Using additive manufacturing to produce injection moulds suitable for short series production

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is claimed to be a serious competitor to traditional manufacturing methods in the production industry despite very few firms taking full advantage of its capabilities in bringing products to market. Many companies look towards AM as a direct manufacturing method, which is costly, time consuming and in industries such as children’s toys, not in compliance with safety regulations. In recent times, plastics companies have looked towards using AM to manufacture moulds for injection moulding which can be used to produce end components. It is evident that firms have used such a process to produce low volumes of product, however there is no clear evidence to be found where these components are brought to market as a lone product or as a component of a product, nor is there any indication of the cycle life of a mould produced using AM. There are two potential market gaps for a process such as this to be implemented: manufacturing product during the New Product Development process in low volumes as a market tester, and producing customized products which can meet the demands of each individual customer at an affordable price. It was found that the most efficient way to develop this process was to first manufacture a Master Unit Dye (MUD), which held AM inserts which were moulds of the desired product. This MUD setup allowed for rapid changeovers in injection moulding machines along with adding the mechanical properties to this setup which were required for the injection moulding process. A sample product from a new product development team was used to prove the process was capable, producing up to eighty components using both SLA and Polyjet printed moulds without the moulds reaching their cycle life. The next step of this project is to select the most suitable products for this process from a new product development team and working with them to produce their product be using AM moulds with the intention of bringing these products to market. Products related to the toy industry