According to Aldo Balatti, senior product designer/plastic applications specialist at DW Product Development, Inc., it would be very difficult to work with plastic materials and not utilize Moldflow Plastic Insight (MPI) or Moldflow Plastic Adviser (MPA).
New product development now is in the age of optimization. As a busy product design firm, we need to save as much material as possible to reduce costs. We don’t have the luxury of time to redesign or retool because of unforeseen problems. Competitive products from Asia and other countries are hurting North American manufacturers. Finite element analysis (FEA) and mold filling analytical tools are essential just as mold makers are using high speed machining to deliver tools at light speed. The Asian mold makers are operating 24/7, which until lately has not been typical of North American mold makers. Today, the average turnaround time for an Asian mold maker is eight weeks. In North America, we are used to a 10 to 16 week turnaround time. Indeed, high speed machining is reducing those cycle times.
The same point applies to CAE software products. These tools are absolutely paramount in validating and getting products to market faster. Using products such as MPA is part of our everyday life as designers and engineers. It’s hard to imagine being as productive as we are without them. As more companies recognize the importance of using CAE software as part of the validation and optimization process, they will become more competitive in a global marketplace. It is definitely worth investing in the technology because the payoffs are significant. We also acknowledge that rapid prototyping and rapid tooling is a vital part of the validation process.
DW recently used MPA in the design of Motorola’s new line of digital deskset telephones as well as an appliance light diffuser for Electrolux. DW is one of Moldflow’s MPA beta sites. Aldo Balatti is a board member of the International Moldflow user Group (iMUG), and was a presenter at the 2002 iMUG conference.
DW Product Development, Inc.
Moldflow
