Patent ID: 9610709
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: B29C

Claim:
1. A method of controlling a mould tool system having a plurality of mould tools, the method comprising: providing a plurality of fluid-heated mould tools, each having a mould cycle with a variable resource consumption, each of the plurality of fluid-heated mould tools having an exhaust flow during a cooling part of its respective mould cycle; storing a maximum resource consumption for each of the plurality of fluid-heated mould tools; storing a maximum system resource capacity for the mould tool system, the maximum system resource capacity being lower than a sum of the maximum resource consumptions of the plurality of fluid-heated mould tools; starting a first mould cycle of a first fluid-heated mould tool of the plurality of fluid-heated mould tools; monitoring the resource consumption of the first fluid-heated mould tool; determining an unused system resource availability; starting a second mould tool cycle of a second fluid-heated mould tool of the plurality of fluid-heated mould tools, dependent upon the unused system resource availability and a maximum resource consumption of the second fluid-heated mould tool, the second mould tool cycle being started during a cooling part of the first mould cycle of the first mould tool; and using thermal energy of the exhaust flow of the first fluid-heated mould tool to at least partly heat the second fluid-heated mould tool.