Composite Companies Hampering Road Block: Themselves
Composites manufacturers seeking new ways to reduce setup time, scrap, repair hours and finishing time should begin a mold maintenance program and communicate it effectively to staff, says Bob Piekarski, mold shop supervisor for Bradley Corporation. He spoke about the value of such programs during a COMPOSITES 2010 session called, An Effective Mold Maintenance Program—This Is Where It Starts!
The manufacturing expert shared insight he has learned in the seven years since Bradley Corp. took a systematic approach to reducing mold problems. “For a while, I was the entire mold program,” he quipped. “But now, everyone at the company knows about the issue—we’re all on board because we’ve seen the benefits.”
He used charts to showcase some of those benefits. For example, Bradley Corp.’s unscheduled repairs dropped from about 100 hours in 2006 to 56 hours in 2007 to just 20 hours in 2008. “We’re not putting out nearly as many fires—the unexpected problems we deal with aren’t as big, and not as often,” he said. “Companies that begin mold maintenance programs can get this big bucketful of time back, and spend it on other parts of their businesses. But more often than not, we’re our own roadblocks—we come up with excuses not to do it, or we start a simple program and don’t see it through.”
Piekarski likened mold maintenance to owning a car. The more you drive a car, the more you get a feel for how to handle it. “Same goes with mold,” he said. Also, the more a company ramps up production, the more preventative maintenance it requires, just as more oil is needed for a car that travels frequently.
Piekarski also shared a standard process to preventative maintenance: pulling the mold from production, cleaning the exterior of the mold, stripping the interior of the mold surface, repairing as needed, reapplying the release and returning the mold to service. He then spoke about the importance of using standardized forms to gather metrics, such as total time spent on mold problems and the ratio of time spent on mold issues to time spent on total preventative maintenance.
“Still, much success of mold maintenance lies on the shop floor and the way employees are trained,” Piekarski says. “Simply put, if they’re in a hurry, they make mistakes. I can’t stress enough the importance of making sure workers are properly trained and that you’re keeping tabs on what they’re doing. A little time upfront can yield major results downstream.”
COMPOSITES 2010: Discover the Future of Composites Today. February 9-11. Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.www.acmashow.org
