injection molding plants in the world - plastic molding and manufacturing

So far, Unilever and Serioplast have tested about 15 bottle designs produced with the molds. Serioplast first created a standard mold design and print preparation and then modified the mold cavity for each unique bottle design.

One notable observation is the prevalence of hydraulic legacy equipment that is still being used by UK manufacturers. The TM Robotics’ injection moulding servicing department has witnessed this first-hand and regularly visits manufacturing sites to service and maintain Shibaura Machine’s own hydraulic injection mould machines — some of which have been in action for up to three decades. On one hand, it is a testament to the resilience of these machines, but the industry must consider the environmental downsides of this ageing equipment.

Through the art and science of 3D printing, “Something is on your screen, [and] in a short time is in your hands,” Cademartiri explains. “A real product with a real bottle, with a real cap, and the real label.”

Formlabs describes the resin as an industrial-grade, highly glass-filled material with a tensile modulus of 10,000 MPa. Molds printed from the resin exhibit good dimensional stability and tolerate hundreds of blow-molding cycles, with repeatability.

Additionally, Serioplast uses the printed molds to validate the stretch blow-molding process for the bottle designs. The company also performed dimensional analysis on the bottles and conducted performance evaluations, including bulge, cupping, and drop testing.

Another area of debate in the injection moulding world is robot integration. The UK seriously lags behind other developed countries for its number of robot installations. That’s not just for the world of injection moulding, but in the UK manufacturing sphere more widely.  In fact, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reports that the UK has just 101 robots per 10,000 employees — rookie numbers compared to competitors in the US, China and Germany.

Due to this lack of uptake, the UK industry is missing some of the potential benefits of industrial robots, including improved productivity, efficiency and throughput. As a primary distributor of Shibaura Machine robots in the UK, the TM Robotics team has spotted opportunities for the injection moulding sector to reap the rewards of robotic automation.

The pilot included not only consumer testing but also primary validation of the bottle designs on Unilever’s filling line. This included bottle movement and how the containers functioned during filling, capping, and robotic case packing.

“We are talking about up to 30-bar pressure. It’s absolutely good and reliable on that. We are also talking about 100 °C heating for the [bottle] preform without any wearing on the cavity of the 3D printer mold,” says Flavio Migliarelli, R&D design manager at Serioplast, in a Formlabs video interview.

There are over 5,800 companies operating in the UK plastics industry, contributing £25 billion to our economy each year. As a key player in Britain’s manufacturing sector, injection mould shops must embrace technological advancements in injection moulding machinery and accompanying automation for improved profit, productivity and sustainability.

Produced using the same resin and on the same blow-molding equipment as production bottles, the samples were ideal for pilot testing.

Printing the molds reduced tooling cost by up to 90% vs. metal molds. Specifically, the printed molds cost $500 to $1,000 to make vs. $2,500 to $10,000 for machined metal molds.

Nigel Smith, managing director of TM Robotics, the international distribution partner of Shibaura Machine and the UK and Ireland distributor of its injection mould machines, explores the changing landscape of plastic's injection moulding sector and argues the case for investment in new technologies, both for better operational efficiency and improved sustainability.

The most obvious application for robots in mould machine shops is for the loading and unloading of injection mould machines. However, many end users currently have relatively low robotic ability, having traditionally chosen Cartesian X-Y gantry style robots to unload injection moulding machines.

Kate Bertrand Connolly has been covering innovations, trends, and technologies in packaging, branding, and business since 1981.

Working together in Italy, Unilever and Serioplast used 3D printing to rapidly create molds and produce pre-production sample bottles made of PET. The molds were built using Formlabs’ Rigid 10K Resin and Form 3L large-format, stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer.

“The Formlabs machine plus the [Rigid] 10K Resin together offer the real possibility to have very good details on the bottles, [including logos or something] like a lemon detail, which requires a lot of precision,” says Stefano Cademartiri, CAD and prototyping owner at Unilever.

The flagship all-electric range from TM Robotics is the SXIII all-electric series from Shibaura Machine. Shibaura Machine is the new name for Toshiba Machine — the Japanese manufacturer of industrial robots and injection mould machines. The SXIII range boasts faster injection speeds, enhanced sustainability and a streamlined design when compared to its hydraulic predecessors. What’s more, despite the perception of higher costs for all-electric machines, this range can improve cost efficiency by lowering the cost-per-part.

The injection moulding process is responsible for up to 90 per cent of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) in the entire mould lifecycle. Recognising this, TM Robotics has championed investment in all-electric injection mould machines to replace older, more energy-intensive models.

To produce bottles with the printed molds, Serioplast used the same blow-molding process window as for a metal pilot mold.

The ability to rapidly iterate bottle designs and molds speed pilot evaluations by enabling testing of multiple designs at the same time.

The printed molds also reduced lead time for pilot testing of blow-molded PET bottles. Lead time to produce 200 bottle samples using the printed molds was only two weeks, vs. the six to eight weeks required with conventional molds.

To create the plastic molds, the team needed a resin that could endure the temperature and internal pressure of stretch blow molding and deliver dimensional accuracy and stability in the finished tooling. Formlabs’ Rigid 10K Resin provided the required strength, stiffness, and thermal resistance.

The SLA 3D printing process enabled Serioplast to build resin molds in two days, a significant time savings vs. traditional machined metal molds (typically outsourced to a vendor), which take four to eight weeks to produce.

Injection moulding applications have long played a key part in the UK’s manufacturing industry, producing everything from medical components, automotive parts, food containers, packaging items and much more. Traditionally, our manufacturers have relied on hydraulic-powered injection moulding machines in their operations. However, the industry is now at a crossroads, faced with the imperative to embrace technological advancements for sustainability and cost-effectiveness.

This was demonstrated by TM Robotics’ customer Lotan, a manufacturer of plastic containers based in Leicestershire, UK. Lotan’s production facility exclusively uses all-electric injection mould machines from Shibaura Machine. The SXIII provides significantly faster injection speeds than traditional moulding equipment, providing 35% faster cycle times than conventional hydraulic servo IMMs.

Unilever and plastic-packaging manufacturer Serioplast Global Services are transforming stretch blowmolded bottle prototyping using 3D printing technology from Formlabs. The result is much faster, less expensive mold making and prototype production and testing.