The success of a mold manufacturer boils down to its ability to deliver high quality products at the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. Following are some mold design best practices that will help you achieve these goals.

Unlike traditional feature-based modeling, which relies on a sequence of operations to construct designs, direct modeling works on what has previously been called dumb geometry, using feature recognition and other technology to allow direct manipulation of previously frozen solids. Direct modelers offer a simpler modeling paradigm that can allow fast creation and editing, removing a lot of overhead from the CAD, lowering ownership costs and helping manufacturers spend more time focusing on  customer value and cutting parts and less time driving CAD.

 Die sinking EDM works wonders in cutting contours or cavities in pre-hardened steel. When dealing with complex shapes, however, milling the electrodes that produce these intricate pieces can be a quite involved and time-consuming process, so manufacturers want to extend electrode life as much as possible.

One of the greatest challenges facing moldmakers today is reducing production costs while still maintaining high levels of precision. Moldmakers have frequently relied on one of two technologies to help them accomplish this:

There are many reasons why molds and dies need to be welded—they get cracked, chipped or broken. However, most of the time it is because of engineering changes that have been made late in the product development process where repairing the mold is less expensive than manufacturing a new one.

There are many factors to consider when selecting a stainless mold steel.The final plastic part requirements are the most important factors to consider when selecting the proper mold material. Cosmetic requirements, resin type and filler content are the main considerations along with the expected tool life.

Wire EDM machines are, by nature, fairly large users of energy, due to the fact that they employ electrical spark erosion. This requires a generator/power supply to convert the standard three-phase current into cutting pulses, and to run all the servo drive and pump motors to support the process. Ten or 15 years ago, many EDM machines used DC-type power supplies to generate the spark—and many of these machines are still in operation today.

Manufacturers have many factors to consider when designing equipment to manufacture products in the plastics industry. Six-axis jointed robots can offer significant cost savings during mold design and manufacture, as well as during production.