Odoo for Plastic Manufacturing: Molds, Regrind, Scrap and Costing

Most plastics manufacturers do not fail on Odoo because a feature is missing. They fail because molds, regrind and cavities were never modeled, so costs and stock drift from day one. Our Odoo ERP for manufacturing setup starts with that model.

This guide is for owners, plant heads and finance leads at injection molders, extruders and plastic packaging makers who are weighing Odoo. For the general BOM and routing setup, read our Odoo BOM and production planning guide first.

What does a plastics manufacturer need from Odoo?

A plastics manufacturer needs Odoo to handle resin by weight, parts by count, presses by hour and molds as assets, all in one flow. Generic manufacturing setups miss at least one of these.

Plastics plants share traits that a standard assembly setup does not plan for:

• Material by weight, output by count: resin is bought in bags or bulk and consumed in kilograms, while parts are sold in pieces or cartons.
• Waste that comes back: runners, sprues and start-up shots can be ground and reused, so scrap is partly an asset.
• Molds as the real constraint: a press can run many molds, but each mold fits only some presses and has a finite life.
• Cavities: one cycle makes 2, 4, 8 or more parts, so cycle time and output are not one to one.
• Color and grade changes: each change costs purge material and setup time.
• Lot questions from customers: automotive, medical and food packaging buyers ask which resin lot went into which shipment.

Odoo has a standard answer for most of these and a custom answer for a few.

How do you set up an injection molding BOM in Odoo with regrind and scrap?

An Odoo injection molding BOM lists virgin resin, masterbatch and an allowed share of regrind as components, and lists runners and sprues as by-products. Rejected parts are scrapped separately so they show as waste.

Odoo's by-products feature adds a By-products tab to the BOM. You enter the regrind product and its quantity, and you can set the operation that produces it. When the order is done, the regrind lands in stock.

A typical injection molding BOM for a 4-cavity part looks like this (illustrative figures):

Rejects are handled through scrap orders in Manufacturing. Scrapped items move to Virtual Locations/Scrap, which logs the loss without counting it as stock. A Scraps smart button on the order lists every scrap for that run.

Finished parts can only be scrapped once the order is done, and the Shop Floor screen scraps components only, so train operators on where rejects get booked.

Odoo 20 removed the flexible consumption setting on the BOM, so every order now allows extra resin use with a warning. That suits molding, where start-up shots vary, but it means you should review variance reports instead of relying on a hard block.

How does Odoo plan injection molding machines and mold cavities?

Odoo plans presses as work centers, and uses each work center's product capacity to reflect how many parts a mold makes per cycle. Setup and cleanup times per product cover mold changes.

The work center settings give you most of what a molder needs:

• Product Capacities: how many units a work center makes at one time, plus setup and cleanup minutes per product. Use it for cavities and mold change time.
• Alternative Workcenters: the presses a job can move to when the main press is busy.
• Time Efficiency and OEE Target: how fast a press runs against the standard, and the efficiency you expect.
• Cost per hour: the press rate that flows into order cost.
• Working Hours: shifts per press, including weekend running.

Odoo does not check out of the box that a specific mold is free. If two presses can run a part but you own one mold, planners must see that clash. Most plants add a mold field on the work order and a simple availability check.

Routing mistakes are a top cause of trouble, as our guide to why Odoo manufacturing projects fail explains.

Can Odoo track mold maintenance and shot counts?

Odoo tracks mold maintenance natively, but shot counts need a custom field and an automation. This is the most common gap plastics plants hit.

In Odoo Maintenance, each mold becomes an equipment record. You set the effective date, cost and the work center it belongs to. Odoo then computes mean time between failures, mean time to repair and an estimated next failure from your corrective requests.

A maintenance request on a work center can tick Block Workcenter, so no work orders get planned on that press while the mold or machine is being serviced. Odoo 20 also adds Gantt views of maintenance requests by equipment and by work center in Enterprise.

Shot counts are different. A molder on the Odoo forum asked whether Odoo can store injection molds, record maintenance and total shot count. The answer: register molds as equipment, then add a shot counter field and a small customization to update it from production.

A practical shot-count design looks like this:

1. Add a Mold field on the work order and a Shot Count field on the equipment.
2. When a work order closes, add the cycles run (good parts plus rejects, divided by cavities) to the mold's count.
3. When the count passes a threshold, create a preventive maintenance request automatically.
4. Optionally block the press until the request is closed.

Studio and automated actions can do most of this without code on the Custom plan. Plants that want counts from the press controller need an integration with the machine or an MES.

Which Odoo features are standard and which need customization for plastics?

Most plastics needs are covered by standard Odoo, but mold-level control and press data are not. Knowing the split up front keeps your budget honest.

Our Odoo customization services cover the right-hand column in a few small modules, which keeps upgrades affordable.

How do lots and resin traceability work for plastics in Odoo?

Odoo traces resin lots into molded part lots by tracking both the raw material and the finished part by lot. Customers in automotive, medical and food packaging usually ask for this.

Turn on Lots and Serial Numbers in Inventory, then set Tracking to By Lots on resin, masterbatch and finished parts. Each order then records which resin lots went in and which part lot came out. Odoo 20 creates the lot automatically if none is entered.

Regrind is where traceability breaks. If ground runners from many lots go into one regrind bin, you lose the link. Most plants either keep regrind lot-tracked per resin lot and color, or accept a mixed regrind lot and record that rule in their quality plan.

Recall steps, lot reports and audit setup are covered in detail in our Odoo traceability guide, so we do not repeat them here.

How does Odoo cost a molded part?

Odoo costs a molded part from resin and masterbatch used, plus press hours at the work center rate, plus labor. The order shows the planned cost while it runs and the real cost when it is done.

The manufacturing order cost includes component cost and quantity, operation time, work center operating cost and employee cost. Real cost differs when a run takes longer, uses more resin or resin prices change.

Three plastics-specific choices drive accuracy:

• Press rate, not headcount: one operator may run three presses, so put most cost on the press cost per hour.
• Regrind value: decide whether regrind carries a cost or zero cost, and apply it consistently.
• Cycle time truth: if the BOM cycle is faster than the real one, every part looks profitable.

Odoo's OEE report shows how much press time was fully productive, which tells you if your cycle standards are realistic. For overhead absorption and journal entries, see our Odoo manufacturing cost accounting guide.

What changed in Odoo 20 for plastic manufacturers?

Odoo 20 makes molding runs easier to record and cost, mainly through continuous production, automatic lots and a cleaner MO cost view. None of it replaces the setup work above.

The changes that matter most to molders, from our Odoo 20 manufacturing release notes:

• Continuous production: work orders record a produced quantity, so packing can start while molding is still running.
• Automatic lots: closing an order for a lot-tracked part creates the lot if none was entered.
• MO Cost column: planned cost while open, real cost once done.
• Compare BoMs: compare component quantities across BOMs, useful for color variants of one part.
• Used In: swap a resin grade across many BOMs from the product form.

Odoo ERP for the plastics industry by segment

Each plastics segment stresses a different part of Odoo, so the setup should follow your process, not a template. The table shows where the effort usually goes.

How much does Odoo for plastic manufacturing cost?

A plastics plant usually lands in the mid-size Odoo range, with extra budget for mold and press customizations. Licenses are a smaller share than people expect.

On the Odoo pricing page, the US price billed yearly is US$31.10 per user a month for Standard and US$61.00 for Custom. Studio, which most shot-count and mold fields need, is on the Custom plan.

Our published implementation ranges are a guide, not a quote: small projects US$3k to US$9k over 4 to 8 weeks, mid-size US$9k to US$27k over 8 to 14 weeks, and large US$27k to US$150k+ over 12 to 24 weeks. Data migration adds US$1.2k to US$9k.

A single-site molder with one warehouse often sits in the mid-size band. Multi-plant setups, press integration and regulated lot rules push toward large. Get your own range in a few minutes with our Odoo implementation cost calculator.

How do you roll out Odoo in a plastics plant?

Roll out Odoo in a plastics plant by modeling materials and molds first, then piloting one press family before going plant-wide. Rushing the model is what causes stock and cost drift later.

1. Map materials: resin grades, masterbatch, regrind and their units.
2. List molds and presses: which mold fits which press, cavities, cycle times.
3. Build BOMs: components, by-products and operations for your top 20 parts.
4. Set work centers: rates, capacities, setup times and shifts.
5. Decide the custom pieces: shot counts, mold checks, ratio limits.
6. Pilot one press family: run real orders for two to four weeks and compare cost and stock.
7. Go live plant-wide: train operators on scrap and output entry at the press.

How iVentureTeam helps with Odoo for plastic manufacturing

iVentureTeam sets up Odoo around how your presses, molds and resin actually move, then adds only the custom pieces you need. We have delivered 150+ ERP projects across 35+ countries with 40+ Odoo specialists over 13+ years.

• Plant mapping: materials, molds, presses and cavities turned into BOMs and work centers.
• Regrind and scrap design: by-products, scrap locations and variance reporting.
• Mold maintenance: equipment records, shot counting and preventive triggers.
• Costing: press rates, regrind value and real cost checks with finance.
• Rollout: pilot, training and go-live through our Odoo implementation services.

Odoo for plastic manufacturing case study: Chetan Plastics

A plastics and print manufacturer in Ahmedabad moved five departments off one shared Excel file onto a customized Odoo system. The rollout was phased over 16 weeks.

Chetan Plastics ran sales, purchase, inventory, manufacturing and CRM from a shared spreadsheet. Print jobs used block-based pricing calculated by hand, and nothing linked a CRM job to its sales order, purchase order or delivery papers.

We connected six core modules from sales to repair and custom-built ten workflow areas. The block price calculator now sits inside sales and purchase order lines, secondary units of measure run across sale, purchase, invoice and stock, and two-step validation guards confirmations.

The plant also prints 100 by 75 mm barcode labels on a TSC printer, sends vendors WhatsApp messages with PO details, and runs repairs with automatic stock moves. Read the Chetan Plastics Odoo manufacturing case study.

The bottom line on Odoo for plastic manufacturing

Odoo is a strong fit for plastics manufacturers once molds, regrind and cavities are modeled properly and the few gaps are closed with small customizations. It is not a plug-and-play molding system.

Expect standard Odoo to cover BOMs, by-products, scrap, lots, maintenance and costing. Budget for shot counts, mold checks and any press data link, and pilot one press family first.

Ready to model your molds and regrind in Odoo?

Bring one part, its mold and its BOM, and we will show you how it runs in Odoo. Talk to our Odoo plastics manufacturing team, call +91-90235-15208, or email business@iventureteam.com.