by Arnaud Divialle
The plastic injection industry now demands a continuous and proactive approach. As industry veteran Scott Peters discussed with us recently, many enterprises are actively exploring avenues to optimize and streamline their operational processes. A critical aspect of this optimization relates to the development process for plastic injection molds. The design phase typically requires less than one week, but a significant bottleneck often arises when companies must wait one or two weeks to obtain results from mold flow analysis (MFA) before they can finalize mold design.
Given the substantial costs and lead times associated with MFA, many companies refrain from conducting it on every mold, unless explicitly mandated by their clients. Instead, they rely on intuition to make design decisions and only selectively opt for MFA on “critical” molds. Companies must strike a delicate balance between the potential risk of wasting valuable time and resources on MFA and the peril of accepting defective molds that could require even more time and expense to rectify afterward.
Strategic simulation
Some forward-thinking Mold Makers and MFA service providers are adopting SimForm as a strategic tool to swiftly assess molds. Using SimForm empowers these firms to ground decisions in scientific data, not intuition, when determining whether a full MFA would contribute tangible value. This methodology mitigates risk by presenting a systematic, cost-effective, and efficient means of justifying the expenses and lead time associated with mold flow analyses.
SimForm facilitates MFA service providers’ efforts to explain the necessity for additional in-depth simulations to their clients. At the same time, it also empowers mold makers to justify to their own customers, including molders and OEMs, why further analyses may not be warranted. This dual functionality of SimForm serves to optimize overall mold development costs and lead times.
Trust in science
Decisions driven by SimForm are rooted in engineering simulation data. Ultimately, these are far more justifiable and less open to debate than intuition, no matter how experienced. For MFA service providers and mold makers alike, strategically adopting simulation technologies marks a significant step toward enhancing efficiency and reducing uncertainties in the plastic injection industry.
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