MJ Polymers is a Polish producer operating in injection moulding manufacturing. The production approach is both very energy and raw materials intensive and could vastly benefit from wide usage of recycled polymer granulate obtained from milled products made of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), PA30%GF (polyamide with glass fibre), PPcop (propylene-ethylene copolymer composites). However, despite potential environmental and economic gains, the manufacturers including MJ Polymers are rather reluctant to use the recycled material due to lack of consistency in the recycled granulate parameters and presence of contaminants.
This may in turn lead to additional, costly issues: the unknown humidity and granularity of the granulate affects the process increasing its costs and energy needed, ferromagnetic shaving present in the granulate cause failure of the machines and lead to costly cleaning or even repairs. At present at MJ Polymers, the production manager receives information about such problems too late during the production process with use of recycled granulate. Moreover, the information does not include the monetary calculations in relation to the production order budget. As a result they cannot make proper decision on further steps on time if any difficulties appear. They are not aware of the financial implications of what is happening early enough, so correction actions like drying up the granulate, magnetizing it or grinding it again usually are implementing too late when losses are considerably significant.
The consequence of this situation is the production of a large amount of waste and excessive consumption of resources (materials, energy, labour time) making often the order unprofitable, which is disincentive. In our project we would like to address these challenges to encourage MJ Polymers to use more recycled granulate through minimizing risks of using it in their operations while securing the profitability of the production process.
