executive view

Plastics CAE Simulation - Required and Valuable

By Roland Thomas, President and CEO, Moldflow Corporation

This year, Moldflow celebrates our 25th year. During this time, companies in the plastics industry have faced the challenges of surviving global consolidation, the migration of manufacturing operations to low cost-of-labor economies, and constant pressures to decrease costs while improving part quality. Through all of this, Moldflow has evolved with the industry and provided technologically innovative products to allow our customers to meet these challenges head on. Today, Moldflow customers understand the value of knowing how a particular plastic material will flow through a given mold. This knowledge allows them to optimize their part designs, mold designs, and the injection molding manufacturing process. Moldflow remains committed to developing innovative products and providing services to help our customers better understand and optimize every phase of the plastics design-to-manufacturing process.

In the early days, Moldflow's "competition" came largely from engineering rules of thumb and experience - injection molding was more of an art than a science. Through the years, we have been able to demonstrate consistently that computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulation and process automation brings value to the industry. Today, Moldflow has more than 4,700 customers around the world, comprising the world's largest and most firmly established plastics CAE community. We are recognized as the world's leading provider of software and services to the plastics injection molding industry. Even though we continue to push the scientific boundaries, few would question the effectiveness of our solutions, even those who have yet to adopt them.

As price and quality pressures continue to build and the global economic climate makes it difficult to survive, let alone compete, it is imperative to optimize and automate every phase of the design-to-manufacturing process. The challenge facing many companies today is to find a way to take complete control of all the variables that contribute to part costs, in order to maintain or improve part quality and decrease time to market while delivering products for the lowest, optimum cost.

Implementing CAE simulation technology is the first step to taking control of the design-to-manufacturing process. It starts with applying the right CAE simulation technology for a particular application at the earliest possible stage of the process. CAE simulation proponents cite numerous examples of cost and time savings resulting from early use of predictive analysis tools, which lead to significant economic and competitive advantages. Also, maximum value is obtained by implementing the CAE simulation tools as part of the everyday product development process - a broad-based solution rather than a point solution applied only to a particular phase of the process.

In the plastics industry today, there are successful companies that are getting bigger and stronger. Conversely, those that do not have the resources to survive are being forced to consolidate or go out of business. One of the key indicators of whether an organization will continue to be successful is whether the company focuses on internal process development to take control of the basic business drivers.

There are several examples of leading manufacturers that have optimized and automated internal processes to help them beat their competition. For example, Nokia Corporation, a leader in mobile phone products, makes most of its phones in Finland, Germany, and the US - much more expensive cost-of-labor locations than manufacturing facilities in parts of Asia. Nokia has not taken the low cost-of-labor approach favored by other electronics manufacturers such as Dell Computer Corp., Cisco Systems, Inc., and other big technology firms, because it revamped its manufacturing sites, automated processes and became production savvy. Manufacturing teams can, for instance, perform a product changeover in just 10 minutes by swapping the software that directs the machines and wheeling in a new set of parts. The end result is that Nokia's production costs have declined and their products match the best of the Asian competition.

The global consolidation taking place in the plastics industry means that winning injection molding companies are often growing through acquisition. Historically, plastics injection molders have been located over widespread geographic ranges to support the regional customers or end-users they serve. The companies growing through acquisition must implement standard process automation and optimization methods across these geographically fragmented operations to benefit from the consolidation. These companies require standard solutions for process setup, optimization, and control, as well as process and production monitoring and reporting. The solutions should also be globally supported, scalable for both small and large manufacturing facilities, and available from a supplier with the critical mass to provide long-term product support and new product development. Additionally, the standard solutions implemented in the manufacturing environments should allow customers to take advantage of the CAE simulation optimization work done in the early stages of part and mold design. In fact, the Moldflow Manufacturing Solutions products do all this and more - another example of how Moldflow continues to innovate to allow our CAE simulation customers to optimize their design-to-manufacturing processes.

Plastics injection molding companies that are growing, perhaps even thriving, in the current economic climate have some things in common. They continue to implement new technology in all phases of their design-to-manufacturing processes, whether they need to optimize a part or mold design, set up a new mold quickly, reduce cycle times, or improve molded part quality. In better economic times, it may be possible for businesses to survive without improving internal processes or implementing new technology. However, in current conditions, the best companies continue to find ways to improve their internal processes to reduce part cost, speed time to market, and exceed their customer expectations. Smart manufacturers are realizing that automation and optimization are critical to achieving operational excellence.

As the world's best companies continue to prove, process automation and optimization contribute to higher margins and can make them dollar-for-dollar more efficient compared with direct competitors and even low cost-of-labor economies. There are myriad examples of companies involved in plastics injection molding that have implemented these strategies successfully and proved that CAE simulation technology is a key element in achieving those goals. It is this type of success and proof of added value that motivates us and continues to drive our new product development. CAE simulation for injection molded plastics has become a legitimate, required element of the complete plastics design-to-manufacturing process. Moldflow has been there to support our customers for the past 25 years, and we look forward with anticipation and excitement to supporting them for the next 25 years.