Abstract
It is a well established fact that Conventional Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) manufacturer/ SMC parts manufacturer uses steps such as resin mixing, blending, sheet manufacture, rolling or festooning, maturation & transportation before actual molding. Often times the sheet manufacturing and the molding operations are in two different locations. While it offers some flexibility in isolating sheet manufacturing from molding, it also leads to challenges in planning, logistics, storage, and maintaining quality through out the process steps. These factors are some motivation for the industry to develop a process that combines "In-line compounding" with molding operations. The potential for cost savings is large but raw material properties at each step needs calibration and control.