Real World Insights from Consumer Goods Pros

By Laura Carrabine, Editor

Certainly, technology is making information sharing more efficient and enabling organizations to become more productive. Collaborative tools allow people to share ideas globally at real-time speed. A design engineer, for instance, can collaborate with multiple suppliers in different locations, and manufacturing plants can simultaneously test the product concepts.

Data sharing can affect many issues associated with the manufacture of plastic products. In an attempt to learn more about what's actually happening in the real world of manufacturing in terms of the use of high tech tools such as CAE, we talked to several individuals who live and breathe the strategy in order to help their organizations remain competitive. Specifically, we talked to John Hradisky, vice president of research and development, of The Step2® Company, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of high quality plastic products for children and for the home and garden; Max Molenaar, senior engineer, Coin Acceptors (Coinco), a world leader in the design and manufacture of coin mechanisms, bill acceptors, control systems, and vending machines for the global snack and beverage vending industry; Tom Kramer, owner and principal of Kablooe Design, a full service product design and development team; and Shaival Mehta, senior engineer, Advanced Elastomer Systems (AES), L.P., an affiliate of ExxonMobile Chemical. AES is the worldwide leader in engineered thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs).

We asked about some of the current trends in the manufacture of plastic products that drive companies such as Step2, Coinco, Kablooe, and AES.

Hradisky says that now, more than ever, new products are what will differentiate Step2 from its competitors. "This has always been our charter; however, in today’s economic environment, we are stressing this more than ever. The appearance and the perception of what plastic is needs to be changed. In other words, people look at a plastic rotationally molded product - toys and home and garden products in our case - and they’ve seen that look before. Back in the 1970s it was a new look, something they weren’t familiar with. Now the consumer is very much familiar with it. What we are now working on is trying to change the textures and colors of our products so that when consumers look at them they see something new and innovative. An example of that is a sandbox that we’ve developed that looks like it’s made out of rocks. The top has a sandstone-look cover and a sunshine on it. It looks like a relatively rough texture in comparison to the shiny, smooth texture, look and feel of previous products. The consumer sees a new, upscale, attractive look and, therefore, buys it," says Hradisky.

According to Molenaar, Coinco is trying to add value to its products with techniques such as in-mold decorating. Molenaar says, "We can apply a clear sheet of plastic in the tool and shoot plastic material over it. That’s how cell phones are being manufactured today. We can print graphics on the clear sheet as thin as one ten-thousandth of an inch, and mold the part over it. The graphics are embedded on the part and can't be scratched off. Companies using this methodology are saving money on the assembly because they can eliminate the stamping process. The investment in the technology is well worth it."

At AES, Mehta and his team are helping customers with their product development conceptualization. Mehta says, "We help provide our customers with product solutions based on our material properties. Some of the trends that we see are two-shot molding and grip applications - putting a soft touch on handles to add product value. We also see applications using softer TPE materials for dynamic seals such as gimp seals and cowl seals or applications overmolding soft TPEs onto a rigid polymeric substrate such as interior door handles for automotive applications. We see a lot of companies combining both the hard and soft touch materials. This trend has been prevalent in the consumer goods industry for the last three to five years. However, it is now trickling down into other markets such as automotive interiors."

"One of the things that we are using a lot," notes Kramer, "is dual-shot molding in many designs. We are also seeing a lot of use of resin-transfer molding. Also, in terms of plastic forming, gas-assist injection molding, and twin-sheet thermoforming, and foam plastics are new trends in material usage. As the trends emerge, we are broadening the number of suppliers and manufacturers that we use. In addition, we are branching out to more rapid toolers that use high-speed robotic cutters for tooling. They can cut a tool much faster and do prototype tooling much faster than traditional means. We are seeing that becoming more important in the manufacturing cycle as well. Using a steel or aluminum tool for first run prototyping, toolmakers are turning around prototypes in the same time that a silicon rubber tool can be made. As a result, we can offer this as another service to our customers."

Companies are using a myriad of hardware and software in order to achieve product specifications and customer demands. Step2 uses AutoCAD for 2D drawings and Pro/ENGINEER and SolidWorks for 3D solid modeling, as well as Adobe products for graphics. The company designs 90 percent rotationally molded products with 10 percent blow molding and injection molded parts. For those products, especially if they are large, the required plastic flow, gating, and cooling analyses are provided by outside resources. Hradisky says, "The software tools that we use as well as those used by outside firms help us progress more quickly from product concept to prototype to product. We make wooden patterns for foundry tooling. Aluminum is poured around the patterns to make the molds. We don't machine tools out like an injection or blow molder."

Molenaar and his team have been using Unigraphics for CAD for more than 15 years and Moldflow products for plastic injection molding analysis.

The engineers at AES use I-DEAS software developed by SDRC (now part of EDS) for CAD modeling and Patran from MSC. Mehta says, "To aid the design process, we can perform FEA structural analysis using ABAQUS. We also use various modules of Moldflow software depending on customer requirements. We use MPI/Fusion and are evaluating the 3D version of this technology. We are also using iMPA, an innovative, Web-based tool to provide solutions for CAD-based analysis. This technology is particularly valuable when the part is in the initial stages of development, and a quick solution is needed."

Kablooe designers use SolidWorks, which now offers a COSMOS Express module for FEA functions. As former thinkdesign users, Kablooe designers made the switch to SolidWorks because most of the complex design work was too difficult to navigate or accomplish using thinkdesign. Kramer says, "SolidWorks’ methodology is much simpler while offering dramatic surfacing capabilities. We are pushing the limits of the software's surfacing functionality. The COSMOS add-on allows us to perform FEA analyses on models. Overall, the increased surfacing capabilities within SolidWorks help us remain competitive because we can achieve our design goals in a quicker and better fashion. There were times in the past when there were a lot more steps in the design process, including building models by hand, scanning them, and developing point cloud renderings. Now, we can be competitive because we can hit some of those targets on a shorter path. That's very attractive to our customers because the costs can be reduced. My designers don’t run SolidWorks 24/7. Since we are a small outfit, designers also spend time creating hand sketches, building models, creating prototypes, and running shop floor equipment," says Kramer.

With European and Asian molders putting pressure on US-based mold makers with respect to turnaround times, the companies we talked to said they are feeling the heat.

"We are definitely feeling the pressure," Hradisky says. "The Asian mold makers are working with our competitors and with retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart that have their own line of toys. Their offerings are priced much cheaper than brand named products. The quality is pretty good too. We are realizing how fast our competitors can get into any product line. And, since they can do that quickly, we have to create products that are unique to our process. Our competitors cannot make hollow-bodied plastic products and ship them overseas effectively because our products are filled with air. What the competition likes to do is ship injection molded products with pieces that fit inside one another. So as long as we stay true to our process, we are protecting ourselves from being knocked off. If an injection molder or blow molder can produce one of our products, then the market becomes more challenging."

Molenaar agrees that the pressure from Asian toolmakers is putting pressure on Coinco’s new product development processes. He adds, "We do a lot of internal tooling ourselves as opposed to going outside for that. The lead-times are generally longer. It has to do with certain machines causing bottlenecks. Outside shops may work three shifts on one tool, whereas we have three shifts but each shift works on a separate tool. In the Far East especially, there is a lot of low paid labor and that's how they can be price competitive."

"We sometimes hear the comment regarding Asia’s ability to crank out molds faster and cheaper than traditional US mold makers," notes Mehta. Since AES is a global company, we can provide design services appropriate for our materials, tailored to the specific world area. We have noticed that unlike many American mold-making shops, which tend to provide a full range of mold making services, Asian toolmakers specialize in doing one type of service. They provide just a portion of the mold and this is followed by assembly, which is coordinated in a team approach."

Kramer says, "On one hand, our business doesn’t react much differently because as a small consulting firm, we always work so much faster than the tooling cycle. Just because an Asian toolmaker might be able to shorten the tooling cycle doesn’t shorten our development cycle. Our development cycles are short, compressed, and detailed. All of our work is done up front - before it goes to tooling. The fact that the Asians can tool it faster or cheaper doesn’t change our development cycle at all. If we have to communicate with Asian toolers, there is a communication bog down that is just difficult to avoid, no matter how good you are at communicating. There is the time zone difference and the language barrier. We definitely have to provide much more detailed information to Asian manufacturers than we do for local manufacturers. We may end up spending more time engineering if the design is going to Asia for manufacturing than we would here in the US, just to overcome possible issues that could become bottlenecks in Asia. We have to make sure everything is completely covered - providing back up drawings, back up CAD files - so there will be absolutely no questions as to what is required." He said that Kablooe Design uses Asian manufacturers for about 30 percent of its projects, and 70 percent of the work goes to US-based manufacturers.

We asked company representatives if they had a wish list of technology updates that they would like to see implemented into upcoming versions of the software products they are currently using. "At Step2, says Hradisky, "we usually focus on the task at hand versus the technology. We view the software as the tool to help us get our tasks accomplished. If the technology isn’t helping us or we reach a stalemate, we will do it by another means - whatever it takes versus being reliant on the technology."

Molenaar doesn’t think improvements in the software would convince senior management to maintain manufacturing in-house. "I believe we are using the software effectively. We use a coating software for mold coating that is somewhat antiquated. There is no way to import the existing solid model from Unigraphics. Improvements in that area would be beneficial. For CAD analysis, we are currently using Unigraphics FEA capabilities and stress analysis using a Pro/E product. The products are not compatible; that is causing problems. This is an issue that we are working on solving. I just received the last upgrade from Moldflow that I am waiting to install."

Mehta would like software providers to offer a live chat feature that would enable AES users to "chat" directly with software vendors versus dialing a toll-free technical support number. He says, "This capability would be very beneficial and would provide a more timely response to questions and problems. We would also like software vendors to be more flexible in terms of offering global licensing practices, so that the software seats can be shared among users at various site locations around the world."

For more information on the above-mentioned companies, visit www.step2.com, www.coinco.com, www.kablooe.com, and http://www.santoprene.com, respectively.