Patent ID: 7896636

Claim:
A support apparatus of an injection-molding machine for supporting a worker involved in operating an injection-molding machine, the apparatus comprising: a neural network that uses as an input item a plurality of molding conditions used when a non-defective article is obtained in test molding, uses as an output item a measured quality value obtained by measuring the non-defective article, and determines a prediction function based on the input and output items; a first input apparatus that inputs into the neural network fixed values for molding conditions other than selected molding conditions when at least one molding condition has been selected from the plurality of molding conditions; a computer that acquires a prediction function determined by the neural network, sets the output items of the prediction function to an unknown number, enters fixed values for a portion of the input items of the prediction function, enters the selected molding conditions for the remaining portion of the input items of the prediction function in the form of variables, and thereafter uses the prediction function to calculate predicted quality values corresponding to predicted values of the measured quality value; a graph generator that generates in the form of a graph a relationship between the selected molding conditions and the predicted quality values; a second input apparatus that inputs a target quality value corresponding to a target value of the measured quality value; a graph correction unit into which the second input apparatus inputs the target quality value and that corrects the graph generated by the graph generator on the basis of the target quality value; and a display unit that selectively displays the graph generated by the graph generator and the graph corrected by the graph correction unit.