GW Plastics recently announced that it has expanded and upgraded its process development and training center in its Royalton, Vt. location. The upgrade allows the facility to develop and debug entire manufacturing cells in a dedicated non-production facility.
The expansion takes place during the company’s 20th anniversary of the process development center that received RJG certification as a mold tryout facility in 2012 and is one fo eight companies in the world to have that certification.
The process development center added two new hybrid electric injection molding machines with hydraulic tiebarless clamping systems that feature both pneumatic and hydraulic valve gate controls. They will also be equipped with six axis integrated robots for part removal.
GW Plastics’s process development center can now also fully service the company’s engineering department in the scientific process development and qualifications phases for manufacturing cells like machine, mold and automation. The finished manufacturing cell can then be delivered to a production facility as a completely automated and qualified manufacturing system.
The company’s production facilities now have at least one RJG-certified Master Molder on staff who acts as a liaison between the process development center and the production facility.
GW Plastics’s process development and training center was founded in 1998 to expedite mold testing and qualification. Before opening the center, a production press would test new molds and cause interruptions of scheduled production.
Now, the process development and training center develops production processes for new molds that will be implemented in GW Plastics production facilities across the world. Technicians only have to duplicate the process that was developed in the center when a mold arrives at a production facility instead of having to create the process themselves.