stand in our way. When you put an unhealthy maintenance shop under the microscope, it usually turns out to be harboring one of three common viruses. 1. Time limitations: An excessive MPP (Massively Parallel Processing or Massively Parallel Processor) A multiprocessing architecture that uses up to thousands of processors. Some might contend that a computer system with 64 or more CPUs is a massively parallel processor. or Mold Pull Pace---pulling molds faster than you can get them production-ready (green-tagged)--can be the result of shop downsizing (1) Converting mainframe and mini-based systems to client/server LANs. (2) To reduce equipment and associated costs by switching to a less-expensive system. (jargon) downsizing or "no hire" practices. In addition, the toolroom supervisor may be tasked with other responsibilities besides mold management--such as building new molds or maintaining plant equipment. Likewise, repair technicians may be tasked with other responsibilities such as ancillary and plant equipment maintenance. 2. Corner-office culture: It's typically not maintenance oriented o·ri·ent n. 1. Orient The countries of Asia, especially of eastern Asia. 2. a. The luster characteristic of a pearl of high quality. b. A pearl having exceptional luster. 3. , and/or has no clear reporting structure for mold repairs. 3. Employee resistance: Toolroom and production workers, both salaried and hourly, often do not want to give up the freedom and monetary benefits that come with freelancing or outsourcing (1) Contracting with outside consultants, software houses or service bureaus to perform systems analysis, programming and datacenter operations. Contrast with insourcing. See netsourcing, ASP, SSP and facilities management. repairs, with its accompanying lack of accountability. Other hard-to-kick habits are the prestige of being "the shop king" who knows the most about all the molds or the "hero firefighter" of the day. How do you begin? Regardless of the above barriers, we must begin to strategize strat·e·gize v. strat·e·gized, strat·e·giz·ing, strat·e·giz·es v.tr. To plan a strategy for (a business or financial venture, for example). v.intr. for improvement. Remember that you are dealing with seasoned, skilled tradesmen who don't favor being "jerked around" on the assumption of overnight success. Many maintenance-efficiency programs have been tried and failed because the repair techs knew that all they had to do is "weather it out" and things would soon return to normal ... meaning zero expectations and zero accountability. First, you must choose the parameters that you want to improve, then establish a baseline of measurable data to use as a barometer. For this article we will discuss the first three steps of a six-step process: 1. Clean up and organize your shop: It is hard for anyone to believe that anything will be improved in a repair shop that looks like a pigpen. Clean up shelves, benches, floors, and empty chip trays and put tools away. Tag and organize tooling that has been removed from molds. Once the shop is cleaned, take an hour every Monday morning to keep it that way. 2. Stop the bleeding: Let everyone know (through meetings, bulletin-board posts, e-mail, and word of mouth) that mold-step reasons are now being monitored and will be measured on a monthly basis. Just publicizing pub·li·cize tr.v. pub·li·cized, pub·li·ciz·ing, pub·li·ciz·es To give publicity to. Noun 1. publicizing - the business of drawing public attention to goods and services advertising this fact will immediately help reduce the occurrence of mold stoppages due to inattention in·at·ten·tion n. Lack of attention, notice, or regard. Noun 1. inattention - lack of attention basic cognitive process - cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledge or carelessness Carelessness See also Forgetfulness, Irresponsibility, Laziness. Grasshopper sings through summer, overlooking winter preparations. [Gk. Lit. . The message should be that accountability begins now. 3. Assess the damage: Keep it simple. Utilize the reports from a CMMS CMMS Computerized Maintenance Management System CMMS Computerized Maintenance Management Software CMMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMMS Conceptual Model of the Mission Space CMMS Center for Multilingual Multicultural Studies (computerized computerized adapted for analysis, storage and retrieval on a computer. computerized axial tomography see computed tomography. maintenance-management system) or count mold-stop occurrences manually to find out where you are. If you have a CMMS, see the Unscheduled Step Report. Use it to categorize cat·e·go·rize tr.v. cat·e·go·rized, cat·e·go·riz·ing, cat·e·go·riz·es To put into a category or categories; classify. cat your unscheduled moldstop events by reason, frequency, and corrective-action costs (labor, tooling, and total). Let production know you are monitoring their issues also, and ask them to please let the toolroom know if there is anything it can do to help correct a recurring re·cur intr.v. re·curred, re·cur·ring, re·curs 1. To happen, come up, or show up again or repeatedly. 2. To return to one's attention or memory. 3. To return in thought or discourse. issues such as sticking parts or runners, gas burns, non-fills/short shots, poor part appearance, or problems that require extreme process tweaking tweaking Vox populi Fine-tuning to produce optimal results . As you target the most frequent problems, you will begin to see a decline in unscheduled downtime The time during which a computer is not functioning due to hardware, operating system or application program failure. . That accomplishes several things quickly: * It will allow more time for you to concentrate on proactive maintenance Proactive maintenance is a maintenance strategy for stabilizing the reliability of machines or equipment using Proactive maintenance services. Its central theme involves directing corrective actions aimed at failure root causes, not active failure symptoms, faults, or machine wear . * It provides measurable data with which to demonstrate improvement to the unbelievers. * It reduces operating costs operating costs npl → gastos mpl operacionales (labor and press downtime). * It improves ability to meet production schedules. * It improves relations between tooling and processing departments (this alone is worth the exercise). Drilling down After compiling the list of unscheduled mold-stop reasons over one to six months (depending on your MPP), post the list in the toolroom and send an e-marl to processing and other team members about your planned targets Targets that are known to exist in an operational area, and against which effects are scheduled in advance or are on-call. Examples range from targets on joint target lists in the applicable campaign plans, to targets detected in sufficient time to list in the air tasking order, . Many problems will be corrected easily, just by focusing on them. The challenge is to agree upon an action plan and assign responsibility for specific tasks to reduce the frequency of targeted mold stoppages. Table 2 shows an example of what you can learn from charting unscheduled mold-stop reasons. In this case, production stopped for 21 different reasons. At the top of the list, marked in red, is mold damage, the #1 issue based on total money spent on corrective actions A corrective action is a change implemented to address a weakness identified in a management system. Normally corrective actions are instigated in response to a customer complaint, abnormal levels if internal nonconformity, nonconformities identified during an internal audit or . This should be the first-priority target for the efficiency team's action plan. It requires a full investigation of the 17 occurrences, broken down by mold number, tool configuration, tooling components damaged, press number, shift, personnel involved, etc. It's also important to target (and publicize pub·li·cize tr.v. pub·li·cized, pub·li·ciz·ing, pub·li·ciz·es To give publicity to. publicize or -cise Verb [-cizing, -cized] ) the mold-shop issues (marked in blue) that are due to simple carelessness or ignorance. The next article will discuss the final three steps of the optimization optimization Field of applied mathematics whose principles and methods are used to solve quantitative problems in disciplines including physics, biology, engineering, and economics. program. Steven Johnson worked as a toolmaker for 26 years, rebuilding and repairing multicavity molds for Calmar Inc. and then as mold-maintenance engineer for Hospira Inc., a medical device manufacturer. Today, he is the maintenance systems manager for Progressive Components and has his own business, MoldTrax in Ashland, Ohio Ashland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Ashland CountyGR6. The population was 21,249 at the 2000 census. It is the center of the Ashland Micropolitan Statistical Area (as defined by the United States Census Bureau in 2003). , which designs and sells software for managing mold maintenance (www.moldtrax. com). He can be reached at steve@ moldtrax.com or (419) 289-0281.
TABLE 1--SHOP GOALS
Mold Performance
* improve production reliability
* Increase cavity efficiency
* Maximize mold and tooling life
* Decrease cycletime
* Improved part quality
* Reduce scrap rates
Maintenance Efficiency
* Optimize mold-repair hours
* Reduce tooling usage
* Reduce maintenance mistakes
* Train new employees faster
* Improve shift-to-shift communication
* Improve mold knowledge and defect awareness
for better troubleshooting
* Standardize repair methods and procedures
for consistency
TABLE 2--UNSCHEDULED MOLD-STOP ANALYSIS
Mold Stop Reason Stop Labor Labor Cost
Count Hours
Mold Damage 17 271.75 $13,587.50
Low Mold Cavitation 9 196.50 $9,825.00
Part Flashing 14 130.50 $6,475.00
Electrical Issues 5 45.50 $2,275.00
Heater Issues 4 74.50 $3,725.00
Incorrect Mold Assembly 3 6.50 $325.00
Parts Sticking 7 54.80 $2,740.00
Internal Water Leak 6 57.25 $2,862.50
Ejector Plate Won't Function 4 45.00 $2,250.00
Flashed Manifold 4 53.75 $2,687.50
Part Functional Issues 3 45.50 $2,275.00
External Oil Leak 4 37.00 $1,850.00
Broken Gate 3 36.50 $1,825.00
Metal in Gate 4 20.00 $1,000.00
Scuffed Tooling 1 14.00 $700.00
Nonfills 2 12.50 $625.00
Part Dimensional Issues 3 11.00 $550.00
Galled Tooling 1 10.50 $525.00
Residue Leaching Out 1 5.50 $275.00
Warped Parts 1 5.00 $250.00
Flashed Mold 1 5.00 $250.00
97 1138.55 $56,877.50
Tooling Total Cost
Mold Stop Reason Cost
Mold Damage $27,968.26 $41,555.76
Low Mold Cavitation $13,553.00 $23,378.00
Part Flashing $6,496.25 $12,971.25
Electrical Issues $9,765.00 $12,040.00
Heater Issues $1,010.00 $4,735.00
Incorrect Mold Assembly $3,750.00 $4,075.00
Parts Sticking $900.00 $3,640.00
Internal Water Leak $0.00 $2,862.50
Ejector Plate Won't Function $496.00 $2,746.00
Flashed Manifold $0.00 $2,687.50
Part Functional Issues $0.00 $2,275.00
External Oil Leak $0.00 $1,850.00
Broken Gate $0.00 $1,825.00
Metal in Gate $0.00 $1,000.00
Scuffed Tooling $0.00 $700.00
Nonfills $0.00 $625.00
Part Dimensional Issues $0.00 $550.00
Galled Tooling $0.00 $525.00
Residue Leaching Out $0.00 $275.00
Warped Parts $0.00 $250.00
Flashed Mold $0.00 $250.00
$63,938.51 $120,816.01
|
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion