Plastic, rubber, and metal injectionmolding and, more recently, rapid molding techniques have been major
contributors in global manufacturing. A variety of processes and equipment can
be used, depending on volumes, materials and turnaround time, and whether parts
are prototypes or finished ones. The rise of rapid molding for fast delivery of
high-mix, low-volume products and prototypes, and new ways to make molds such
as 3D printing, are changing the way design engineers use injection molding in
product development and production planning.
Droduct manager for the cnmould service of
fast-turn molding company cnmoulding molding services can be classified into
three different types: traditional high-volume molders; a broad group of
lower-cost, high-volume molding services typically located offshore; and rapid
molders, a more recent phenomenon.
Traditional molders are usually
full-service suppliers. "They are all about injection molding tools that last
forever, and about speeding up injection," he said. "They do a lot of
value-add services like assembly or painting." Tooling used by these
services tends to be made of hardened steel; hundreds of thousands to tens of
millions of parts are made from multi-cavity production molds.
Rapid molding is newer, and something Proto
Labs helped pioneer. It serves the need for making multiple variations of a
single product in somewhat lower volumes -- 25 to 1,000 units instead of
100,000 or more, said Barsness. These products and all their components must be
prototyped exactly, in all those variations, using exactly the materials they
will be produced with.
The resulting increase in SKU proliferation
is caused by several colliding trends. First, globalization has produced
effects, as described by Barsness. "Say you make a household product or a
communications device, and you want to sell it around the world," he said.
"Your market used to be the US, but now there's the Chinese market and
other countries, like Brazil. Customers in those countries have different
values and tastes, whether it's a car or a thermostat." Those countries
also have different regulations, such as those for safety, and different
specifications, such as for electrical voltage, which effect part variations.
Trends related to energy and environmental
friendliness are also driving changes in product designs. "Lightweighting
is major, especially in anything that moves," said Barsness." Also,
LEDs are being used everywhere for their ability to reduce the power, size, and
cost of lighting, and they can be packaged almost any way imaginable. On many
of these LED-enabled products, the entire assembly can include five to 10
different injection molded parts.
A third set of changes is due to increases
in product connectivity and automation. The Internet of Things has engineers
putting sensors on just about anything, from household appliances to industrial
products. "Now the design engineer has to get 10 different prototypes of
10 different products for 10 different countries, all of them have LEDs, and
they've all got to talk to the Internet," Barsness remarked. This is where
rapid molding services come in.
Rapid molding tooling is typically
"soft," represented by aluminum instead of steel, for a much lower
cost. Rapid molding, of course, has a much faster turnaround. A traditional
molder, using a high-volume production mold, could typically take a few months
to deliver entire part runs, but the average rapid injection molder delivers
parts in 25 to 45 days. Proto Labs' service promises one to 15 days.
Before rapid molding begins, prototypes are
also made with production-grade materials. Typically, a customer sends three to
five iterations of a design, and Proto Labs cuts a different mold each time.
The industries Proto Labs serves tend to be those with some regulation or a
high amount of product churn.
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