Plastics manufacturing is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor requiring knowledge related to materials science, physics, engineering, and management. Because of this diversity, the plastics process engineer interacts with many stakeholders including customers, designers, materials suppliers, machine builders, mold/die suppliers, systems integrators, operators, quality engineers, managers, and others. With so many stakeholders involved, it isn't surprising that many plastics manufacturing processes are not precisely engineered systems. The resulting processes can be poorly designed, requiring too much investment to achieve too little productivity. This book was written to educate and support plastics processing engineers, but it is also highly useful to others involved with plastics manufacturing who are performing process development, research, and even machinery design. A manufacturing systems engineering approach was used to provide guidance about plastics manufacturing as an integrated system with broadly applicable analysis of the underlying subsystems.

This book provides a structured methodology and scientific basis for engineering injection molds. The topics are presented in a top-down manner, beginning with introductory definitions and the big picture before proceeding to layout and detailed design of molds. The book provides very pragmatic analysis with worked examples that can be readily adapted to real-world product design applications. It will help students and practitioners to understand the inner workings of injection molds and encourage them to think outside the box in developing innovative and highly functional mold designs. This new edition has been extensively revised with new content that includes more than 80 new and revised figures and tables, coverage of development strategy, 3D printing, in-mold sensors, and practical worksheets, as well as a completely new chapter on the mold commissioning process, part approval, and mold maintenance. With the purchase of this book, you also receive a free personal access code to download the eBook.