Mould wear-out prediction in the plastic injection moulding industry: a case study

The current work addresses an industrial problem related to injection moulding manufacturing with focus on mould wear-out prediction. Real data sets are provided by an industrial partner that uses a multitude of moulds with different shapes and sizes in its production. An analysis of the data is presented and begins with clustering the moulds based on their characteristics and pre-chosen running settings. Using the results of the clustering, the mould wear-out is modelled using Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Furthermore, a random survival forest model is fitted for comparison and model performance is assessed. The main novelty of the case study is the implementation of mould wear-out prediction in real-time with the outcomes presented in terms of conditional survival curves including a proposed early warning system. For visualization and further industrial implementation, an R Shiny dashboard is developed and presented.