What you really need to know to set maximum mold cycles can only be determined through close visual inspection of mold plates and tooling after a production run and the ability to accurately answer a few production related questions that relate to maintenance requirements:

Date and time the mold was started.

What press did it run in?

Who started it?

What configuration is the mold running?

Date and time the mold was stopped.

Who stopped it?

Why was it stopped (scheduled or unscheduled stop reason)?

How many cycles did the mold run?

And also very helpful when evaluating mold residue/wear levels:

Was the run interrupted by stops for changeovers, unscheduled breakdowns or weekend downtime?

Were repeated ejector counts required to release the parts from the mold?

Was the mold properly and regularly serviced in the press during the run?

Was the cycle time and processing parameters consistent with past runs?

Are any part defects related to flash in a vented area?

On the other end, there are many molds that can easily run over 250,000 cycles, that need to have this number validated. One mold was a 48-cavity jump thread cap mold that we started out at 250,000 cycles and found—after steady count increases of 100,000 per run—that we could actually run the mold to 1,500,000 before it needed cleaning! The fill configuration and resultant residue in this mold was contained in non-critical static vent dumps that posed no threat to moving tooling or shut-offs.

For non-tooling trained administrators, it is sometimes difficult to understand why molds that run similar resins have such different reactions to extended cycle counts. This is why the effects of process variations need to be monitored and understood so we can maximize runtime without additional component wear.