The Choice of Industrial Cleaning Technology for the Plastic and Rubber Injection/Compression Moulding Businesses
The whole concept doesn’t evolve about pitting one technology against the other. It is about understanding the customer's needs and the reason behind the existing processes.
There is also another element that needs to be taken care of – “the management of expectations”. Expectations are built up naturally. Sometimes these are accentuated during the “sales process". This is one big mistake that can kill an opportunity at its inception. It is also important to accept the fact that in the majority of the cases there is no single technology that proves to be the silver bullet for all the operational ailments that a customer might have. It is all a matter of approaching the case in a pragmatic way! As a start one needs to ask the following questions:
- What kind of cleaning process does the customer use?
- Is cleaning done with the mould removed from the injection unit?
- Is the mould sand blasted or acid pickled at any point in time?
- Frequency of cleaning and on how many units?
- Does the customer operate 24/7?
- Does mould cleaning process impact the end product quality?
- Is there availability of good compressed air and/or three/single phase electricity?
- What is the closest supply of dry ice?
- Does the customer know about dry ice blasting, ultrasonic cleaning and laser cleaning?
- Is the customer conversant with automation and industry 4.0?
- Is the customer ware of any incentives for implementation of new technologies?
Answering at least these questions will give you context. Without this exercise, proposing or selecting a technology becomes a shot in the dark. These questions will help addressing what kind of technologies to look for and where to apply them (in which part of the customer’s process). It may well be the case, that in certain situations a mix of technologies would work perfectly in different stages.
There are technologies that have a low to intermediary capital cost with low to moderate running costs and there is technology that requires a relatively high initial capital cost but negligible running costs. Therefore, at the end it is all about leveraging every single euro invested in the right place. For the sake of the argument:
- Portable Dry Ice Blasters: €10,000 to €33,000 – depending on the brand and features.
- Industrial Ultrasonic Cleaners (starting from 200L): starting from €10,000 – depending on the brand, features and unit capacity.
- Industrial Portable Lasers (500W units): starting from €90,000 – depending on the brand and the features.
These figures and the disparity of prices existing on the market doesn’t make it easy, however it is always recommended starting from the basics. Start first by understanding the customer’s process and his needs. Seek away of using all the information available to build a case, working in conjunction with the customer.