MMT ARTICLE ARCHIVE
Feature Articles
Rapid Prototypes + Moldmaking = Profits
Is there an easy way to avoid the pains of making mistakes in the mold building world? Absolutely! There are three simple steps that you can implement into your moldmaking process that will increase the moldmaking power of your shop and reduce your stress.
Adapting Scouting Skills to Your ShopA common factor among all of us in achieving our goals— whether personal or business—is our past associations.
Optical Molds Give ABCO Big Advantage in Solar LensesExpertise in building tools for optical parts leads to a potentially large market for renewable energy.
Operations Reassessment Yields Customer Diversification, Increased Competitiveness and Improved CapabilitiesThe recession came early to Michigan shops serving the automotive industry. For Eifel—a company specializing in simultaneous product development and manufacturing with a heavy emphasis on mold manufacturing—it resulted in the acceleration of a strategic plan for growth.
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mold Maintenance SupervisorsA review of what mold repair technicians believe a mold maintenance supervisor should bring to the table.
Mold Storage Packets Store Supplies, Useful in Lean ManufacturingMold kitting packets from Canopies by Fred (Seattle, WA) are packets that are used to assist in implementing a lean production process.
Greater Accuracy and Productivity Via Surface Finishing and CleaningChoosing the optimum type of flexible hone or brush can be highly effective in improving the accuracy of mold assembly or enhancing injection molding productivity.
High-Speed Machining SimplifiedHow high-speed machining can be reliably achieved by using the principles applied along with the correct tooling, feeds and speeds.
How Success HappensAll too often lately, I sense a feeling of entitlement in some areas of manufacturing. I know how that sounds—U.S. manufacturers rightly believe that they’ve been bludgeoned over the past 20 years or so by government trade policies, along with a shifting perception in our culture that a career in manufacturing is in some way less-than-noble/lucrative/rewarding. But there are some SMMs that I speak with who say things are hopeless. They tell me that their industry and government have abandoned them, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Cost of Ownership: A Lifetime of Molding Savings“There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap mold,” has been said by many a tooling engineer after a bargain of a mold began bleeding profits.
MoldMaking Expo 2009: Get OrganizedSurveys conducted by sister publication, Plastics Technology (www.ptonline.com) as well as MapYourShow (www.mapyourshow.com)—developed in 2005 by Gardner Publications, Inc. to provide state-of-the-art trade show mapping and planning solutions.
Case Study
Tool Balancing and Shrink-fit Holders Yield Successful Manufacturing Platform Overhaul
Investing in technology while improving processes and methods yields near 100 percent success rate on initial mold trials and 50 percent reduction in shop rework and scrap.
Tip of the Month
Avoid Chasing CNC Variability with CAM
Moldmakers who produce tooling for medical devices and many other high precision molded products have been under increasingly greater pressure to reduce the variability of tooling components manufactured on their CNC equipment. One way they attempt to do this is by carefully adjusting offsets in the CAM program to compensate for variations in their equipment’s volumetric accuracy. Sometimes this works, other times not. Either way, the toolmaker pays a heavy penalty.
Mold Business Index
Recession Continues, but It Is Moderating
39.6 Total Mold Business Index for June 2009 The total Mold Business Index is a weighted average of the sub-indices for new orders, production, employees, backlog, exports and supplier deliveries.
Profile
Byrne Tool & Die: A Culture of Change
This moldmaker takes employee training and development to a new level and relies on the latest in lean initiatives to get the job done quickly, earning them the MoldMaking Technology 2009 Leadtime Leader Award: Small Shop.
ISSUE
June 2009
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