Joe Fox, medical unit manager for Husky, came to the company two years ago, and after securing research money and investing in a ISO-4-compatible laminar-air-flow characterization tunnel, he and his team began a series of tests on different machine types. Specifically, he took on three pillars of all-electric mythology: they’re cleaner, more energy efficient, and more precise. Ultimately, the goal was to help customers set aside, preconceptions, and yes, emotions.

“We prefer people to look at the machine attributes they need,” Fox told MPW. “There are an awful lot of emotions, an awful lot of perceptions, when you look at the word 'hydraulic' and when you look at the word 'electric'. We would prefer people take those words and put them to the side and talk about machine attributes. If it turns out that an electric machine best satisfies those attributes then that’s good. If it turns out that a hydraulic machine best satisfies those attributes, that’s good as well.”

Part of Husky’s work looked at the cleanliness of various machine types, pinpointing contamination points (see MPW’s February 'Make Every Pellet Count' article on cleanroom molding for more), since a great deal of new business can be had in medical, where many assume an all-electric machine, vs. a hybrid like Husky’s Hylectric line, is the best choice. On the basis of the results, Husky now offers new options for its machine that are geared towards cleanroom molding, including a particle-containment system targeting emissions in the nozzle/sprue-bushing area.

Results in hand, Fox hopes to change industry preconceptions using data. “One of the first things that I learned when I got to Husky,” Fox said, “was that there is an awful lot of emotion and perception related to this electric vs. hydraulic or hybrid scenario. I wanted to know whether it was true because a lot of our engineers were saying that a lot of this stuff is indeed, emotion and perception, but we didn’t have any data to back it up other than engineering intuition.”—[email protected]