- 30 Part Assembly of Polyurethane Mouldings
- UL94 V0 Rated Flame Retardant Material
- Variety of Finishes
Midas initially manufactured an impressive 26 MRIM Tools in just twelve weeks for a laboratory equipment launch
This fast-turnaround tooling project was critical to the scheduled launch of the world’s first fully automated, random access biochip testing platform. An instrument anticipated to revolutionise current diagnostic testing.
The debut of this new technology naturally called for the development of a visually stunning instrument casing, incorporating a range of colours and finishes. This was quite a challenge as the largest moulding stands at 1668mm x 1191mm x 403mm, and all parts were specified to be cast in fully certified UL94 V0 flame retardant material to allow for full internal shipping and the obtaining of necessary approvals.
Altogether, the equipment casing initially included a total of 26 polyurethane RIM components which increased to 30 parts, as well as numerous smaller injection moulded parts, so naturally the budget needed to be carefully managed on such a large scale project.
During its 25 years of specialisation in the creation of polyurethane RIM tooling, Midas has developed its own patented tooling processes, MRIM, which enables the company to produce highly complex mouldings with little or no compromise on detail, in relatively low volumes, and in a wide range of top class finishes. This, together with Midas’ guarantee of 5000-off shots per tool, provided the perfect production solution with its wide variation in moulding sizes.
As an integral part of the tooling development team for the project, Midas ensured that all parts considered for RIM were appropriately designed for the process - without impacting the client’s requirements. This expertise in ensuring optimum manufacturability ensured that time spent at the early design phases eliminated issues which could have occurred later in tool manufacture. This attention to detail resulted in no modifications to any of the 26 parts produced - clear evidence of really effective Design for Manufacture processes.
A combination of face-to-face meetings, conference calls and email dialogues supported the necessary project management, which was necessary due to the significant geographic distance between the different locations. Embracing modern communication techniques reduced internal costs to both parties and also streamlined the development phase when time to manufacture was so critical.
All the tooling was produced on time during the phased released programme, allowing the client to check and release parts in stages which matched the build phase and also helped spread the tooling start times. Good project management was essential due to the number of parts involved and ensured that any mid-process changes that occurred were well managed and integrated and that correct issue levels and part details were being produced.
The partnership approach taken was critical in producing this complex set of mouldings in such an extremely short time-scale – with the additional benefit that, using Midas MRIM process, all the tooling will be very easy to modify thus allowing for changes and future-proofing the design to satisfy inevitable market changes.
The Midas team relish working on complex multi-part assemblies so do get in touch if you have a similar project which you would like to discuss