Mould Validation Plan

Ever come across one?, do you have one? If you want to have successful moulding trials, it’s important that the correct trial plan is in place to successfully validate and capture all moulding issues through T0,T1,T2 etc…. Many hours have gone into designing the mould, many meetings to discuss the best cooling layout, moldflow and gate position, which steel to use, what ejection works best etc… but not a lot of time is spent thinking about the trial plan and how the mould is going to be validated and approved. More often than not the moulds rolled up on a pallet truck many weeks after the GA has been approved with a part drawing next to the press and the mould setter is seeing the mould for the first time (that’s the first mistake, all too often processing are left out of the loop when its going through mould design and manufacture they should be actively involved in all the upfront design work and DFM, we haven’t come across to many mould designers that have a terrific amount of experience when it comes to the moulding process yet sometimes there left alone to create a wonderful mould strong as an ox but with the tiniest gates) To have a successful mould and process all departments (and we are including metrology in this, they need to be able to measure all dimensions correctly, provide accurate holding fixtures) have equal responsibility on the validation and approval of the mould and part. At Plazology we have a laid out system on how we validate moulds both internally and externally, this is above anything that our customers request from us, some customers just require samples and an inspection report nothing more, some want a full capability report and DOE, (something which we advise). We use the Scientific Moulding approach where real data is used to help us asses the quality of process and robustness of the mould tool, it’s basically a 10 step process to get down to the main elements of the process and see how flexible the process is with respect to dimensions and quality parts. Sampling moulds can be a costly business if your using an external moulding shop you’re paying a high price to ‘rent out’ the moulding press, if your using a production press the moulding machine isn’t earning. So being efficient in your moulding trial is paramount, getting the most done and the correct information captured is crucial. Setting up a step by step plan on how to validate each mould and what’s required from the process and setter is easy and can be done either in conjunction with your customer or independently and kept by your company for future reference.. There have been a couple of times when we have validated moulds for our customers who have requested very limited documentation when it comes to mould approval and they have returned a few weeks later asking if we can assist them as they have had trouble with setting up the mould in their production unit, out comes our validation plan and more often than not we can give them a good picture of what settings and actuals were used to validate and approve the mould…. So our Christmas wish to all our readers (and our competition) gets yourself a mould validation plan the next time you win that next big order..