Mold manufacturing is the foundation of all industries,China is one of the world’s major producers of injection molds and stamping molds, mainly used in the processing and molding of products such as automobiles, home appliances, consumer electronics, instruments, aerospace and medical devices. According to China Mold Industry Association, China’s mold industry stamping mold accounts for about 37%, plastic mold accounts for about 43%, casting mold (including die-casting mold) is about 10%, forging mold, tire mold, glass mold and other types of molds accounted for 10%, and the mold industry structure of industrially developed countries is basically the same.
Additive manufacturing-3D printing technology one of the significant advantages is in the case of no mold directly manufactured parts, with the development of 3D printing materials, additive manufacturing quality control level, 3D printing technology is from a small number of prototype products manufacturing, to the final parts of the batch manufacturing direction. If viewed from this perspective, 3D printing technology and mold manufacturing technology seem to contradict each other, 3D printing seems to make the manufacturing process to skip the mold as a part…
The opportunity between change and unchanged
So for the domestic mold manufacturing enterprises, how to rationally understand the threats, challenges and opportunities brought by 3D printing to the mold industry? How to make decisions in the “change” and “unchanged” to maximize the development opportunities? This requires from the “bottom” logic to understand the development of 3D printing logic and trends, as well as the impact of the impact on the mold in where?
From the perspective of manufacturing evolution, macro level, manufacturing will gradually evolve away from the intermediate redundancy and tedious assembly and splicing, perhaps the ultimate development of 3D printing will abolish the existence of many die-casting, forging molds, retaining some 3D printing is difficult to achieve the manufacture of very large parts or very large parts, those who must be processed through traditional methods to have the economic benefits of the parts required for the mold will The molds that are needed for parts that must be processed economically through traditional methods will be preserved. On the other hand, injection molds related to electronics, white goods and daily necessities will be retained. This is the logic that supports the penetration of 3D printing into all aspects of manufacturing.
However, on the other hand, 3D printing makes the mold more important, for example, Michelin, a company so focused on doing so many years of tires, why the acquisition of [ADDUP] this 3D printing equipment companies, Michelin through their own possession of 3D printing technology to explore the manufacture of tire molds, the logic of which is mainly because of the ability of 3D printing to achieve complex shapes, metal 3D Printing is a good solution to the problem of tool interference, when complexity and manufacturability is no longer the biggest factor plaguing tire mold manufacturing, 3D printing is a good way to release the ease of tire product design iteration, but also gave birth to a new type of tire manufacturing capabilities.