Plastics Manufacturing
Hold the Cycle. Change the Mold. Count Every Shot.
Production monitoring, maintenance and quality on one operating system. Built for injection molding, blow molding and extrusion plants.
Nulogy Smart Factory reads counts and stops straight off your presses, blow molders and extrusion lines, and Smart Factory runs on the same Manufacturing Operating System as Nulogy Maintenance and Nulogy Quality & Compliance. Book a demo and we'll show you how Smart Factory runs on machines like yours.
The Problem With a Number on a Spreadsheet
In Plastics, the Loss Hides in Seconds
A press that runs two seconds slow per cycle never shows up as downtime. A mold change that runs long gets written down as the standard time. When the record is a number somebody typed at the end of the shift, the hours you lost are gone before anyone can ask about them.
Nobody calls it a stop, so nobody writes it down. Across a week of three shifts, the drift adds up to parts you planned to ship, and the scheduler finds out when the order ships late.
The press sits through first-shot adjustments while the next job waits. If changeover time is tracked on paper, the long ones and the short ones average into one number, and the real cost of short runs never gets measured.
Some goes to regrind, some goes in the bin, and all of it was resin you paid for. When scrap is counted at the end of the shift from memory, nobody can say which press, which mold or which hour it came from.
They want to know what ran, on which machine, on which shift, and what was checked. If that history is a spreadsheet cell somebody overwrote, there is nothing to go back and audit.
Plastics plants do not lose capacity in big breakdowns alone. They lose capacity in seconds per cycle, minutes per mold change and grams per part, and only a record taken off the machine can see those.
What We Cover
Six Moments. One System.
Each one of these steps runs on the same machines, the same shifts and the same production record. That is what separates an operating system from a whiteboard and a stack of shift sheets.
The Cycle Is Drifting
Smart Factory reads counts straight off your equipment, through a PLC connection, a Banner wireless sensor or an Advantech gateway, so Smart Factory counts the older press with no network connection too. Actual cycles against standard, OEE, downtime and scrap show up live by machine and by shift, and scoreboards on the floor put the same numbers in front of operators. LetsGetChecked used real-time cycle time and downtime data from Smart Factory to improve cycle times by 13% at its Dublin facility.
The Mold Is Changing
Every mold change, color change and material change shows up in Smart Factory as time the machine was not making good parts, recorded against the machine, the shift and the job. Long changeovers stop disappearing into a standard time, and you can see which molds and which crews take longest. When a press stops unexpectedly, Smart Factory alerts the moment the stop happens, not at the end of the shift.
The Part Has To Pass
First-article checks, dimensional checks and visual inspections move from clipboards to any device on the line, with photos and timestamps. A failed check becomes an issue linked to the product and batch, and runs through CAPA or 8D with an owner and a due date. Quality & Compliance tracks first-pass yield, PPM and closures, so you can show a customer the trend instead of describing one.
In a molding plant, the slow cycle, the long mold change and the scrap bin are usually the same event. Only the shift sheet splits them up.
The Machine Has To Stay Up
Heaters, screws, hydraulics and molds all wear on the production clock. Nulogy Maintenance triggers work from machine condition and usage signals rather than the calendar, and keeps machine data, downtime tracking and work orders in one system. Work is prioritized by production impact, so the press holding up a customer order gets the technician first.
The Scrap Has To Be Counted
Scrap recorded by machine and shift as the shift runs is a different number from scrap estimated at the end of it. With scrap and good parts counted in the same place, you can see which press and which mold are making the regrind pile, and whether a process change made the pile smaller. H&T Waterbury found its micro-stoppage problem was bigger than the team anticipated once Smart Factory started counting, then cut micro-stoppages by 71%.
The Shift Has To Be on Record
Lyons Blow Molding connected Smart Factory to its labeling system to automate production reporting and improve accuracy and traceability. Instead of a number put on a spreadsheet, Lyons now has a history of any given day or shift that the team can go back and audit. When a customer asks what ran and when, the answer comes from the record, not from memory.
Six moments, one record. The press that ran the job, the mold change before it, the check that passed the parts and the work order that kept the machine running are the same data, not four spreadsheets you reconcile on Monday.
Nulogy Intelligence
Nora Answers Questions About Your Presses
Nora is the AI assistant built into Smart Factory and Maintenance. For plastics plants running Smart Factory across a floor of presses and lines, Nora answers in plain English from what actually happened: counts, cycles, downtime, mold changes and maintenance history, not a report somebody compiled on Friday.
Start Where You Are
What Kind of Plastics You Make
Some plants run dozens of molds across a floor of presses. Others run bottles or profiles for days on the same line. The operating system is the same; the first problem you solve isn't.
We Injection Mold Parts
Custom and captive molders running many molds, materials and colors across a floor of presses, judged on cycle time, scrap and on-time delivery.
- Smart Factory: cycle time, OEE and downtime by press
- Smart Factory: mold change time by machine and shift
- Quality & Compliance: first-article and in-process checks
- Maintenance: work triggered by machine condition and usage
We Blow Mold or Extrude
Blow molders and extruders running long, continuous jobs where an hour of unplanned downtime or an off-spec run means a lot of product to remake.
- Smart Factory: live counts, stops and alerts
- Smart Factory: shift history you can audit
- Maintenance: machine data, downtime and work orders together
- Quality & Compliance: checks, CAPA and audit trail
Molding parts for automotive programs? Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers carry IATF 16949, PPAP and OEM audit demands on top of the plant floor, and the page for them goes deeper on all three.
See Automotive →Proof
What Smart Factory Has Done on Plant Floors
On Record and Auditable
Lyons Blow Molding integrated Smart Factory with its labeling system to automate reporting, improve accuracy and traceability, and replace a number on a spreadsheet with a production history it can audit.
Smart Factory · Blow molding
Higher OEE
Versatech replaced paper tracking and spreadsheets with Smart Factory, raised OEE by 30% and achieved ROI within three months.
Smart Factory · Paper and spreadsheets replaced
Better Cycle Times
LetsGetChecked used real-time cycle time and downtime data from Smart Factory to improve cycle times by 13% at its Dublin facility.
Smart Factory · Dublin facility, not a plastics plant
“We now have a system that tells us what products were made... performance is now auditable. There's a history of any given day or shift that we can go back and audit to. Where before, there was no auditing because it was a number in time put on a spreadsheet.”
Dave Aquilina, Director of Manufacturing, Lyons Blow MoldingWorks With What You Run
Smart Factory Connects to the Machines You Already Have
Smart Factory connects to old and new machines, and Quality & Compliance keeps the records your customers and auditors ask for.
Questions We Get
Before You Book Anything
Some of our presses are decades old. Can Smart Factory still get data off them?
Yes. Smart Factory connects through a PLC connection where there is one, a Banner wireless sensor where there is not, or an Advantech gateway. If a machine cycles, there is a way to count the cycles.
Does Smart Factory work for injection molding, blow molding and extrusion?
Yes. Smart Factory measures counts, stops and scrap from the machine, whatever the process. Lyons Blow Molding runs Smart Factory integrated with its labeling system to automate production reporting.
We already have an ERP. Why would we need Smart Factory?
Because the ERP knows what you planned to make, not what Press 7 did at 2 a.m. Smart Factory records what actually ran, cycle by cycle and stop by stop, so your planning starts from real capacity instead of standard rates.
Will operators see Smart Factory as a way to watch them?
Plants that use Smart Factory well put the scoreboards on the floor so operators see the same numbers as management. Tacony's VP of Corporate Strategy describes Smart Factory as a tool to improve, not a tool for discipline.
How fast does Smart Factory pay back?
Most Smart Factory customers see a 10 to 20% OEE increase in their first year. Versatech achieved ROI within three months. Run your own numbers with the cycle time and ROI calculators before the demo.
Do we have to buy maintenance and quality at the same time?
No. You can start with Smart Factory and add Nulogy Maintenance or Nulogy Quality & Compliance when downtime or customer audits make the case. Because the modules share the same machines and production record, the next one is a configuration rather than an integration project.
Bring Us Your Slowest Press
Tell us what is costing you the most right now: the cycle that keeps drifting, the mold change that runs long, the scrap nobody can trace. We will show you what Smart Factory does about it, and what Smart Factory does not.