EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVE INJECTION STRATEGIES WITH VARIABILITY CONSIDERATION IN INJECTION MOLDING

Selecting proper process settings is crucial in injection molding as part quality is greatly influenced by the process conditions. The locations of the injection gate need to be decided before the mold is made. Other processing variables can be adjusted during start up; however changing the gate location at a later stage involves great cost. In this work, we analyze the effect of gate location on process consistency for an automotive part, using a multi-criteria optimization method called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA).