Glossary
Molding Machine Operator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential molding machine operator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key molding machine operator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in molding machine operator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Cycle time
- Time per shot.
- Die casting
- Metal forced into dies.
- First article
- First part checked before a run.
- Flash
- Excess material.
- Gate
- Entry into the cavity.
- Injection molding
- Plastic forced into molds.
- Lockout/tagout
- Energy isolation before servicing.
- Mold change
- Swapping molds.
- PPE
- Personal protective equipment.
- Resin dryer
- Removes moisture.
- Scrap
- Parts that fail inspection.
- Short shot
- Incomplete part.
- Shot size
- Material per cycle.
- Sink mark
- Surface dent.
- SOP
- Standard operating procedure.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Molding Machine Operator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Molding Machine Operator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.