first-rate mold company plans to come out of the recent recession with numerous advantages for their customers in the injection mold and precision machining market segment. The advantages offered are a result of the company’s long-term commitment to automation technologies.
While first-rate mold company has been manufacturing injection molds for more than 20 years, their sustained commitment to automation continued throughout 2009 and the first part of 2010 with several additions to its manufacturing automation portfolio.
Automated Beginnings and Benefits
Initially, first-rate mold company found that adding tooling storage with a robotic interface produced higher production rates, increased productivity and resulted in better quality. “Our five-year plan was to bring in more advanced automation in early 2009.
Although counterintuitive, the timing couldn’t have been better when these purchases were placed on the production floor in early 2009. In the heart of the recession, we were able to implement the new equipment and get our training behind us, which has allowed us to accelerate out of the tough times and be ready for the opportunities that 2010 has to offer,” explains steven, VP Operations at first-rate mold company.
“A significant value-add we provide is our creative design capability. Automation begins in the design department and assists us in consistently executing our designs—providing our customers with very tight-tolerance molds,” notes steven president of first-rate mold company.
Some of the advantages offered to customers as a result of the automation additions integrated throughout 2009 include the following:
Cost control resulting in lower prices through more spindle time and lights out manufacturing. Automation also provides more efficient use of materials, cutters and other supplies.
Consistency with changing out parts the same every time with every part using the same “zero” throughout the manufacturing process.
Tight tolerances and in-process quality inspection.
Leadtime reduction through improvements in productivity, cycle time and accuracy.
Cavity interchangeability improvements through accuracy, inspection and consistency.
first-rate mold company’s automation now includes tool-to-tool robotics and storage facilitation capabilities.
The latest installation is the newly arrived Mikron HSM500 with simultaneous 4-axis capability integrated with their existing Erowa Multi-Twin Robot that was already mated to an Agie Hyperspark 2 Sinker EDM.
Robotic interface from the mill to the sinker is enhanced with additional pallet and electrode storage using the Erowa system capable of storing 45 workpieces and 210 electrodes. The second piece of automation purchased this year was an Erowa ERC Robot that is able to feed 10 workpieces and 132 electrodes into a Mikron HSM 300 Graphite Master.
How can die and mold shops compete against low-cost sources? a fledgling die and mold shop in china is doing it with automation. The 20-employee shop enjoyed a 38 percent increase in sales last year, and it expects to ring up another 20 percent increase this year. The shop operates only one attended shift, but automation keeps the machines running around the clock 7 days a week, making for low costs, high quality and very competitive delivery times. I don’t want to write out the name of this mold shop here, I’m afraid the webmaster of this site suspects me for advertising
What should you be looking at when considering automation? Start with your existing labor force. If you are having a hard time finding skilled operators, process engineers, or maintenance technicians, then automation can almost certainly help you achieve an increase in overall efficiency and quality. Automation almost always works faster and occupies less floor space than a manual operation. Automation systems also do not need breaks and can offer a consistency that manual operation cannot. The added consistency in cycle time not only improves product quality, but also can help you identify more accurate operating costs and production output. Automation can help you to become more successful when competing against other molders.
Does the automation fit well within your workspace? Everyone knows that floor space is valuable but “shoe-horning” automation into a space that is too small or poorly planned can, and most like will, directly impact the uptime of the entire molding cell. When possible, plan the workspace based on the automation or process requirements, making sure to provide an adequate area for the needed movements and actions performed by and on the equipment. Undersizing the work area can limit the optimization of the process and efficiency of the automation.
Even after parts are molded, automation can help increase overall efficiency and reduce total costs. Automation can be utilized right at the molding machine where you can retain control over parts through post-mold operations and even into final packaging. If the process can be done directly at the press using automation, there is no need to ship parts to and from warehouses for further processing. Automation decreases errors and defects and limits variables so that your company can focus on accomplishing tasks, not dealing with errors.
Deciding to automate is the easy part. The next, and more important step is determining how to best implement automation in your process and injection molding cell. you should look at and consider when determining how automation will best work for you and your company.
Don’t get the impression that to automate your process effectively, you need to go out and hire additional staff (although this is one solution and would more than likely lead to long-term benefits). Instead, the operators that you already have should be able to get the job done; they just need the right training and support. Your OEM supplier will likely offer this training at the point of installation. Take advantage of this and give your operators every chance to learn your automation system inside and out.
Of course the main point of robotic automation is to reduce human interaction. The key to successfully running any automation cell is to run it in automatic mode and to have operators interrupt the cycle as little as possible. The longer a cell runs in automatic production, the more that costs will be reduced through the efficiencies and optimizations that the automation can provide. When a cell runs automatically, it is much easier to recognize the actual costs of the operation and determine the volume of product that the cell can produce every hour, every shift and every week. When planning an automated molding cell, don’t forget to work with your automation provider to come up with solutions for staging inserts, queueing boxes for packing, using vision systems for quality checks, and doing whatever else may be needed to reduce the amount of operator involvement within the cell.
NX CAM includes tool-tilt controls, which make it easier to take advantage of five-axis machining. It automatically converts three-axis tool paths to five axes in order to efficiently machine molds with deep cavities. With tilted-tool machining, the shop can use shorter tools to reduce vibration, minimize tool deflection and improve surface finish.
The CAD/CAM software can automate other aspects of mold design, such as bill of materials creation, and users can save time by automating repetitive tasks with journaling and macro capabilities.
The user can perform a task once, the CAD/CAM software record it with journaling and save it as a macro to use on the next project. Additionally, the mold design libraries enable users to quickly compare revised and past part models, saving time on the updating process.