Why Not Automate Your Post-Production Cleanup?

Against the background of recent labor shortages and rising raw material costs, achieving both cost structure review and labor reduction has become an important challenge at manufacturing sites.
At the "Popular Feature Demonstration" held at the Chiba Technology Center, a high level of interest in these challenges was also observed.
In this article, we introduce Kawata Co., Ltd.'s "Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System" and our "Production Completion Package," both of which have attracted attention in response to these needs.

The "cleanup operations" after production highlighted in the demonstration

Many visitors stated that they spend a significant amount of time on cleanup operations after completing the planned production volume and feel that there are challenges in improving their efficiency.
In particular, at sites where resin changes are frequent, such as the molding of small parts or connector products, these cleanup operations occur frequently.

Each time production is completed, the operator goes to the front of the injection molding machine, stops automatic operation, and retracts the injection unit.
After that, the resin remaining in the hopper is discharged by purging, the hopper is cleaned, and new resin is set for the next production...

These series of tasks have been repeatedly carried out over many years as tasks that are naturally performed by people at manufacturing sites.
However, at sites where a large number of molding machines are managed by a small number of workers, even if each individual task is short, the accumulation results in a burden that cannot be ignored.
Furthermore, there are also losses that are difficult to recognize on site, such as the disposal of resin remaining in the hopper and power consumption associated with excessive purging.

What if these cleanup operations and even resin recovery could be automated?
The combination of our Production Completion Package and Kawata Co., Ltd.'s Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System makes it possible to reduce both manual workload and resin waste.

Production Completion Package | Completed without human intervention

The Production Completion Package is a function in which the injection molding machine automatically executes tasks that were previously performed by operators, based on preset conditions.
Since operations such as stopping the molding machine, retracting the injection unit, and purging are carried out automatically, operators are freed from these tasks.
As a result, operators can move on to the next task or respond to other molding machines, leading to labor reduction and manpower saving across the entire site.

Furthermore, resin supply is automatically stopped several shots before production ends, which reduces the amount of resin remaining in the hopper and decreases the number of unnecessary purging cycles.
This not only reduces the amount of resin waste but also leads to a reduction in power consumption by heaters and motors.

Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System | Recovering Material Instead of Wasting It

While the Production Completion Package can reduce the amount of resin remaining in the hopper; eliminating residual material completely is difficult and unused resin still can remain in the supply path.
At many sites, such resin has been discharged by purging and then discarded.

Kawata Co., Ltd.'s Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System performs hopper cleaning while automatically recovering not only the resin inside the hopper but also the unused resin remaining in the supply path.
As a result, purging is limited to the resin remaining in the heating cylinder, which makes it possible to shorten the operation time.
In addition, since the cleaning process is executed automatically, it contributes not only to time reduction but also to reducing the burden on workers.
The recovered resin is collected in a dedicated container, and depending on the type of resin, it can be reused, leading to a reduction in waste.
Furthermore, when starting the next production, the supply source can be easily switched on the machine screen, which makes preparation work smoother.

Expected Benefits

Based on our estimates assuming sites with frequent resin changes, the introduction of the Production Completion Package and the Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System is expected to significantly reduce operator workload and resin usage.

By automating purging and cleaning operations that were previously performed by operators, the time during which operators are occupied with cleanup work after production completion is expected to be reduced by 6.3 hours per day.
When converted into cost, assuming an hourly wage of 3,000 yen and 200 operating days per year, this corresponds to an annual labor cost reduction of approximately 3.8 million yen.

urthermore, by automatically recovering resin remaining in the hopper and supply paths and limiting purging to only the resin in the heating cylinder, approximately 50 kg of resin per day is expected to be reduced when reused.
Assuming an average unit price of 250 yen/kg for general-purpose resin, this results in an annual material cost reduction of approximately 2.5 million yen.
In total, these effects are estimated to result in an annual cost reduction of approximately 6.3 million yen.

By automating post-production operations, manufacturers can simultaneously reduce hidden waste and labor requirements that have traditionally been difficult to address.

The Production Completion Package and the Material Automatic Switching Supply and Recovery System introduced in this article can be experienced at the "Popular Feature Demonstration" held at the Chiba Technology Center.
▶View details of the "Popular Feature Demonstration"

Related article：Production Completion Package - Function Introduction

If you would like to view the actual operation screens of the Production Completion Package introduced in this article, please refer to the above article.