A review of current developments in process and quality control for injection molding

Injection molding is one of the most versatile and important manufacturing processes capable of mass-producing complicated plastic parts in net shape with excellent dimensional tolerance. Injection molding process and quality control has been an active research area for many years, as part quality and yield requirements become more stringent. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art research and development in injection molding control. It organizes prior studies into four categories, namely, process setup, machine control, process control, and quality control, and presents the distinction and connection of these different levels of control. This paper further reviews and compares the typical variables, models, and control methods that have been proposed and employed for those control tasks. Strictly speaking, real online quality control without human intervention has yet to be realized, primarily due to the lack of transducers for online, real time quality response measurement, and a robust model that correlates the control variables with quantitative quality measurements. Based on the research progress to date, this paper suggests that the different levels of control tasks have to be integrated into a multilevel quality control system, and that the quality sensor and the process and quality model are the two most important areas for further advancement in injection molding control.