PROCESS
This is the marriage of mold, material, and machine into an on-going process to continuously manufacture a part of consistent dimensions and physical characteristics.
TRYOUT
This is the initial test of a mold to check and repair any mechanical or dimensional defects. Once the mold is proven mechanically, the next tryout’s purpose is to optimize the molding cycle and obtain parts of sufficient quality and quantity for submission for testing and approval. A tryout is never a qualification run.
QUALIFICATION
A qualification run is a sustained run to show the mold and process can consistently produce parts of acceptable quality. This is generally understood to be a sustained run with little or no adjustments after the mold is brought on-cycle for a period of hours. Since this must be done for a sustained time, it can only be done after the parts produced from the tryout have been approved.
STARTUP
This is taking the conditions identical to those approved during the qualification run, translating them to a production machine and beginning a production run.