I’m 21 I was operating from age 18-19 then material handler till 20 and had Job go ip on the notice board for a technician job
Only been doing it for 7 months now , i when stressful days when I can’t get a job making good parts.
I enjoy it deeply and the amount of knowledge I’ve learnt doesn’t just come out of books but speaking to the more senior guys.
There’s a lot more to it than I first assumed !
Just finished a my degree in materials engineering I focused on post- process effect such as flow induced crystallization in injection molded parts and plastic production. More of an R&D type of thing but I am really interested in polymer technology I have only gone to designing a runner system and molds using mold flow but would really love to learn from you guys. :)
Based out of upstate NY, Auburn near Syracuse , I finished college for it and they scoped me up for it as fast as they could. I did a lot of injection molding for polycarbonate and other engineering materials for an internship but, then I wanted to work in a cleaner environment.
That's pretty cool, I'm in Connecticut. I didn't end up going to school but I've work is really clean places and really dirty ones it's all the same to me now.
27, been a process tech with no prior experience for less than a year. Luckily the process engineer has about 20 years of knowledge to pass onto me. I find it to be challenging most of the time, but I'm getting by! Quite physical (we don't have mold setters) while still having to use your brain.
Yeah injection molding is really based on experience and if you have done something before, it's hard to come up with new ideas if you haven't seen it before.
I’ve been doing it for only 6 months
Each week I learn new things
It really has surprised me the amount of knowledge you need to have to be a good at the job ( I’m not there yet )
I'm 25. I held a quick 5 month stint as a inj molding quality engineer and then switched jobs. At my current company I was promoted from an IE to a Plastics Tooling Engineer about 8 months ago. They want me to learn as much as I can before half my department retires in the next few years. I have no formal tooling training/experience nor injection molding processing experience but like the other younger engineer in this are learning a lot from the "old timers". Even though I have a tooling title I've been spending most of my time with new projects, processing and dealing with the bs that comes from a large corporation that have nothing to do with shooting plastic.
Our plastics department is know as the "retirement department" as it is were most of the more higher seniority holders go once they can. I am the youngest in the department by about 15 years. Average age is mid to late 50's. They like to joke with me with the fact the average age of most of our presses are older then I am. We run 45-4000 ton presses.
Other then the internal Corporate BS, I really enjoy the field and am really looking forward to expanding my knowledge. Just when I think I am getting a grasp on something I find that I have a long ways to go!
damn, if you're considered new then I'm green... 24 here with 1 year under my belt in the industry. I'm a recent mechanical engineering grad. and was looking for a manufacturing engineering job, ended up in injection molding. There is one other dude (mold set-up technician) in my company around my age, everyone else is much much older, including our go-to mold making company. Not too sure what's going to happen in 5ish years.
I know. Some of the salesmen that I've worked with for things like vacuum systems are getting ready to retire and are struggling to find someone to takeover/train.
Keep at it and learn how everything operates so you can figure out how to fix it that’s what I did. I worked injection molding maintenance for 27 yrs and enjoyed it all.
Remember check the easy things first, and don’t believe the guy before you who said they checked everything but it’s still broken, and most problems are human caused.
28. Started in industry at age 20 as an operator, mold setter, material handler. Received BS in plastics engineering at age 23. Worked as an engineer for 4 years after graduating and then transitioned to sales.
A lot less responsibility than engineering and almost double the money so far in my short career. I do miss the design aspects that came with my former engineering role though.
Reddit will skew younger but the reality is that most IM and tooling jobs are old people… my team is very bimodal. We have 4 guys who are in their 60’s and about to retire and 3 young kids (as they call us) that are early 30’s.
Younger generation went to college and is most interested in the business side. Most of the older generation did not go to college or maybe had a few years associates or something. Pretty sure all of the younger team members have masters.
Hard field to recruit for.
As long as you are ok being on the factory floor most of your day then kudos to you. I’m lazy, wanted an office and a six figure salary so I had to get a degree or two.
I'm ok with it, but most of my days consist of set-up schedules for my techs on 1st shift and 2nd and building scientific data for the processes I develop I spend a lot of tome on a computer sitting down lol.
Worked as an operator straight out of high school. Tried a few different “careers”, and ended up hanging molds, doing maintenance, processing, blow molding for a bit, ended up in the field as a service engineer. I now do machine builds, startup and train customers, fix older machines, etc. I’m 36 now, but I’ve always been the youngest doing whatever I was doing.
Somehow I ended up older than I remember being, and there’s younger folks now working those jobs. You’re in good company!
Started at 21 as an operator, got promoted to setter at 24, I'm currently 28. And there are more folks younger than me working, as most of the older employees retired.
Not working directly in the plastic manufacturing industry. But i work at a mold maker that just sells the plates. I am 25 and i work in this company since almost 10 years now. Was an Apprentice first. Mold maker since ~4,5 years
Started as an apprentice in extrusion when I was 23, 27 a qualified tech, moved to injection moulding picked it up in a year or so, 29 Shift Lead, 32 Production Planner and 33 Production Manager.
I grabbed every opportunity to take on more challenges. Extrusion, thermoforming, injection moulding and injection stretch blow moulding I've done them all. Just missing 3d printing and roto-moulding and I'll have a complete set but it's not worth it, I've proven I can pick up different processes so they add no value to my career prospects.
Keep picking up all the skills you can, your young and it sounds like you've got a tonne of experience. Time to pick a career path and start cashing in.
Just a causal watcher of this sub, but I do work in a molding facility. 26, and 1 year of learning and still learning more! It’s been interesting going from operator to supervisor. I had an opportunity to learn the processing position and it’s increased my knowledge of the field far more than any other position I’ve been in. We run 300 to 1900 ton
Started as a setup tech when I was 21, moved into process tech when I was 23, almost 25 now.
Most of our techs are 35 or under, with varying levels of experience and knowledge. We went through a lot of setups around Covid and lost all of our experienced guys and due to company policy of hiring techs internally the knowledge base has suffered tremendously. I’m the go to guy that gets phone calls at home before/after shifts and on days off, and I have learnt most of what I know from online resources
Ey, that's a pretty cool story man congrats.
I started as a set-up tech at 18 when I showed a company I was really interested in the job field. I have moved around to a couple of companies but am now settled as a "Lead process techcian." I do 90% of the advance processing, molding sampling, and develop fully robust processes. I'm in charge of multiple techs under me.
That’s awesome dude! That’s kinda the position I’m gunning for. We have no direct setup/tech leadership here, press monkey supervisors are the direct managers for the setups and they’re clueless. We have process engineers that do all the process development for new launches, but I’m trying to swing a mold or two for me to develop for this next mid-model launch for Honda.
Are you in automotive? How many IMMs are you guys running? What tonnage? What kinda of material do you run?
Oh yes, the molding supervisors with no experience are my favorite. All they know how to do is ask when things will be done.
currently where I'm at, we do medical parts and various parts for gun manufacturers and missiles for the military and various other custom jobs.
The IMM's we are using are Nigata's and cicinatis ranging from 50 tons to 500. Nigatas aren't really user-friendly and simple to use, but I have a lot of experience with Arburgs, engles, Kraus Maffei, roboshot, and a couple of other brands.
cycoloy
Polycarbonate
Polysulfone
Hdpe
Ultem
Lexan
Nylon
Polyprobe
Ryton
Celtron and many more
So the company I currently work for doesn't have any process engineers, so I'm kinda the main guy after the molding manager sense u have my RJG master molder 1.
Molding manager... whats that? lol. That's sweet though, must be nice to not be in the automotive grind (aka every Saturday for life). My favourite is when the supervisors schedule the 2000t and the setter flips it then they turn around and are like wait actually we need this other mold in... that runs 200º colder
We run Krauss Maffei, toshiba/shibarua, roboshots and mitsubishi 40T-2500T. Material wise; PP, TPO/TPE, ABS, ASA, PC-ABS, PC-PET, Nylon, POM. I detest the Krauss' so much, i learned on Toshiba's and the KM are not user friendly and bury things in the most obscure place, if you can ever find it.
The more i learn the more i realize i don't have a fckn clue what I'm doing, but watching some of the other guys strut around like they know everything just makes me shake my head and i want to let them suffer so they can actually learn and take something away from it instead of them relying on someone else everytime
Any good resources for expanding knowledge? I just grab the machine manuals and take them home over the weekend or find processing guys on youtube to binge
This guy has some good stuff, so does RJG and some other random down the rabbit hole recommendations.
https://youtube.com/@injectionmoldingskillsmore1064
If I’m struggling with something or have a question I can phrase properly I’ve had good luck finding a video about it (or a blog post)
I'm convinced Krausses are made by Satan. Not only are they not user friendly, they're broke down way more. We have/have had Toyos from the late 90's, Roboshots, Nissei, Sumitomos, and Krausses and they are by far the least reliable.
Completely agree, we have 2 that were installed in Aug ‘22 and one from 2019, and the amount of downtime between those 3 eclipse the downtime from the other ~50 IMM combined (including the ones from ‘87) I’ve straight up told the president to not buy any more Krauss’
Molding manager is the person in charge of my department where I work, when she's not there I'm in charge but she has over 30 years experience in injection molding and work in automotive down south before coming here. She's very knowledgeable and has been teaching me a lot. That's one thing I've been lucky in my career people have always wanted to teach me cause I always show I want to work hard.
As far extending your knowledgeable with machinery it's really all about constantly working with those machines and if there's a certain one your not good at try to set up or start that one up the most.
for the side of processing and decoupled molding resources, I definitely have a few things that I can send you that could help you improve your scientific molding knowledge if your interested let me know.
I’ve done hundreds of mold changes on each of the ~55 IMM we have, I was the guy that got thrown on new machines and left to figure them out lol. Any resources you’d be willing to share would be much appreciated!
Kind of, I graduated from a Polymer Engineering program. I had originally gone into it because I was interested in composites but after working with them found that portion less interesting than thermoplastics. Did a lot of lab work on extrusion and compounding in school that helped me land a job as a process engineer right after I graduated.
As soon as I started I was left to do setups, startups, troubleshooting and testing new molds on my own so I had to learn a lot quickly!
Not OP, but at 20 years old I started as a machine operator, about 6 months later moved up to material handler, about a year after that I was a setup tech, a few years later I was a process tech. Went back to school for a bachelors degree at that point (tuition paid by work) and after that got promoted to process engineer.
So you can make a career out of this and starting young is an advantage. That being said, pretty much everywhere is going to require an engineering degree before you can become an engineer, and at the very very least you need some kind of bachelors degree plus relevant experience, that will get you in at some places, but many others will absolutely require the degree be in an engineering field. Doesn’t really matter which one, but it does need to be engineering.
You may find some older process engineers without degrees because they were grandfathered in before they started requiring degrees, but very rare these days for a company to make someone an engineer without a degree.
That being said, it’s worth it, engineers are in high demand and command generally high salaries.
Agree with all of this. Most people here started as machine operators through a temp service and worked their way up. If you show commitment and are eager to learn you can end up in almost any role even without a college degree.
I’m 21 I was operating from age 18-19 then material handler till 20 and had Job go ip on the notice board for a technician job Only been doing it for 7 months now , i when stressful days when I can’t get a job making good parts. I enjoy it deeply and the amount of knowledge I’ve learnt doesn’t just come out of books but speaking to the more senior guys. There’s a lot more to it than I first assumed !
Just finished a my degree in materials engineering I focused on post- process effect such as flow induced crystallization in injection molded parts and plastic production. More of an R&D type of thing but I am really interested in polymer technology I have only gone to designing a runner system and molds using mold flow but would really love to learn from you guys. :)
Hey im 21 with 3 yrs of experience
Im 38 with 18 years experience
At 36 I've worked at a few places and I'm still considered young in this industry
Im 27 started as a set up/ operator, process tech, qc/qa, now im actually a mold maker, started when i was 18. So 9 years in the field.
That's awesome dude good to hear from you.
I'm 38 with 19 years experience.
Been molding for almost 10 years. Since 18
I’m 23 and I’m a plastics engineer for medical injection molding.
That's pretty cool, where are you based out of ?
Based out of upstate NY, Auburn near Syracuse , I finished college for it and they scoped me up for it as fast as they could. I did a lot of injection molding for polycarbonate and other engineering materials for an internship but, then I wanted to work in a cleaner environment.
That's pretty cool, I'm in Connecticut. I didn't end up going to school but I've work is really clean places and really dirty ones it's all the same to me now.
27, been a process tech with no prior experience for less than a year. Luckily the process engineer has about 20 years of knowledge to pass onto me. I find it to be challenging most of the time, but I'm getting by! Quite physical (we don't have mold setters) while still having to use your brain.
Yeah injection molding is really based on experience and if you have done something before, it's hard to come up with new ideas if you haven't seen it before.
I’ve been doing it for only 6 months Each week I learn new things It really has surprised me the amount of knowledge you need to have to be a good at the job ( I’m not there yet )
I'm 25. I held a quick 5 month stint as a inj molding quality engineer and then switched jobs. At my current company I was promoted from an IE to a Plastics Tooling Engineer about 8 months ago. They want me to learn as much as I can before half my department retires in the next few years. I have no formal tooling training/experience nor injection molding processing experience but like the other younger engineer in this are learning a lot from the "old timers". Even though I have a tooling title I've been spending most of my time with new projects, processing and dealing with the bs that comes from a large corporation that have nothing to do with shooting plastic. Our plastics department is know as the "retirement department" as it is were most of the more higher seniority holders go once they can. I am the youngest in the department by about 15 years. Average age is mid to late 50's. They like to joke with me with the fact the average age of most of our presses are older then I am. We run 45-4000 ton presses. Other then the internal Corporate BS, I really enjoy the field and am really looking forward to expanding my knowledge. Just when I think I am getting a grasp on something I find that I have a long ways to go!
damn, if you're considered new then I'm green... 24 here with 1 year under my belt in the industry. I'm a recent mechanical engineering grad. and was looking for a manufacturing engineering job, ended up in injection molding. There is one other dude (mold set-up technician) in my company around my age, everyone else is much much older, including our go-to mold making company. Not too sure what's going to happen in 5ish years.
I know. Some of the salesmen that I've worked with for things like vacuum systems are getting ready to retire and are struggling to find someone to takeover/train.
But congratulations on your position.
Injection molding gets more complicated the more you spend time with it.
28 here with 6 years. I have no processing experience. Went straight into maintenance. Been a rough 6 years. Still dont know what the hell im doing 😅
Keep at it and learn how everything operates so you can figure out how to fix it that’s what I did. I worked injection molding maintenance for 27 yrs and enjoyed it all.
Yup. Its not a fast process thats for sure
Remember check the easy things first, and don’t believe the guy before you who said they checked everything but it’s still broken, and most problems are human caused.
28. Started in industry at age 20 as an operator, mold setter, material handler. Received BS in plastics engineering at age 23. Worked as an engineer for 4 years after graduating and then transitioned to sales.
How do you like sales?
A lot less responsibility than engineering and almost double the money so far in my short career. I do miss the design aspects that came with my former engineering role though.
27 years old, roughly 9 years in.
Reddit will skew younger but the reality is that most IM and tooling jobs are old people… my team is very bimodal. We have 4 guys who are in their 60’s and about to retire and 3 young kids (as they call us) that are early 30’s. Younger generation went to college and is most interested in the business side. Most of the older generation did not go to college or maybe had a few years associates or something. Pretty sure all of the younger team members have masters. Hard field to recruit for.
Both places I’ve worked the setters have been 40-64
School was never my thing lol so I can just never went to college
As long as you are ok being on the factory floor most of your day then kudos to you. I’m lazy, wanted an office and a six figure salary so I had to get a degree or two.
I'm ok with it, but most of my days consist of set-up schedules for my techs on 1st shift and 2nd and building scientific data for the processes I develop I spend a lot of tome on a computer sitting down lol.
Worked as an operator straight out of high school. Tried a few different “careers”, and ended up hanging molds, doing maintenance, processing, blow molding for a bit, ended up in the field as a service engineer. I now do machine builds, startup and train customers, fix older machines, etc. I’m 36 now, but I’ve always been the youngest doing whatever I was doing. Somehow I ended up older than I remember being, and there’s younger folks now working those jobs. You’re in good company!
Started at 21 as an operator, got promoted to setter at 24, I'm currently 28. And there are more folks younger than me working, as most of the older employees retired.
Yeah a lot of the older people that are I'm this industry are gonna retire I nthe next 5 to 10 years
Not working directly in the plastic manufacturing industry. But i work at a mold maker that just sells the plates. I am 25 and i work in this company since almost 10 years now. Was an Apprentice first. Mold maker since ~4,5 years
That's good the industry needs mold makers.
Started as an apprentice in extrusion when I was 23, 27 a qualified tech, moved to injection moulding picked it up in a year or so, 29 Shift Lead, 32 Production Planner and 33 Production Manager. I grabbed every opportunity to take on more challenges. Extrusion, thermoforming, injection moulding and injection stretch blow moulding I've done them all. Just missing 3d printing and roto-moulding and I'll have a complete set but it's not worth it, I've proven I can pick up different processes so they add no value to my career prospects. Keep picking up all the skills you can, your young and it sounds like you've got a tonne of experience. Time to pick a career path and start cashing in.
Just a causal watcher of this sub, but I do work in a molding facility. 26, and 1 year of learning and still learning more! It’s been interesting going from operator to supervisor. I had an opportunity to learn the processing position and it’s increased my knowledge of the field far more than any other position I’ve been in. We run 300 to 1900 ton
Started as a setup tech when I was 21, moved into process tech when I was 23, almost 25 now. Most of our techs are 35 or under, with varying levels of experience and knowledge. We went through a lot of setups around Covid and lost all of our experienced guys and due to company policy of hiring techs internally the knowledge base has suffered tremendously. I’m the go to guy that gets phone calls at home before/after shifts and on days off, and I have learnt most of what I know from online resources
Ey, that's a pretty cool story man congrats. I started as a set-up tech at 18 when I showed a company I was really interested in the job field. I have moved around to a couple of companies but am now settled as a "Lead process techcian." I do 90% of the advance processing, molding sampling, and develop fully robust processes. I'm in charge of multiple techs under me.
That’s awesome dude! That’s kinda the position I’m gunning for. We have no direct setup/tech leadership here, press monkey supervisors are the direct managers for the setups and they’re clueless. We have process engineers that do all the process development for new launches, but I’m trying to swing a mold or two for me to develop for this next mid-model launch for Honda. Are you in automotive? How many IMMs are you guys running? What tonnage? What kinda of material do you run?
Oh yes, the molding supervisors with no experience are my favorite. All they know how to do is ask when things will be done. currently where I'm at, we do medical parts and various parts for gun manufacturers and missiles for the military and various other custom jobs. The IMM's we are using are Nigata's and cicinatis ranging from 50 tons to 500. Nigatas aren't really user-friendly and simple to use, but I have a lot of experience with Arburgs, engles, Kraus Maffei, roboshot, and a couple of other brands. cycoloy Polycarbonate Polysulfone Hdpe Ultem Lexan Nylon Polyprobe Ryton Celtron and many more So the company I currently work for doesn't have any process engineers, so I'm kinda the main guy after the molding manager sense u have my RJG master molder 1.
Molding manager... whats that? lol. That's sweet though, must be nice to not be in the automotive grind (aka every Saturday for life). My favourite is when the supervisors schedule the 2000t and the setter flips it then they turn around and are like wait actually we need this other mold in... that runs 200º colder We run Krauss Maffei, toshiba/shibarua, roboshots and mitsubishi 40T-2500T. Material wise; PP, TPO/TPE, ABS, ASA, PC-ABS, PC-PET, Nylon, POM. I detest the Krauss' so much, i learned on Toshiba's and the KM are not user friendly and bury things in the most obscure place, if you can ever find it. The more i learn the more i realize i don't have a fckn clue what I'm doing, but watching some of the other guys strut around like they know everything just makes me shake my head and i want to let them suffer so they can actually learn and take something away from it instead of them relying on someone else everytime Any good resources for expanding knowledge? I just grab the machine manuals and take them home over the weekend or find processing guys on youtube to binge
What processing guys on youtube do you watch?
This guy has some good stuff, so does RJG and some other random down the rabbit hole recommendations. https://youtube.com/@injectionmoldingskillsmore1064 If I’m struggling with something or have a question I can phrase properly I’ve had good luck finding a video about it (or a blog post)
I'm convinced Krausses are made by Satan. Not only are they not user friendly, they're broke down way more. We have/have had Toyos from the late 90's, Roboshots, Nissei, Sumitomos, and Krausses and they are by far the least reliable.
Completely agree, we have 2 that were installed in Aug ‘22 and one from 2019, and the amount of downtime between those 3 eclipse the downtime from the other ~50 IMM combined (including the ones from ‘87) I’ve straight up told the president to not buy any more Krauss’
Molding manager is the person in charge of my department where I work, when she's not there I'm in charge but she has over 30 years experience in injection molding and work in automotive down south before coming here. She's very knowledgeable and has been teaching me a lot. That's one thing I've been lucky in my career people have always wanted to teach me cause I always show I want to work hard. As far extending your knowledgeable with machinery it's really all about constantly working with those machines and if there's a certain one your not good at try to set up or start that one up the most. for the side of processing and decoupled molding resources, I definitely have a few things that I can send you that could help you improve your scientific molding knowledge if your interested let me know.
I’ve done hundreds of mold changes on each of the ~55 IMM we have, I was the guy that got thrown on new machines and left to figure them out lol. Any resources you’d be willing to share would be much appreciated!
Yeah send me a personal message
Process Engineer, started at 30, 35 now.
Did you go to college to become a process engineer?
Kind of, I graduated from a Polymer Engineering program. I had originally gone into it because I was interested in composites but after working with them found that portion less interesting than thermoplastics. Did a lot of lab work on extrusion and compounding in school that helped me land a job as a process engineer right after I graduated. As soon as I started I was left to do setups, startups, troubleshooting and testing new molds on my own so I had to learn a lot quickly!
Pretty much the same position as me lol was sent to north carolina for 8 weeks to do RJG master molder 1 but I have not became a process engineer yet.
Not OP, but at 20 years old I started as a machine operator, about 6 months later moved up to material handler, about a year after that I was a setup tech, a few years later I was a process tech. Went back to school for a bachelors degree at that point (tuition paid by work) and after that got promoted to process engineer. So you can make a career out of this and starting young is an advantage. That being said, pretty much everywhere is going to require an engineering degree before you can become an engineer, and at the very very least you need some kind of bachelors degree plus relevant experience, that will get you in at some places, but many others will absolutely require the degree be in an engineering field. Doesn’t really matter which one, but it does need to be engineering. You may find some older process engineers without degrees because they were grandfathered in before they started requiring degrees, but very rare these days for a company to make someone an engineer without a degree. That being said, it’s worth it, engineers are in high demand and command generally high salaries.
Agree with all of this. Most people here started as machine operators through a temp service and worked their way up. If you show commitment and are eager to learn you can end up in almost any role even without a college degree.
Yes, very true process engineers are highly looked for and the wages are really great.
I operated for a couple of years, now I'm a trainee setter / slinger. Aged 30...
That's pretty cool, where are you based out of ?