Standardization of Mold Manufacturing Process

The plastic injection molding industry increasingly demands high-quality standards and strict requirements for companies to operate on a global scale in a continuously developing market. As a result, mold design and manufacturing must also meet stringent delivery time requirements in addition to technical demands such as short cycle times and consistent product quality.

Moldflow – Mold Analysis

The working environment of injection molds must always withstand harsh conditions, including temperature and mechanical properties. Therefore, simulating and analyzing the design from the beginning is crucial to identify potential design flaws and provide reasonable parameters for the design process, which can save a lot of costs in trial-and-error stages.

This leads to an optimized design from the very beginning, with important parameters considered early on for mold design, benefiting both the production process and future usage.

PowerMill – Efficient Machining

After the mold design process is complete, the next important step is to machine the mold components with the highest accuracy, speed, and efficiency. Meeting these requirements requires the integration of many factors, which can be listed as follows:

The quality of the machinery used for machining mold components
The skill of the machinist in programming and selecting appropriate cutting paths on CNC machines
A reasonable technological process that ensures both quality and accuracy while still saving costs

Focusing on the aspect that can be improved the quickest, which is optimizing the toolpath on CNC machines, allows for maximum utilization of the machinery, especially multi-axis machines. With rotating and tilting axes, the tool length can be significantly reduced, which helps decrease vibration during machining and, as a result, improves the surface quality of the product.

Especially when using PowerMill, the Dynamic Machine Control feature allows users to select the appropriate toolpath axis before generating the toolpath and easily modify it even after the toolpath has been created, ensuring that the toolpath remains optimized during machining on the machine. Thanks to the software’s simulation and collision detection capabilities, it helps save time on editing and ensures safety during the production process.

PowerInspect – Product Inspection

To control the accuracy and quality of products after machining, we can use measuring tools and CMM machines to ensure that the product matches the 3D design. Not only is it used for CMM machines, PowerInspect with its On – Machine Verification (OMV) feature, also helps operators check 3D dimensions directly on CNC machines by using the available Touch Probe head to measure surfaces and key dimensions.

With this feature, manufacturing plants can optimize the machining and inspection process with several advantages such as:

Reduce the time for re-fixture on the CNC machine after inspection on the CMM.
Lessen the load on the CMM machines with preliminary inspection on the CNC machine.
Deliver products to customers faster.
Optimize the quality control process.

Standardize the manufacturing process with Autodesk.

By standardizing the production process, your company will thrive with a high adaptability to customer demands, easily share workloads, and simplify the management of complex processes. With a single supplier for all software, you can streamline daily tasks and adapt to changes more easily. Inconsistent software interfaces, procedures, and data make it harder to operate efficiently, track workflows, and control costs. Autodesk and its complete product suite from design to manufacturing will help your company standardize processes quickly and easily, supporting you in achieving further goals for continuous development.

Standardization of Mold Manufacturing Process