Plastics & Rubber Manufacturing
Capture cycles, scrap and resin lots at the press, and schedule every machine and tool against capacity that actually exists.
Moulding and extrusion economics live in three numbers: cycle time, scrap rate and how much of the day the press was actually running. Most shops measure all three after the fact, from a shift sheet somebody filled in from memory. WorkCell moves the capture to the machine. Operators clock on to the job at the press, record good quantity, scrap and the reason for it, and the resin lot being consumed stays linked to the parts produced. Versioned bills of material and routings hold the tool, the machine and the standard cycle the job was quoted at, so quoted and actual sit side by side. The same database schedules presses and tools against finite capacity rather than wishful thinking.
Custom injection moulders, extruders, blow moulders, thermoformers and rubber moulding and mixing shops running multi-cavity tools for automotive, medical, consumer and industrial customers.
| Standard | What It Requires |
|---|---|
| ISO 9001 | The quality baseline customers audit against, covering identification and traceability, control of nonconforming output and corrective action. |
| IATF 16949 | Automotive work adds lot traceability of safety-related components, control plans, defined reaction plans on nonconforming output, and records of process monitoring. |
| PPAP & APQP | Part approval requires dimensional results, material certifications, capability studies and a significant production run, submitted and re-submitted on any process or tool change. |
| REACH | Substances of very high concern above 0.1% by weight must be declared through the chain, so resin, masterbatch and additive exposure has to be answerable per part. |
| ISO 13485 | Medical moulding adds device history records, component traceability into the finished device, and controlled change to the validated process. |
Resin, masterbatch and additives are received against lots carrying their certificates. Issuing them to a job keeps the link, and the parts produced become a lot of their own with the machine, the tool and the operator recorded against the run. When a customer returns a box of parts, you can resolve which resin lot and which run produced them, and which other shipments came from the same run. WorkCell records machine and work centre per operation; it does not resolve traceability to an individual cavity within a multi-cavity tool.
Resin and compound certificates stored against the receiving lot so they follow the material into every job it feeds, instead of being hunted down at PPAP time.
First-off and in-process results captured at the press against the routing revision in effect, with the resin lot and the tool already attached.
Generated from the job record, tying the shipped quantity to its material lots, the run that produced it and the inspections it passed.
Scrap recorded by reason code at the machine, with severity-classified nonconformances and the 8-D corrective action that closed the repeat offenders.
Operators tally rejects on a shift sheet, somebody keys it in on Monday, and the shop learns a month later that one tool is running eight percent scrap. By then the resin is gone and the cause is a guess. Nobody can split short shots from flash from contamination because the reason was never recorded.
Regrind goes back into the hopper because it is sitting there, at a ratio that depends on who is running the line. The job costs look fine and the material variance shows up at inventory count. When a customer restricts regrind content, nothing in the system proves what actually went in.
Shot counts live in a spreadsheet one person maintains, so preventive maintenance becomes calendar guesswork and a worn cavity gets blocked rather than fixed. The tool is the shop's most valuable asset and it is the least instrumented thing in the building.
A job needs a specific press, a specific tool, a dryer and a colour changeover in a sensible order. A spreadsheet plan schedules the press and assumes the rest. One tool in the toolroom for repair silently breaks three jobs, and the customer finds out before the planner does.
Quantities, scrap and reason captured at the press
Operators clock on to the operation and record good quantity, scrap and the reason code at the machine. The cost record and the scrap analysis come from the same entry, so the floor is not reporting twice.
Resin and compound lot traceability
Receiving records the resin and masterbatch lot and its certificate, issues to a job preserve the link, and output becomes its own lot. A material question resolves backward and forward from the transactions.
Finite capacity scheduling by machine and tool
The scheduler plans against real machine and labor capacity rather than infinite capacity, and proposal runs let a planner test a sequence first. You see which deliveries move before you commit to one.
Versioned routings holding the quoted cycle
The routing carries the machine, the standard cycle and the setup the job was quoted at, with revisions and effective dates. Quoted versus actual is a comparison rather than an argument.
The inputs OEE is calculated from
Run time, downtime, good quantity and scrap are all captured at the terminal, which is every input an availability, performance and quality calculation needs. There is no packaged OEE dashboard and no MTConnect or OPC-UA machine-signal capture, so this is operator-entered data.
Inspection, nonconformance and corrective action
AQL sampling plans and inspection templates drive what gets checked. Failures raise a severity-classified nonconformance and repeat problems escalate into an 8-D corrective action against the job and the tool.
Finite scheduling by machine and tool, with terminals capturing cycles and scrap.
InventoryResin, masterbatch and part lot traceability with unit conversion and hold states.
QualityAQL inspections, scrap reasons, nonconformances and 8-D corrective action.
AnalyticsScrap rate, cycle variance and run time reported from the data the floor entered.
Quoting, purchasing, inventory, scheduling, shop floor and job costing on one database.
MESTerminals at the press capturing quantity, scrap reason and run time as they happen.
APSFinite capacity scheduling across presses, tools and changeover sequence.
OEEThe availability, performance and quality inputs captured at the machine by the operator.
Resin, compound and additive production under lot traceability.
IATF 16949What the automotive standard requires and which records WorkCell keeps for it.
PPAP & APQPThe submission package and where its evidence comes from in the system.
Machine ShopsToolrooms and precision machining running high-mix work to customer prints.
How do you actually track scrap in injection moulding without more paperwork?
The operator records it where it happens. Clocking on to the job at the terminal and entering good quantity, scrap quantity and a reason code replaces the shift sheet rather than adding to it, so scrap becomes a per-run number with a cause instead of a monthly total.
Can WorkCell track shot counts and trigger mould maintenance?
Partly, through meters and maintenance plans rather than a tool-management module. Quantities produced per run give you the cycle counts a maintenance interval is based on, but there is no shot counter asset record that fires a preventive maintenance order automatically. Raise it with us if tool PM is a deal-breaker.
Does WorkCell give us OEE?
It captures the inputs: run time, downtime, good quantity and scrap, all entered at the machine by the operator. There is no packaged OEE dashboard and no live machine-signal integration, so if you want a plant-wide OEE board fed automatically from the presses, that is not shipping.
Can we trace parts back to the resin lot for a PPAP or an IATF audit?
Yes. Resin, masterbatch and additive lots are recorded at receiving with their certificates, the link survives issue to the job, and the parts produced become their own lot with the machine and operator attached. Cavity-level traceability within a multi-cavity tool is not modelled.
Will the scheduler understand that a job needs a specific tool?
The routing names the work centre and the resources the operation needs, and the scheduler plans against that finite capacity rather than assuming a free press. Sequencing to minimise colour and material changeovers is still a planner's judgement call, assisted by proposal runs.
See it run on your parts.
Tell us how many presses you run and how scrap gets recorded today, and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.