Quality Control in Injection Moulding
Plymplastics plastic injection moulding – quality control is at the heart of everything we do.
Why is Quality Control Important?
Any purchase you make requires quality control. You wouldn’t buy a car without learning its make and model’s quality or buy a television without understanding its manufacturer’s quality expectations. Quality control is one of the most important things to consider when manufacturing any product. We pride ourselves on the quality of our components and finished products and all new mould tools are put through a series of tests known as ‘process development’. In this series of tests, we find out the key parameters that need to be within a certain value, in order to produce parts that are within tolerance and are visually acceptable. These values and their windows are recorded and locked down to avoid any process changes to the machine, which contributes to a repeatable process.
Critical to Quality Check
One of the benefits of injection moulding is automation. Quality improves by using high-quality machines and design, development, assembly, production, and packaging techniques. However, there also needs to be a quality control system to look for areas that need improvement. At the start of every new batch, the components are measured for their CTQ (Critical to Quality) dimensions and assessed for their attributes. At this point, a ‘first off’ is accepted and kept. This process also takes place on batch changes and the end of the run where a ‘last off’ is taken. From project start-up to project completion, Plymplastics’ quality control checks are incorporated into every aspect of part production.
Working Towards ISO 9001 Certification
We are currently in the process of working towards ISO 9001. This is very important as this standard is now more broadly focused and will allow us to standardise processes going forward. These internationally recognised quality standards highlight the identification, interaction and management of key processes, in order to continually improve. These include preventing defects, the reduction of variation and waste and to meet customer requirements. The original intent of ISO 9001 was a standard quality management system focused on customer demands and regulations. It’s in our best interest to provide the highest quality service possible, and therefore put people, product and partnership first. We work closely with our customers to ensure all quality inspection checks are carried out in-house prior to delivery. Whatever your quality requirements, we can work with you to develop them and through our continuous improvement process, identify how to improve the plastic injection moulding process.
