SME Plant Tour at Reiff Injection Molding at Spokane, WA

1. January 1, 2011
INDEX TERMS:
Thermoplastics
SOCIETY OF MANUFACTURING ENGINEERS, SPOKANE, WASHINGTON CHAPTER 248
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Thermoplastic
Injection Molding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
injection_molding
Inland NW Chapter 248
Contacts:
2011 Chair: Jim McCall
Vice Chair: John Dickson
Chair-Elect:
Treasurer: Dave Sorge
Secretary: Tony Wisnewski
2011 SME 248 Chapter Chair Jim McCall
explains operation of a 300 Ton x 30 oz.
shot Cincinatti Milacron Injection molder
at Reiff Injection Molding located in Spokane WA, at an SME Plant tour in 2007
Newsletter: Dan Tabish
Webmaster: Fred Cousins
Membership: Bob Ladd
Networking: Dave Davidson
SME Plant Tours — Collaborative opportunities for idea crosspollination: SME and SME chapters have a strong tradition of arranging
plant tours for members and guests to view manufacturing operations in a
wide cross-section of industry and business settings.
TO CONTACT SME248
Email: sme248@gmail.com
To join SME online:
http://www.sme.org
http://chapters/sme.org/248
The Lean Networking for ManufacProfessionalJourney at Kimball Office
Products, Post Falls, ID. Be there and
turing, Engineering, Production, Busisee it with SME Chapter 248 for another
ness and Lean Leaders...
in a series of SME Lean Benchmark
Tours—Wed., Sept. 17, 2008 at 6:00 PM
SME Plant tours are networking opportunities that demonstrate the power
of analogizing. Their business may be different from yours, but there are
important things you may learn from what they do
and how they do it, especially in a lean context.
WHO IS SME?: SME is Where Manufacturing Comes Together ...
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers is the world's leading professional society advancing
manufacturing knowledge and influencing more than half a million manufacturing practitioners
annually.
Through its communities, publications, expositions and professional development resources,
SME promotes an increased awareness of manufacturing engineering and keeps manufacturing professionals up to date on leading trends and technologies. Headquartered in Michigan,
the Society has members in more than 70 countries and represents manufacturing practitioners
EDITORS NOTE: for lean aficionados only, this docuacross all industries.
ment has been formatted to an 11 x 17 or A3 dimension...
SME Chapters
Through regularly scheduled
meetings and activities, SME
chapters serve as local forums for networking and contact building, information
sharing and problem solving.
Chapters organize and sponsor plant tours, conferences,
guest speakers' special
events and other exciting activities. More than 200 senior
chapters represent small regional areas, while student
chapters are centered in another 200 educational institutions worldwide. All SME
members automatically become members in the nearest chapter when they join.
There are no additional fees
for chapter membership.
Whether you are looking for
help with a manufacturingrelated problem, searching
for a new vendor, building
your list of professional contacts, looking for a new job or
simply want to learn more
about what's going on in your
local manufacturing community, your local SME chapter
can help

2. INJECTION MOLDING
FUNDAMENTALS
Reiff Injection Molding — Success from Adaptation...
Case History/Plant Tour – Spokane, Washington., Jan. 23, 2007
by Dave Davidson. Photos by Ray McDied
Tour Organized by Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Spokane, WA Chapter 248
Injection molding is
the most popular method
of making plastic molded
parts.
Jim and J. McCall own and operate Reiff Injection
Molding Co., a manufacturer of plastic injection molded parts originally established in 1979 in Walla Walla, WA. The company moved
to Spokane, WA in 1999 and recently moved from its University
Road operation to larger facilities located at 131 N. Pittsburg close to
the Altamont exit on I-90.
The company runs four different plastic injection molding machines, and manufactures parts for a variety of industries including
the medical, telecom, irrigation and recreation industries.
Injection Molding has
the advantage of quality
parts produced in high
production runs at low
cost.
In Injection Molding
normally small solid plastic pellets are put into a
hopper on the injection
molding machine. The
plastic travels through a
long cylinder known as a
barrell. The barrell has
an auger in it that is
known as a screw. While
the plastic pellets are
traveling through the
barrell they are heated
and melted.
At the appropriate
moment the molten plastic is rapidly "injected" at
high pressure into a precision closed mold. See
the graphic on our home
page.
The plastic then cools
and solidifies in the
mold. The mold then
opens and the plastic
part or parts are ejected
from the mold.
Plastic Injection Molding cell at Reiff Injection Molding
Inc., plant tour attendees watch as Jim and J. McCall explain operations of the four machines in the cell including: (1) BOY 25 Ton x 1
oz. (2) Toshiba 85 &on x 3.2 oz. (3) Toshiba 190 Ton x 10 oz. (4) Cincinnati- Milacron 300 Ton x 30 oz
Cycle times for producing
parts can typically be
from 40 to 60 seconds.
Plastic table ware can
run as fast as 4 seconds.
Challenges: Like many American manufacturers, Reiff has faced serious challenges due to the outsourcing of products overseas. The
company faced a severe test when one of its major customers, a subsidiary of a Fortune 500 firm decided it was going to start outsourcing product from India. This change was particularly unsettling as it
would mean not only loss of one of the company's largest customers,
but the loss of the company facilities as well, as the large customer
had been providing facilities for the plastic injection molding
Most molds are single
cavity (produces one part
each cycle). If the mold
has 200 cavities (makes
200 parts in one cycle)
and cycles in 4 seconds
then the production is
200 parts in 4 seconds or
3200 parts a minute.
If you notice the number on the back of plastic
table ware next time you
are at a fast food place,
that tells you which cavity the part came from.
The little round circles
are from the ejector
pins. Can you figure out
where the plastic was
injected into the cavity?
That is called the gate
and is normally at the
end of the handle.
Jim McCall
President
Reiff Injection Molding
reiffinjectionmolding.com
Reiff Molding has developed
unusually close relationships
with customers and provides
inhouse custom engineering
and specially tailored production and inventory programs
that anticipates customer needs
and requirements.
SME Chapter 248 members listen as owners Jim and Jay
McCall explain their operation as well as the basic principles
involved in transforming thermoplastic granular feedstock used
as the basic raw material into molded products by carefully
controlled heat and pressure

3. Reiff Injection Molding — Success from Adaptation...
Case History/Plant Tour – Spokane, Washington., Jan. 23, 2007
by Dave Davidson. Photos by Ray McDied, Tour Organized by Society of Manufacturing Engineers,
Spokane, WA Chapter 248
Plastic Injection Molding cell at Reiff Injection Molding
Inc., plant tour attendees watch as Jim and J. McCall explain operations of the four machines in
the cell including:
(1) BOY 25 Ton x 1 oz.
(2) Toshiba 85 &on x 3.2 oz.
(3) Toshiba 190 Ton x 10 oz.
(4) Cincinnati- Milacron 300 Ton x 30 oz
___________________________________________________________
BELOW: J. McCall explains operation of the computer controls on the company’s
TOSHIBA 190 Ton x 10 oz. injection molding machine to Jeff Dornerberg,
an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. at Eastern
Washington University. The university located in Cheney, WA. was a recipient
of an SME Education Foundation grant ($220,000.00) used in the construction
of it’s new computer science facility.
(Cont’d from page 2) operation for its own convenience.
The company has not only survived but has successfully expanded its business through utilizing its internal
strengths to provide exceptional customer service that
competitors find difficult to duplicate. As a family business, father Jim McCall has a strong process and operations background working with Whirlpool Corporation
in Michigan after receiving a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan. Son, J.
McCall, has a strong plastic materials background with
a degree from Western Washington University. Together, they are in a position to not only offer manufacturing services but custom engineering development
and materials selection advice to customers who need
this kind of process development assistance to take
parts from prints in the design stage and turn them into
reality. They have locked in customer relationships not
only by being a manufacturing source for plastic
molded products, but by also being a design and engineering resource to customers who have new product in
the formative stage. They are especially adept at assisting customers in modifying or tweaking original designs in such a way to make actual production operations more practical, feasible and cost efficient.
As an example of this, Jim McCall, explained an especially challenging design and operational problem
the company had been faced with recently involving
“puffer nozzles”. This molded component is part of a
sophisticated quality assurance system used in the food
and produce industry. As items are passed down the
length of an inspection conveyor they are analyzed by
an optical/video system which can identify defective or
nonconforming items. Once an identification has been
made the system will remove the offending item from
the production stream by actuating the “puffer nozzle”
which then directs a “puff” or “blast” of high velocity
air at the defective piece as it comes off the conveyor,
segregating it from acceptable product. The “puffer
nozzle” is a challenging product for the plastic injection
molding process where products are typically designed
with a specific taper to promote ease of ejection from
the mold at the end of the injection cycle. On this part
the internal orifice had to be designed with a taper opposite to that which would be normal for ejection purposes in order to produce sufficient velocity in the air
puff used to remove the piece from the conveyor
stream.
____________________________________________
SME Injection Molding Technical
Group
www.sme.org/injectionmolding
This group provides an opportunity for SME members involved in
plastic injection molding to collaborate and exchange information related to their field. This team has been actively engaged in the development of resources to assist other injection molders, including a variety of Web resources and technical conference sessions.
Tech Group Activities Featuring proven industry tips and techniques, submitted by numerous industry professionals, on a variety of plastics manufacturing topics, including materials, design, tooling, processing, assembly and
finishing.
Injection Molding Webinars Throughout the years, the Injection Molding
Tech Group has presented and/or participated in presentations (webinars) on
injection molding-related topics. These webinars were typically one hour in
length and included an interactive question and answer period. Monthly Conference Calls Is there a particular injection molding/plastics manufacturing
topic you want to learn about? Do you have information to share with other
SME members? We want to hear from you! Roundtable discussions are held
on a regular basis through one-hour teleconferences. This is a great opportunity to connect with other SME members with similar manufacturing interests
and challenges and learn from each other. To get involved, or to suggest a
discussion topic, e-mail membership@sme.org.