OGM has published an in-depth white paper explaining how a new toolmaking technology can help companies half the lead time for mould tools
For products using plastic components, the design and manufacture of injection mould tooling can be a significant bottleneck on the journey from prototype to full market availability. Conventional toolmaking processes can entail a four-month wait between sign-off of a part design and the availability of production components.
OGM’s white paper – ‘Rapid Production Mould Tooling delivers critical time-to-market savings’ – explains a new approach that aims to overcome many of the limitations of earlier rapid toolmaking technologies, allowing customers to obtain steel tools suitable for high volume production in as little as four weeks. That’s under half of the time required for conventional toolmaking.
The Rapid Production Tooling technology combines a number of advanced manufacturing approaches to streamline or eliminate some of the most time-consuming steps in the toolmaking process. At the heart of the approach is OGM’s hybrid metal additive manufacturing and machining technology, the first of its kind to be installed in the UK. This approach combines additive manufacturing using direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) with conventional CNC machining technologies in an integrated build process.
‘Rapid Production Mould Tooling delivers critical time-to-market savings’ is available to download on the website