Plastics Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Plastics manufacturing is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor requiring knowledge related to materials science, physics, engineering, and management. Because of this diversity, the plastics process engineer interacts with many stakeholders including customers, designers, materials suppliers, machine builders, mold/die suppliers, systems integrators, operators, quality engineers, managers, and others. With so many stakeholders involved, it isn't surprising that many plastics manufacturing processes are not precisely engineered systems. The resulting processes can be poorly designed, requiring too much investment
to achieve too little productivity.
This book was written to educate and support plastics processing engineers, but is also highly useful to others involved with plastics manufacturing who are performing process development, research, and even machinery design. A manufacturing systems engineering approach was used to provide guidance about plastics manufacturing as an integrated system with broadly applicable analysis of the underlying subsystems

David O. Kazmer (Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University) is Professor at the Department of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He performs research and teaches courses related to plastics product and process development. He was also Chair of the Department of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell from 2016 to 2019. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Applications Engineer at General Electric and Director of Research and Development at Synventive HotRunners. He is a licensed professional manufacturing engineer, and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Plastics Engineers. He is also the recipient of the ASME Kos Ishii-Toshiba Award for sustained, meritorious contributions to the field of design for manufacturing.