Mould tooling is a vital aspect of plastic manufacturing, and while the initial cost of producing the tool can be substantial, the economies of scale make it worth the investment. However, it&#;s still essential to avoid unnecessary expenses during the design for manufacturing (DFM) process. In this article, we take a closer look at some of PRV Engineering&#;s top tips for saving money on mould tooling.
What Is Mould Tooling?
Mould tooling is the process of creating tools or moulds that are used to manufacture plastic or metal parts. These moulds are typically made from high-strength materials such as steel, aluminium or composites and are designed to be precise and durable.
The mould tooling process involves several steps, including design, machining, and finishing.
Once the mould tooling process is complete, the mould is used to manufacture parts through a process called injection moulding. Here, molten plastic or metal is injected into the mould, allowing it to cool and harden and then removing the final product from the mould. As you will see in this article, mould tooling is essential to the manufacturing industry as it allows for more efficient and cost-effective production of high-quality parts in large quantities.
8 Ways To Save On Mould Tooling
1. Choosing the Right Surface Finishes
When it comes to mould tooling, a sleek and shiny finish is typically the preferred result. However, achieving this through polishing or shot blasting can add to the overall cost. So, if your mouldings have surfaces that don&#;t need to be visible, consider opting for a natural finish to reduce costs.
2. Reduce Cycle Times With The Perfect Draft Angle
In the manufacturing sector, time is of the essence and cycle time play a decisive role in determining production costs. To ensure quick ejection of parts from moulds without any damage, an ideal draft angle must be considered. This helps to avoid damage while enabling fast removal which will subsequently reduce overall cycle times.
3. Crafting Multiple Cavities for Greater Functionality
Investing in a multi-cavity tool for producing high volumes of mouldings can be greatly beneficial as the versatility can help reduce the cost per part from the offset. Even though the initial outlay is higher than buying a single cavity tool, it&#;s more economical to utilise this approach since you&#;ll get additional parts with each cycle. As a result, you could potentially save a good amount of money compared to purchasing another individual die for mould tooling.
4. Eliminating Undercuts For Easier Ejection
When deciding on a moulding design, it can be tempting to include undercuts for aesthetic or functional purposes. However, they will greatly increase the cost of mould tooling and subsequent maintenance, making them an unwise investment in the long run. To save money upfront when creating your moulds, avoid incorporating any unnecessary undercuts into the design.
5. Consider Volumes and Machining Methods For Mould Tooling
While evaluating the need for side holes in your moulding, it&#;s important to also factor in volume. If you are producing a relatively small amount of these products, then milling them individually is a more economical choice. However, if the task requires high volumes on an ongoing basis, it&#;s best to invest in creating a slider during tool design that will save you money over time despite the higher upfront costs.
6. Opt For Heat Treating To Strengthen Tooling
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Heat treating can help to improve the strength and durability of your mould tool, allowing for longer lifetimes by hardening its components. Investing in heat treatment before putting your tools into use will cost more upfront, but it could potentially save you money down the line with fewer maintenance requirements.
7. Consider Secondary Processes
If you need a high volume of mouldings, utilising secondary operations such as milling and machining can be more cost-effective than taking the time to build features into the initial tool. However, if your needs are low in quantity, then opting for secondary operations will prove to save money compared to incorporating additional features during the first stage of production.
8. Find the Right Mould Tooling Provider
Investing in the right partner is essential for your success and budget. Expert toolmakers will guide you through a Design for Manufacture (DFM) operation to assist you with saving time and money when it comes to mould tooling. While working with non-UK based toolmaker may appear cheaper at first, this could result in higher shipment costs and you also may not be able to own the tool afterwards.
With the right approach to design for manufacture, mould tooling costs can be greatly reduced while still achieving high-quality results. By implementing these tips and tricks, you&#;ll be able to save money on your overall production costs while still creating a reliable product that meets your needs. Ultimately, this could prove to be a wise investment that helps drive your business further.
Mould Tooling With PRV Engineering
PRV Engineering was initially established to manufacture Tamper Proof Lid Assemblies for the Metal Packaging Industry. Although we no longer specialise in this type of activity, our team still has the knowledge, expertise and equipment to build and evaluate Simple or Multi Tool Punch and Press Sets. This includes low complexity single level tools up to more intricate progression tooling.
Our team of toolmakers now fabricate Punch, Press and Forming Tools, Die Sets and Tool Spares for customers on a subcontractor level. Additionally, we can improve existing tools with refurbishment services performed on-site or at our facilities. To help minimise any down time that might arise from maintenance or repairs to your tooling system, we also offer pick up and delivery options.
Whether you&#;re producing a low or high volume of mouldings, PRV Engineering can help. Please contact us for more information or visit the website for a closer look at our range of precision engineering and fabrication services.
The process for launching a product that includes injection molded components has been continuously developed for decades, and most commonly includes the distinct phases seen in the graphic below. Each phase builds on the last, generating additional information necessary to bring a high-quality product to market in commercially relevant volumes and at an acceptable cost. Prototype tooling plays an important role in this process.
The time, energy, and expense associated with each phase is of course highly dependent on the design and functional parameters of the desired product, but for the sake of our discussion, we can employ the oft-used rule of thumb that the time and cost of making changes to a product is roughly 10X that of the previous step. While this is clearly a gross oversimplification for any complex product, it does serve to illustrate a few key points that are relevant to product designers, project managers, and business unit executives:
1) More information earlier in the project reduces risk
2) Earlier identification of design and manufacturability problems reduces overall project cost
3) Changes are much less expensive earlier in the process
It may seem logical to think that skipping steps in the process would reduce the time and cost of bringing a product to market. Certainly there are examples of this, perhaps a simple bottle cap that has only minor changes in lettering or texture from previous versions, where the molder has sufficient experience to go directly from CAD design to production tooling.
However, for most complex designs, say for an ergonomic consumer product with unique features, past experience, simulation, and rapid prototyping might not provide sufficiently accurate predictions of how the product will appear, what critical dimensions will be held, or how it will function when molded in the production material.
Once a design for a high productivity steel injection mold has been completed and mold production starts, the costs to make changes becomes much more expensive simply due to the time and effort it takes to make even minor, much less major, changes to the tool. Additional CNC, EDM, benching, and texturing time add up quickly. The very nature of hardened tool steel, especially if it has been highly polished or textured, makes it difficult to modify. Compounding this is the time it takes to remove the tool from the press, return to the mold making department (if in house) or transport to an external mold maker for modification. All of this can easily add up to weeks of delay even with minor modifications, especially if the production tool has been sent to another country for molding operations.
Firstly, let&#;s define prototype tooling, since it means different things to different people. In the case of Xcentric, it means high quality injection molds produced with state-of-the-art CNC equipment and finished by master mold makers. The mold material is a premium grade of aluminum developed specifically for injection mold applications. You can read more about the Xcentric mold making process here.
As noted above, the costs of making changes to a production tool are many multiples of making changes to prototype tooling. In the case of a multi-cavity production tool, the costs are similarly multiplied should a change be required in the design of the tool or part. Secondly, if there are still open questions about the design of the component including material choice, the cost of doing this experimentation in hardened steel is typically prohibitive.
In the case of Xcentric, we typically turn around injection molded projects in under 13 business days, and upon request for certain products in under five business days. Even if done sequentially, this is time well spent because this activity is completed so early in the project. Problems can be identified and corrected weeks or months before the same issues would have been uncovered in production tooling. While it is fully understood that there is not a 1:1 correlation between the performance of some aspects of prototype tooling versus production tooling, particularly related to high cavitation fill balancing, feedback on dimensional issues, material behavior, shrinkage, warp, sink, splay, and aesthetics can all be gathered in the desired production material in an Xcentric prototype mold.
The graphic below illustrates the standard process versus a process imagined to save time by skipping prototype molding. Important points to note are: the time to a) recognize and b) correct for problems is weeks earlier, and depending on the severity of the change required, the overall project time can be shorter even including making changes to the prototype tooling.
By identifying and addressing production issues early in the process, project managers help to de-risk the overall project by giving themselves enough time to react. Executive management and down-stream customers do not typically respond well to learning just before the originally scheduled product launch that there are delays due to production tooling that may push back launch by several weeks. It is generally accepted that significant delays in new product introductions in many industries have a huge deleterious effect on the total net present value of the product launch. Inevitably the questions come like &#;Why wasn&#;t this caught earlier?&#; One difficult to explain answer is &#;Budget for prototype tooling was eliminated.&#; (that would have been a small fraction of the cost of the production tool changes and product introduction delay). In this light it is fair to say that prototype tooling is a valuable insurance policy to help reduce the risks associated with new product introductions.
Including the process step to validate designs, identify improvements, and avoid downstream problems using prototype injection molding has been proven on innumerable projects to save both time and money. Learning and correcting early in the process pays dividends for project risk mitigation. Ultimately it is all about bringing the best possible product to market as quickly as possible, which happens to be Xcentric&#;s mission.
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