June 28, 2025
Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored or endorsed by any of the companies mentioned.
Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of attending Fictiv’s webinar “Injection Molding Defects (and How to Design Around Them)”. I signed up as soon as I saw it listed in this week’s Hardware FYI newsletter. If you don’t know, Hardware FYI is a company dedicated to providing budding engineers with career resources. One of the ways it does so is by hosting a newsletter that shares interesting engineering developments. I believe that all engineers, regardless of their career goals, should subscribe to their newsletter. Thanks to this newsletter, I discovered this illuminating webinar that helped me build on my passion for improving manufacturing processes with industry knowledge. In addition to learning about defects such as short shots and weld lines, I also learned two main things during the webinar.
One insight I had is that molding tools themselves can be the source of defects — from tooling speed to gate location. While I have had hands-on experience with injection molding and troubleshooting tools, my recent experiences with injection molding were in class, where we primarily discussed mitigating defects by creating proper part designs. This webinar was a good reminder to not only examine the part design but also properly set up tools to avoid defects.
I also learned about simulation processes designed to thoroughly predict mold flow as the mold cools. While at university, we always discussed FEA as a way to verify that the design could withstand mechanical loads, but we never discussed what could verify manufacturability and defect prevention. I would love to learn more about utilizing software like SOLIDWORKS to simulate flow fronts and defects.
Overall, as someone interested in creating machines that manufacture parts, this webinar was very informative and reaffirmed my interest in pursuing a career in manufacturing systems. I look forward to attending more manufacturing-related webinars in the near future!