Injection molding is one of severalplastics forming processes available and is one of the most widely used worldwide with over 50,000 molding machines sold annually. The process involves taking plastic part in the form of pellets, melting them via heat and pressure, and injecting the molten material into a mold being held closed under high pressure.
Once the plastic has cooled, which generally happens rapidly, the mold is opened and the parts are removed. This process is nearly always done in an automatic mode to allow high volume production.
One of the major advantages of injection molding is the ability to produce many parts at the same time and this is done by having more than one cavity in the mold. Molds can range from 1 cavity up to 228 or more. The process, while quite simple on the surface, has many components that must function well together.