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INJECTION MOLDING
Switch to predictive maintenance enhances
molder's efficiency
Orbis uses Milacron's M-Powered system to better manage maintenance of its equipment.
Karen Hanna
Sept. 10, 2021
With Milacron's M-Powered technology, users can X
access technical assistance from the company.
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Manufacturing
Problem: An injection molder of
Prepare now for potential
containers needed to gain better control
tariff shocks
over machine downtime. Karen Hanna Feb. 5, 2025
Solution: Milacron’s M-Powered Multimedia
Solutions suite of monitoring devices and PMM's top stories in
cloud-based services leverages machine
January Want to learn more about
data to spot component wear and other Feb. 5, 2025 plastics processing and
problems. Manufacturing
tooling technologies?
Could Trump Sign uphelp
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By Karen Hanna or hurt plasticssubscription to PMM
businesses?
magazine TODAY!
The little icons on a car’s dashboard that Karen Hanna Feb. 5, 2025
warn of low tire pressure or a missed oil Manufacturing
change can alert drivers to small SPE ACCE conference
problems that can escalate into anxiety- accepting abstracts
online
producing, stranded-on-the-freeway
Feb. 4, 2025
moments.
As motorists know, preventive
maintenance can be the best medicine.
For companies that make plastic parts,
the mission to keep machines running
and avoid downtime is no less urgent.
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Additive Manufacturing
Automation
Blow Molding
Extrusion
Injection Molding
Materials Handling
Mold & Tooling
“The goal has always beento to give your Purging Compounds
us abrowsing experience and
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‘check engine’ light for our injection Recycling
molding machine similar to your
Size Reduction
car. When my truck tells me my left front
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2/18/25, 8:26 PM Switch to predictive maintenance enhances molder's efficiency | Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing
tire is under pressure, I can fix the issue Temperature Control
and monitor it, if necessary, to see if there
Thermoforming
is a larger issue prior to having to replace
the tire,” said Hank Fuller Sr., a
manufacturing engineer at Oconomowoc,
Wis.-based Orbis Corp. Want to learn more about
Orbis, which makes plastic totes, pallets
plastics processing and
and containers, has been enjoying the
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benefits of its drive to leverage data to put
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the brakes on downtime, using Milacron’s
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M-Powered Solutions suite of equipment-
monitoring services. The system, designed
for use by both injection molders and
extrusion companies, scores the
conditions of the machine components it
monitors, and issues alerts to users when
the scores decline
below the thresholds they set. Upon
receiving an alert, users can replace the
components or work with Milacron
technicians via remote connection to
troubleshoot the issue.
Along with other strides in advancing its
proactive maintenance
program, Orbis has recently taken a deep
look at the health of its
pumps, feedscrews and screw tips.
“Orbis was the first partner that had the
same vision for IIoT as Milacron,”
Edward Jump, M-Powered IIoT digital
analytics leader, said in a case study
provided by Milacron. “Machine data
provides
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to be done and why. Not only are you
preventing unplanned stops, but you are
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2/18/25, 8:26 PM Switch to predictive maintenance enhances molder's efficiency | Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing
more effectively utilizing your labor and
workforce. We’ve made a lot of progress,
and we’re still not done yet.”
He acknowledged that making the
transition from reactive to predictive
maintenance requires adopting a
Want to learn more about
new philosophy. In its journey, Orbis has
plastics processing and
been “ahead of the curve,” he said.
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“I think the process of shifting a mindset subscription to PMM
from being able to plug in and gauge — magazine TODAY!
which is what a typical maintenance staff
is used to; you plug a gauge, you see
something on the machine that can tell
you how this thing is performing; it can
also point to part failures — when you
shift that to, ‘I’ve got a bunch of zeros and
ones now telling me the same
information,’ it’s a mindset shift. ... It’s a
culture shift. As we shift generations of
technicians, of maintenance staff, within
the industry, we see some of that
resistance starting to pull away,” Jump
said.
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A heater-band study — begun in 2019,
just two years after Orbis began
implementing M-Powered
Solutions — illustrates the value of the
company’s partnership with Milacron.
First, as part of an audit of downtime
issues, Milacron and Orbis worked to
develop hypotheses around machinery
efficiency to streamline preventative
maintenance using M-Powered tools.
They based their ideas on information
collected from Orbis’
machines by Milacron’s data-
collection devices, as well as on the
observations and experiences of Orbis
technicians; meanwhile, Milacron worked
on algorithms to score the condition of
various machine components.
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To test the condition scores Milacron developed,
the team turned its focus on heater bands
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2/18/25, 8:26 PM Switch to predictive maintenance enhances molder's efficiency | Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing
— components that are often overlooked
until they stop working.
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Milacron's M-Powered software and monitoring
equipment and sensors can help plastics processors
more efficiently deploy maintenance resources.
Orbis and Milacron discovered a
correlation between barrel-zone efficiency
and the degradation of certain machine
components, including heater bands. This
opened a path for Orbis to better monitor
its heater bands — and improve its impact
on the environment, by actively
measuring its energy use in relation to
heater-band condition.
In one instance, Orbis realized that two
barrel zones had begun expending more
energy per shot, totaling an additional
0.52 kilowatt per hour. Based on that
observation, Orbis replaced the associated
heater bands, allowing the
company to save about $58.60 per day,
due to improved energy efficiency, and LOGIN JOIN
reductions in downtime, labor
requirements, and scrap.
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Improving heater-band maintenance has
been just one target of Orbis’ machine-
monitoring efforts.
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2/18/25, 8:26 PM Switch to predictive maintenance enhances molder's efficiency | Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing
Along with other components, Orbis
is studying its oil use and working to
develop ways to predict pump failures. In
addition, M-Powered developers are
creating a program that would allow users
to set up automatic shipments of spare Want to learn more about
parts based on the data they’ve collected plastics processing and
regarding the longevity of specific tooling technologies?
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“When we start to get to data analytics,
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the sky's the limit as far as what we're
potentially capable of,” said Bob Mobley,
Milacron’s director of marketing and
innovation. “And it's really, how much
data can we get? And how can we view
that data? And use predictive analytics to
help us interpret the data to provide
solutions?”
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With the data, companies can increase
machine uptime and ensure the efficiency
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2/18/25, 8:26 PM Switch to predictive maintenance enhances molder's efficiency | Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing
of resource deployment, including labor.
It can even help them compensate for
worker shortages, ensuring that they’re
able to use skilled maintenance staff as
productively as possible.
“Not only do we provide predictive
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services, we also have smart maintenance
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preventative side,” Jump said. “We have
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people working the help desk here that
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can connect into machines remotely and
help with downtime issues. So, as
people do have that labor shortage and
they're trying to keep the machines
running — they have to get the same
amount of product out with less people —
we do see a combination of the predictive
maintenance or preventative tools that
help customers maintain the machines at
the right point in time.”
Along with Mobley, Jump believes there’s
still a lot of potential for predictive
maintenance, even among companies, like
Orbis, that have bought into the
approach.
“How can we now use the machine data to
tell you when to act upon that those same
things that you were doing on that routine
basis or waiting till it broke in the
past?” Jump asked. “So, when you think
of things like cylinders, valves, just to
name a few, there's a lot of things on the
machine
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future that we think the data can help us
point to the whole-machine aspect, and
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not just the individual ones we focused on
at this point.”
While reducing downtime has been Orbis’
focus, the company also been able to gain
insight into resin consumption and waste,
Fuller said.
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“It became evident as we collected tooling technologies?
additional data, that we could infer waste Sign up for a FREE magazine
from our studies and in turn figure out subscription to PMM
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towards our scrap rate to help us to
continue to minimize scrap in our
processes,” he said.
He said he believes Orbis’ transition to a
proactive maintenance approach has only
just begun. He believes the company will
continue to unlock the benefits of being
able to monitor the entire work cell — and
access process support and
recommendations.
“With our partnership, we’re hoping to
eliminate most reactive maintenance
activities for our assets,” Fuller said.
“We’d like to be completely predictive in
our machine assessments and running as
lean as possible while maximizing
performance and uptime.”
Karen Hanna, senior staff
reporter
[email protected]
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Milacron LLC, Batavia, Ohio, 513-536-
2000, www.milacron.com
About the Author Want to learn more about
Karen Hanna | Senior Staff Reporter plastics processing and
tooling technologies?
Senior Staff Reporter Karen Hanna covers Sign up for a FREE magazine
injection molding, molds and tooling, subscription to PMM
processors, workforce and other topics, magazine TODAY!
and writes features including In Other
Words and Problem Solved for Plastics
Machinery & Manufacturing, Plastics
Recycling and The Journal of Blow
Molding. She has more than 15 years of
experience in daily and magazine
journalism.
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