ICYMI, MMT Chats: Mold Design Meets Product Development & Education

^{This episode is brought to you by ISCAR with New Ideas for Machining Intelligently.}

In this 30-minute conversation, Medline Industries (Northfield, Illinois) Engineering Manager Rick Seaberg and I discuss initial impressions of moldmaking, the benefits of being a mold designer and tooling engineer, the relationship of injection mold design and development as it relates to and supports new product development and injection mold maintenance in molding environments and the strong need for moldmaking education.

Here are a few tidbits to whet your appetite.

• Rick and I both have history with The Plastek Group in Erie, Pennsylvania
• Rick was instrumental in the development of the first HP inkjet printer with the printer head in the machine.

• Having good processes and documentation is the key to everything.

• The industry needs a more formalized educational program that exposes students to best practices of the industry versus just what one particular shop does.

• Education of the next generation of mold builders needs to focus on complexity as well as material selection, metallurgy, heat, treating, strength of materials, cooling, thermal expansion and heat transfer, processing, etc.

• Cross training is critical in a mold shop today.

• “Expose yourself to as many opportunities as possible. Look into all the areas that your work touches because I think that just make you a better mold maker, and it opens up a lot of opportunities.”

Watch the full video chat above, and for more of our archived MMT Chat conversations, click here.