IoT Monitoring for Injection Molding Machines: Catching Process Drift Before Defects
· 13 min read
An injection molding machine running at spec produces parts within tolerance, cycle after cycle. But every experienced process engineer knows the truth: machines drift. Barrel zone temperatures creep. Check rings wear. Hydraulic valves degrade incrementally. By the time a quality issue shows up in finished parts, the process has been drifting for hours — sometimes days — burning material, cycle time, and margin the entire way.
IoT monitoring changes this equation fundamentally. Instead of catching drift through downstream inspection, connected sensors and real-time analytics flag the process variables that predict defects before they manifest in parts.