Mold qualification and process validation come under the moldmaker’s purview

Today's injection mold manufacturers are much more than 'just moldmakers.' As OEMs - particularly those in the medical and automotive industries - become more and more dependent upon their supply chain to go the extra mile in engineering and developing new products, the moldmaker plays a larger role in ensuring these molds are production-ready.

To do that, mold manufacturers must increase their capabilities and services particularly in the area of mold qualification and process validation.

It was only a couple of decades ago - what many call the "good old days" - when moldmakers would take a part print, design and build the mold. They would then provide a quick tryout - usually at a local molding company - to prove the dimensional capabilities of the mold's cavities to make conforming parts, and then ship the mold to the customer all within a 12 to 16-week timeframe.

While mold manufacturers have been able to reduce the mold design and build time thanks to cutting edge software and advanced, high-speed machine tool technology, mold manufacturers are now receiving requests for services from customers that go far beyond just building the mold. In fact, several mold manufacturers say that in many cases, depending on the requirements of the customer, it takes longer to qualify a mold and validate the process than it does to design and build the mold - sometimes stretching the lead time for a program out as long as six months.

Going beyond  

Today's mold manufacturers are asked to go beyond simple mold sampling "tryout." Those services often begin with dimensional shrinkage, cooling and warp analysis and studies on the melt flow balance, just to mention a few. In some cases, OEMs require the mold manufacturer to validate the molding process by running full production for 24-hour periods, and perform CPKs. Another service some OEMs require includes building the entire molding cell, complete with automation, which means that designing and building the mold is the easy part.

Mold qualification and process validation is "a growing part of our business," said Wade Clark, president of Electroform Co. Inc. With seven presses up to 600 tons to accommodate the various sized molds the company designs and builds, Clark has invested heavily to provide theses additional services customers are demanding.

"One of the issues for us is that we do tooling with extreme geometry, and 2- and 3-shot tooling, which means that not many molders can sample for us. They often don't have the right size press so that forced me into multi-shot and multiple presses to do sampling. Just about every tool we build now needs FAT [Factory Acceptance Testing] and qualification. Each customer has their own procedures they want us to follow so we have to abide by that."

While these added services are an additional source of revenue, Clark told PlasticsToday that the disadvantage is that "so many more customers expect us to do more for them" which requires a big investment in machine resources and personnel. "When you have the presses like we have it can get away from you do. It's a convenience but also a detriment cost wise. It's very expensive to do all that that we do." 

Clark said he provides a separate quote for the mold qualification and validation requirements, and breaks it all out separately. "It gets complicated," he said.

Westminster Tool Inc. in Plainfield, CT, created a technology center and installed three injection molding presses over the past year to accommodate mold qualification from its customers, primarily in the medical and consumer packaging markets that the company serves. "We see this as a trend," said Mark Ypsilantis, VP of sales & marketing. "While our consumer packaging customers have required this service offering from time-to-time, with our medical customers, it has become the norm.  For us to provide mold qualification and process validation is critical to their speed-to-market."

Ypsilantis acknowledges that the additional resources needed to provide these services can be extensive. In addition to its staff of mold designers, programmers, and moldmakers, Westminster hired two RJG certified Master Molders on board to provide a scientific molding process that can be replicated in any production facility. However, Westminster provides this particular service upon request.

"We sample and debug almost every single mold that we manufacture," Ypsilantis said. "The initial mold qualification is identified in our quotation and is typically included in the price of the mold. Process validation services beyond this are identified and line-itemed in the quotation. All of this process data is provided to the customer as part of the injection molding binder/manual created for every mold we build."

Tim Peterson, VP of Industrial Molds Group, comprised of Industrial Molds and custom injection molder Pyramid Plastics, concurs with Clark and Ypsilantis: "Our customers are pushing a lot more responsibility downhill to the tool maker. I think it's something that every customer is looking for - they're pushing for it," Peterson told PlasticsToday. Industrial Molds qualifies and validates its customers' molds at sister company Pyramid Plastics, located not far from the Industrial Molds facility.

Moldmakers are known to be creative people who can come up with innovative solutions to sometimes very complex mold and molding challenges. OEMs depend on the moldmaker to take what is often a "draft" design of a plastic component and, using their expertise, re-design the part to accommodate a more optimal geometry for molding. "We can do it, yes we're problems solvers, creative people, but how do we get paid for it?" Peterson said. "The trick is to get compensated for it correctly."

Industrial Molds recently did an extensive mold validation for an automotive customer and quoted the entire program as a turnkey job. "It wasn't the tryout that was the biggest expense, it was the part inspection. In just the measurement portion we had $10,000 into it. It's a new twist on us and we didn't realize the expense that was involved. It often costs us $15,000 to validate a tool, but the customer doesn't want to pay for it. If it cost them $20,000 to validate a tool, they're getting a bargain."

"While we can't do PPAP for our automotive customers, we've given them a tremendous leg up with get initial mold qualification done - it's more like a tool transfer at that point," Peterson said. "We'll dial in the process and they go with it - they'll buy off on our process."