In the traditional mold manufacturing enterprises, “long cycle, poor accuracy, high cost, management chaos” is a long time to plague the industry's development of the four major pain points. A set of complex precision mold production, often involving design, programming, processing, assembly, mold trial, mold repair and more than ten links, the traditional model of the links are separated from each other, relying on artificial docking and experience judgment, is very prone to errors in the design of drawings, processing technology is unreasonable, repeated modification of the mold trial, production progress out of control and other issues, not only to lengthen the delivery cycle, and significantly push up the cost of production, reducing the competitiveness of enterprises in the market. With the in-depth promotion of industry 4.0, digital transformation has become a mold manufacturing enterprises to crack the pain points, quality and efficiency of the road, a digital, networked, intelligent as the core of the industry change, is completely reshaping the traditional mold production model.
The digital transformation of mold manufacturing is not simply the introduction of a few CNC equipment, but covers the design, production, management, operation and maintenance of the whole process of systematic change, the core is to open up the information barriers in all aspects of the digital technology to achieve the whole process of visualization, controllability and efficiency. First of all, the digitalization of the design process is the source of transformation, but also to avoid subsequent production problems. Traditional mold design relies on engineers hand-drawn paper or two-dimensional design, structural reasonableness, molding effect can not be predicted in advance, the trial mold stage often structural defects, product deformation and other issues, resulting in repeated mold repair. The digital design adopts three-dimensional CAD modeling with CAE simulation and analysis software, which can simulate the molding process in a virtual environment, prejudge the melt flow, cooling effect, stress distribution and other issues in advance, optimize the mold structure and process parameters, and reduce the number of trial molds by more than 60% to eliminate design defects at the source and shorten the research and development cycle significantly.
The digitalization and intelligence of production and processing links is the core of the mold enterprise cost reduction and efficiency. Traditional mold processing relies on ordinary machine tools, manual operation error, processing efficiency is low, complex surfaces, precision holes are difficult to accurately process; at the same time, the workshop equipment dispersed, the production progress by manual statistics, the progress of the work order, the utilization rate of the equipment, the consumption of materials can not be controlled in real time, it is easy to idle equipment, material waste, schedule delays and other issues. Under the digital production mode, the enterprise introduces five-axis linkage machining centers, CNC milling machines, precision testing equipment and other high-end CNC equipment, with MES production management system, to achieve the whole process of digital control of machining and programming, equipment operation, production progress, CAM software directly to the three-dimensional design model, automatically generate machining procedures to avoid manual programming errors; MES system real-time collection of equipment operation data, The MES system collects real-time data of equipment operation and work order completion, and the management personnel can clearly grasp the production progress, equipment load and material consumption of each set of molds through the background to realize accurate scheduling of production plan, increase equipment utilization rate by more than 30%, shorten production cycle by 40%, and significantly reduce the scrap rate.
The digitization of supply chain and quality management further strengthens the operational foundation of mold enterprises. Mould manufacturing belongs to the customized production industry, each set of mould requires different materials such as mould steel, standard parts, cutting tools, etc. The traditional procurement mode relies on manual counting, which is prone to material shortages, high purchasing costs, inventory backlog and other problems. The digital supply chain management system can automatically account for the material demand according to the production plan, docking supplier platform, realize accurate procurement, zero inventory management, reduce material costs and inventory pressure. In terms of quality management, traditional quality inspection relies on manual testing, fragmented data records, traceability is difficult, and quality problems cannot be quickly located at the root cause. Digital quality inspection system with high-precision coordinate measuring instrument, to achieve fully automated inspection of mold size, accuracy, real-time data uploading system, the establishment of the whole process of quality traceability system, once the quality problems, can be quickly traced back to the design, processing, quality inspection links, accurate rectification, and comprehensively improve the mold product qualification rate.
For small and medium-sized mold enterprises, digital transformation need not blindly pursue one-step, can be combined with their own size and business characteristics, step by step implementation, step by step. First of all, starting from the design process, popularize three-dimensional digital design and simulation analysis technology, to solve the core design pain points; second gradually upgrade the core processing equipment, the introduction of basic production management software to achieve the production of digital control; and finally build an integrated management platform, through the design, production, supply chain, quality, sales of the whole process of data to achieve the overall digitalization of business operations. At the same time, the enterprise should focus on staff digital skills training, enhance the operators of CNC equipment, design software, management system operation ability, to avoid the disconnect between technology and personnel.
At present, digital transformation is not a choice of mold enterprises, but the survival and development of the question must be answered. In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the industry, downstream customer requirements continue to improve, only to take the initiative to embrace digital change, break the shackles of the traditional production model, open the whole process data barriers, in order to truly realize the cost reduction, quality improvement, efficiency, and enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises. In the future, with the continuous maturation and popularization of digital technology, the mold manufacturing industry will completely say goodbye to the rough production, into a new stage of efficient, accurate, intelligent digital development, and promote the industry to achieve high-quality sustainable development.
