Injection molds come in different shapes, sizes, and designs. It is important so that plastic products can be unique depending on the manufacturer. These designs are innovated by injection designers and executed by engineers. The engineers in plastic injection molds play a vital role in inspecting the designs before building to ensure that the molds are manufacturable. Thus, the engineers need to be experts in this field to avoid any errors and defects that may arise during mold manufacturing.
Building molds and operating the injection molding machines is not an easy task as some may assume. It requires a lot of expertise, critical thinking, and creativity. Before hiring designers and engineers at your company, you need to be sure that they are capable of completing different projects, moreover, are able to handle themselves under pressure. Let us have a look at the importance of injection mold engineers and their job descriptions in plastic injection molding companies.
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What Do Plastic Injection Mold Designers Do?
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Plastic injection mold designers’ work is to create mould designs. They use various techniques for coming up with these designs. The most commonly used is computer-aided design. The roles of designers are:
Utilizing the CAD software to come up with futuristic designs. SolidWorks is the recommended program for CAD since they create 3D images of the final product’s design. It facilitates the building of the molds because it makes inspection work easier. Advantages of using SolidWorks in CAD are;
- Minimizes cost and the time taken to design and build
- The molds are reviewed in a better way
- Improves the quality of molds
- Accuracy in prototyping
Using Unigraphics drawings for design work.
Injection mold designers should also frequent the manufacturing department to see if their designs are working properly or they need to do some alterations.
Designers should also maintain communications with the clients in case of any changes from the clients that need to be incorporated. Also, contacting the client in case something needs to be added or removed from the mold design.
Designers should also consult other designers and project engineers on certain issues concerning the mold design. This helps in time management and cost.
What Do Injection Mold Engineers Need to Know?
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Injection mold engineers need some basic skills to be able to build and operate the mold and molding machines. These qualifications are the ones employers look for when hiring new engineers. The engineers need to have skills in the following areas.
Plastic Parts
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This is a high-demand ability that most if not all employers look for. They include;
- Ability to assemble injection molds for the production of plastics for various industries especially the automotive.
- Ejection of parts out of molds and trimming the excess plastic to smoothen the surfaces
- Be aware of how to operate molding machines
- Supervising the projects to ensure quality in production is adhered to
- Be able to scrap plastics off machines to obtain resins
- Should know how to gauge plastic parts using several scales
Alteration in Molds
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It is obvious that mold engineers need to know how to make changes in molds. These changes are made in various ways;
- Setting up for mold adjustments to improve quality
- Able to make mold alterations on (25 - 300 tons) injection molding machines
- Scheduling of mold changes
- Able to train new recruits on machine operation and mold adjustments
- Dismantling of molds
- Ability to manage many injection molding machines in terms of repairs, operations, mold changes, startups, and shutdowns.
Maintenance (preventive)
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Every engineer needs to know how to perform preventive maintenance on the machines. This is done by;
- Setting up the preventive measure on the machines
- Conduct preventive maintenance on molds (daily)
- Perform preventive maintenance on molding machines and equipment
- Ability to identify problems on machines, molds, and conduct preventive maintenance on them
- Repair equipment and machines to bring them to optimum conditions
- Be able to sustain a CMMS program on preventive maintenance
Hand Tools
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The ability to handle tools is another skill that injection engineers require to execute their job. Some of these skills are;
- Experience in handling different tools like power tools, holding devices, air hand tools, spanners, and hoists.
- Installation of injection molding die design on machines using hand tools
- Ability to remove cured parts from molds using several hand tools.
Quality Checks
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Injection mold engineers must make sure that products manufactured are of high quality before delivering them to the clients. This requires some skills and experience in several areas.
- Be able to perform quality checks on molds to ensure the molds have been built according to the specifications
- Conduct regular checks on the parameters of the injection mold such as size, design, color, texture, and weight.
- Inspect the functionality of the molds
- Perform regular quality checks on the products after completing the building.
Injection Mold Design Engineer Salary and Career Development
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Injection mold design engineering is a lucrative career. It needs a lot of skills and expertise to be an injection mold design engineer. Their salary varies depending on the company they are working for, the country in which they are working, and even the specific region. Depending on the company’s caliber, some pay more than others on the same job. An injection mold design engineer’s qualifications also contribute to their salary, it is directly proportional.
The automotives and manufacturing industries in auto molds making are the crowded ones. Many engineers are specializing in these industries compared to others. In terms of salary, automotive, manufacturing, and retail enterprises pay more than the rest. This may be the reason why many engineers are flocking to this sector. In the US for example, the estimated salary of injection mold design engineers are as follows;
- The average salary is about 42,674 USD annually
- The entry-level salary is estimated to be 32,000 USD annually
- The top tier engineers make roughly 55,000 USD per year
Career development in injection mold design engineering starts from the entry-level. Mold design engineers may progress in their career paths depending on how they perform in their current position. From being just a mere engineer, they progress to supervisors, production supervisors, or team leaders. They then move upwards to careers like superintendent, lead technician, quality assurance lead, maintenance supervisor, and production manager.
Proceeding from there are careers like project manager, quality control manager, maintenance manager, product superintendent. The final destination of ascending in career is quality manager, plant manager, quality assurance manager, facilities maintenance manager, and so on.
Conclusion
In the Fow Mold industry, we have our qualified team of injection mold designers and engineers who have a vast amount of experience and only provide professional plastic injection molding service. Our team is very innovative when it comes to mold designs. Our engineers execute projects with high precision. For more information on Fow Mold designers and engineers, contact us today to get a better understanding of how our company operates.
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