Track: Production Planning and Management

Abstract

Numerous operational parameters affect the performance of the injection molding blowing manufacturing process, hence, complicating its’ controlling and improving functions. The current research presets a combined Taguchi-continuous simulation approach for improving the quality of this process. Continuous simulation modeling was built based on actual experiments, then, was used to provide data for Taguchi analysis as well as for conducting confirmation experiments. Taguchi method was employed to identify significant parameters' associated with their levels for achieving optimum process quality indicators.  The implementation of the proposed approach in the production Polyethylene bottles revealed that the most significant parameters for the process are the center mold temperature, the first blow air, the melting temperature, and the blow air delay. By adopting the optimum levels of these parameters the process waste percentage was reduced from 4.54 % to 0.32%; which validates the aptness of the approach.