Competitiveness and price pressure in the injection molding industry has influenced many OEMs, molders and mold manufacturers to look for new ways to survive and thrive in their regional and global markets.

Step back for a moment and think about the voices we’ve been listening to over the past 10 years—what do you remember? Separate voices.
Special interests have called for special considerations. Specific industries and associations and lobbyists represented their own interests—often with the best of intentions—that resulted in fractured, disjointed, poorly managed tactics that led to outsourcing and consumerism without a strategy, or at least a poor one.

For years, the focus of mold base development has been toward providing a steel with higher mechanical properties for the user of the mold bases; however, when these higher strength alloys are used, machining has not been optimized for the toolmaker,

Finding new ways to ensure superior mold performance is a goal most people share. The technologies that are available are impressive, and more are becoming available every day. One of the latest is x-ray spectrometry, and it can help take the guesswork out of surface treatment.

Performance requirements for hot runners are becoming more demanding as technology advances and applications grow in complexity. Increased resin pricing and the need for automation are making direct gating of even the smallest parts a necessity. Customers expect good quality parts from every cavity—where the hot runner plays a key role in delivering the melt from the injection nozzle to the cavity,

Many of you have probably heard of self-venting or gas permeable mold steel, but are not totally familiar with it. Gas permeable mold steel is a sintered, pre-hardened to 35 HRc material with porosity in the range of 20 to 30 percent by volume. A system of interconnected micron-sized pores is dispersed throughout the material.

During the concept phase of a new project the option of selecting a stack mold is often overlooked because many mold designers are unfamiliar with the technology. Compared to a regular, single-face injection mold, stack molds can virtually double the output of an injection molding machine by distributing the plastic melt into two separate mold parting surfaces.

A purchase order has been promised by the customer for weeks, and finally the green light has been given to the mold design team. No sooner has the design started and the shop foreman is asking when steel can be ordered,