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Plastics Technology recently completed its annual Top Shops benchmarking survey of injection molders (watch for the October issue for the full report), and in addition to revealing what currently qualifies as world-class molding, the survey and interviews with honorees laid bare all the pain points in plastics.

The inflationary pressures omnipresent throughout the economy didn’t give molders a pass as the costs for material, labor, machinery and utilities all rose. Survey takers indicated that they were able to pass along some higher costs, but the across-the-board increases in expenses meant successful molders had to squeeze every penny from their operations through efficiency.

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing your plant found itself in that same difficult spot. Well, the good news is the annual Molding Conference (Nov. 8-10; Charlotte, N.C.) is here to help. Whether it’s learning how to make the most of existing equipment, finding out about the newest technologies on the horizon or discovering the trends that will shape the next challenges and opportunities in the market, the Molding Conference gathers thought leaders in the sector that will help you improve your operations.

Over two days, hear presentations on everything from process development, melt preparation, controlling viscosity, and training programs, to balancing hot runners, commissioning and installing a new machine, digitalization, purging programs, and more. As labor shortages intensify, many shops will turn to robots to bridge the skills gap. Molding 2022 will feature presentations on integrating 6-axis robots, value-added top entry automation, the future of automation control, and more.

As governments and consumer goods companies aim policy and business plans at sustainability, it will fall to molders to successfully run more recycled and biobased resins. On that front, the conference will feature sustainable molding machines and technology outlooks from JSW and Arburg; leveraging recycled plastics with Canon Virginia; challenges and opportunities for recycled plastics—a simulation outlook from Moldex3D; applying sustainably sourced materials—PLA and wood flour—in molding with Nissei; maximizing PCR content with coinjection from Mold-Masters and more.

If you haven’t taken a chance to peruse the Molding 2022 agenda, do so today with your plant’s pain points in mind and find solutions throughout the 2-day program. Don’t stop there—for the first time, Molding is collocating with the Moldmaking Technology conference, and you’ll have access to that event’s full slate of presentations.

Read: Molding 2022 Agenda Now Live

The first step to saving your company money as it deals with higher costs is to register now and secure the early bird special, saving nearly 20% on the full conference registration fee.