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This informative blog allows plastics professionals to discuss plastics training and technology. Brought to you by Routsis Training: the plastic industry's premiere training provider.

Plastics Processing: How To Succeed In An Ever-Changing Industry, Part 3

As discussed in our previous posts, technicians are the key to implementing sustainable change. This is undeniably true. You need competent techs to succeed. And managers that insist otherwise are simply finding excuses for maintaining the status quo. We hear it all the time: “You don’t understand, it’s different here… we don’t have a lot of people to choose from in our area!” The truth is, you’re not alone: Finding and keeping talented techs is a challenge for companies all over the world.

A contributing factor is this challenge is the fact that there are fewer and fewer publicly-funded avenues to develop the technical skills that we need in our industry. Many vocational schools, community colleges, and training centers are still using very outdated materials to teach plastics, assuming they are teaching plastics at all.

Furthermore, a significant percentage of our skilled workers will retire in the next few years, further reducing the available technical talent pool. There is a famous book that came out a few years ago called Lost Knowledge that describes the nightmare of losing key workers and relying on just a few key techs.

To make things more difficult, these key technicians are often overworked get burnt out: You’ll notice their productivity declines and tasks tend to drag-out. And these employees ultimately take more sick time, move on to another company, or retire earlier than planned. The knowledge is lost — at least to you.

Rising to Meet the Challenge

Once management accepts the need for new talent, they must look for ways of acquiring it. The choices here are pretty simple: You can poach employees from your competitors, or develop talent in-house.

Poaching

If you do find a good technician who works for someone else, you typically have to overpay to steal them from their current employer.  Here’s the simple truth: If you can poach a talented tech from another company, then someone else can poach them from you. It’s not a sustainable solution.

In-House Training

The best long-term solution to obtaining competent technicians is to train and develop them in-house. You already have a reliable employees who know your customers’ parts, the quality requirements, your in-plant documentation, and your company culture. These people need to be trained and developed into competent and capable technicians. With the proper training, many of these people can become your materials handlers, die setters, and process techs.


For over 30 years, Routsis has been helping plastics manufacturers all over the world develop and retain skilled employees. Take advantage of our experience and unique services — and help your company achieve meaningful, lasting, positive change with a commitment to constant improvement.

We are proud to offer RightStart™ — our flagship training service that delivers a complete, customized in-house training solution. Please contact us: We are happy to discuss practical, effective ways for you to acquire and develop talent at your facility.

Plastics Processing: How To Succeed In An Ever-Changing Industry, Part 2

There is an old adage that says, “A fish rots from the head down.” This is also true in the plastics industry: In the end, everything that goes wrong is management’s fault. Routsis Training has visited many processing facilities over the years and this is invariably true. For example, it is not uncommon that we talk to a plant manager in their messy office about how employees should learn the 5S System and organize their workplace! It’s not that management doesn’t mean well — but they need to understand they are leaders, and that the most successful leaders lead by example.

Support from Management

It is not enough to simply demand change: Management must provide the resources to facilitate and sustain such changes. It all begins with management’s buy-in, support, and constant reinforcement. Without this, you will never attain meaningful, permanent change.

Engineering Provides the Specifics

Determining the specifics of how the change will occur should be the job of the engineering group. This includes relevant documentation, procedures, equipment, reporting, specifications and so forth.

Technical Employees Implement Change

Now the actual day-to-day implementation of change falls on the shoulders of your technical employees. These are your production personnel that use the new equipment, follow the new procedures, maintain the new standards, and fill out the new documentation.

For example, your engineers could develop all-new, fully-documented processes using scientific processing methodology. But if the technicians do not understand both the reason for the change and how it is done, the processes will inevitably go back to the way things were. This is an important point so I’ll repeat another way: If your techs do not understand both the reason for the change and how it’s done, they will simply revert to what is most comfortable.

Sustainable Change is Everyone’s Job

The world’s most successful plastics processors are the ones who continuously improve and take on new challenges. To do this, you must first teach the workforce why the change is needed, what is involved, and how it is to be implemented.

In our next post, we will take a look at ways your facility can develop more competent technicians — in order to promote continuous improvement to your processes.


What exactly is Scientific Molding? Click here to learn more. And feel free to contact us for more information about modernizing the processing methodology in your facility.

Plastics Processing: How To Succeed In An Ever-Changing Industry, Part 1

In 1963, Bob Dylan famously sang, “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” While it is doubtful he had plastics processing in mind, the changes in our industry over the past 60 years have been staggering — and the pace of these changes is ever-increasing. How can today’s plastics processors keep up with technology and compete in the global marketplace? In this series, we will attempt to answer that question.

Learning to Embrace Change

Most plastics companies claim they are embracing change, yet the day-to-day actions of their technicians has barely changed in the past 5 or10 or even 20 years. Engineering and management may come up with innovative ideas. But for such ideas to work, your technicians need to be involved in implementing these changes on a day-to-day basis.

Scientific Processing

One of the most common changes taking place is the move from traditional processing to a scientific approach. ‘Scientific’ is not just a buzzword: There are systematic ways to approach the development of each process parameter, document each process, and troubleshoot any defect.

Contrary to what many company owners and managers believe, these advancements are not centered around purchasing a lot of shiny new equipment. The most important and meaningful changes are realized by improving the day-to-day practices of your technicians. Every manager should expect their technicians to process and troubleshoot your product the same way — each and every time the process runs. Following a scientific processing methodology ensures this consistency.

Less Talk, More Action

The most successful molders in the world are the ones who can implement change and are willing and able to take on new challenges. They not only have to talk about it, they must actually do it. Therefore, your company needs to put a system in place to help employees constantly improve and stay ahead of the competition. In our next post, we will examine some specific ways this can be accomplished.


What exactly is Scientific Molding? Click here to learn more. And feel free to contact us for more information about modernizing processing methodology in your facility.

Material Drying, Part 3: Common Dryer Types

Did you know there are 4 different types of material dryers commonly used in the plastics industry? In fact, many processing facilities are using the wrong type of dryer for their material drying application. In this post, we will discuss each type of dryer and its appropriate usage.

Hot Air Dryers

The most basic type of dryer is a hot air dryer.  These typically consist of a blower, filter, heater, and temperature controller. Such dryers are great with non-hygroscopic materials where removing surface moisture is needed or the material needs to be pre-heated for high-speed processing.

Desiccant Dryers

The most common dryer used in the industry is the desiccant dryer because they bring the dewpoint of the air down to -40°C (-40°F). These typically consist of an aftercooler, blower, desiccant bed, dewpoint sensor, heater, filter, temperature controller, and regeneration system. These are great at drying hygroscopic materials, but are very complex pieces of machinery which require a lot of maintenance to keep running.

Compressed Air Dryers

A simpler type of hygroscopic material dryer is the compressed air dryer. These are almost identical to a hot air dryer except they get their inlet air from your compressed air supply. If you air system is properly maintained, the compressed air dryer provides air as dry as negative 20 degrees Celsius. These systems are becoming very popular as hopper dryers for drying small amounts of materials as well as hygroscopic materials warm and dry in high-speed applications.

Vacuum Dryers

Vacuum dryers are the fastest, most efficient systems available for batch-drying hygroscopic materials. These systems heat the pellets in a canister and then draw a vacuum to quickly remove the moisture from the material. These systems are complex and expensive, but can dry a batch of material as quickly as 30 minutes! Desiccant dryers are the most commonly used systems in the plastics industry, but they are not always the best choice.


For more information about moisture measurement and material drying, be sure to check out Routsis Training’s Material Drying Technology. This online training programs give personnel a better understanding of how different polymers are best dried and prepared for reliable processing — and demonstrate how proper plastics material handling is critical to developing a consistent process and delivering quality products to your customers.

Material Drying, Part 2: Moisture Measurement

Just because the material has been dried at the specified temperature for the specified amount of time does not guarantee it is actually dried to the material supplier’s specifications. If you dry material in-house, you must have a method of measuring the actual moisture contained in the material.

In most hygroscopic materials, water attacks the polymer — resulting in shorter, weaker, and more brittle polymer chains. While a part molded from such material may look good, it can fail miserably in the field. If you grind up these weaker parts and then test the material shortly after processing, you will likely find the material has a moisture level much higher than the supplier’s recommendation.

Moisture Analyzers

The most common method of material moisture analysis is a Moisture Analyzer. In fact, many molders have one in the materials handling area and one in the quality department. These simply weigh a material sample, heat the sample, and measure the amount of moisture lost during heating.

For most materials, moisture analyzers are a great way to measure the moisture in your material. Unfortunately, for materials with lots of additives such as processing aides and flame retardants, it may falsely report these as moisture when they vaporize.

Relative Humidity Analyzers

Relative Humidity Analyzers use the weight of the sample combined with the relative humidity of the air around the sample after heating to determine the amount of moisture in the material. Since the relative humidity sensor only measures water, vaporized additives are not measured.

If you have unique materials which never seem to dry regardless of how long you dry them, you may want to consider investing in a relative humidity analyzer for your material.


For more information about moisture measurement and material drying, be sure to check out Routsis Training’s Material Drying Technology. This online training programs give personnel a better understanding of how different polymers are best dried and prepared for reliable processing — and demonstrate how proper plastics material handling is critical to developing a consistent process and delivering quality products to your customers.