Doing the Math for the
Highest Return Mold

Though it is a fundamental concept that a mold is bought in order to produce the lowest cost part,
too often old habits prevent a thorough review of different approaches.

In order to generate an indisputable Return On Investment, Roehr and partner company Progressive Components developed a new Collapsible Core Comparison Tool that helps Tooling Engineers make a case for converting unscrewing tools to simplified, ‘open-shut’ molds utilizing collapsible cores.

“We developed this tool as a way to plug in specific numbers for projects and take the engineer through a cost comparison of collapsible cores vs. another way to build the tool (i.e., jump thread or unscrewing),” explains Al Hickok, OEM Sales Manager at Progressive, who helped develop the tool. “The comparison tool shows cost differentials, taking into account such things as cavitation, cycle time to press rate, toolroom rate, rejects, downtime, maintenance and even quality issues. It’s very comprehensive.”

Customers who utilize collapsible cores often realize significant savings due to benefits such as simplified mold design, cycle time reduction, and improved party quality.

The Collapsible Core Comparison Tool can be used for both new mold builds and for existing tooling where the product’s life cycle warrants a rebuild using more advanced technology to improve overall performance.

“We’ve found that ‘the numbers guys’ love it when a tooling engineer can speak to them in their own language and detail a better ROI on what is a very significant capital expenditure” says Hickok. “Whether the tool costs a little more or a little less is not significant when the cost of ownership over the tool’s life is calculated.”

Visit www.procomps.com/math to access and try the Collapsible Core Comparison Tool for your next project, or call Roehr at 1-877-563-1912.

Armand Savoie, who is Director of Technical Services, and his team at MacNeill Engineering have been using custom Minicores from Roehr for almost 10 years. He recently described why they prefer the Minicores over other methods available to them.

“We use them because they don’t take up a lot of real estate in the mold,” he said. “They allow us to build in the geometry needed and they work perfectly.”

Savoie described an example of a project that is two, 16-cavity molds used to manufacture a plastic receptacle for the bottom of an athletic shoe. He said that the project originally would have required molding two separate parts that would then require a secondary operation to sonically weld them
perfectly together.

Mold Closed	Mold Open

"It was an almost impossible situation. When you are talking about molding millions of parts that must be sealed perfectly, there’s a lot of room for problems,” explained Savoie. “Roehr’s Minicores allowed us to mold the whole assembly in one shot, eliminating the welding step.

“In addition, these molds are being run in Asia, 24-7,” he added. “The Minicores work so well they are just ‘plug and play’, and we probably got six to seven million cycles out of them. Roehr makes a quality product.”