Die Making: A Process Digitized

Source：Konika Minolta Release Date：2016-02-29 171

Metalworking

“Total digitization is indispensable for the die-making process in the future!”

said President Hasegawa, President of Hasegawa Kakouzyo Ltd, who has supported Japanese-brand die making for 37 years since the foundation of the company.

Now this company is promoting the re-engineering of product manufacturing processes by pursuing die making that can meet customer needs.

For survival in today’s market, it is necessary that employees be

aware of Q (Quality), C (Cost) and D (Delivery period) requested

by customers, and we must promote management innovation

by actively introducing new technologies in order to meet these

requirements” President Hasegawa said.

In this report, we will present the introduction and effects of the

new production system that combines the skills and expertise

accumulated since the foundation of the company with the new

3D tool “VIVID 9i”.

This company mainly produces press dies and various metalwork products for major truck and bus wheel

manufacturers.

A typical flow of operations between this company and customers is described below.

Based on 3D CAD data prepared by the customer, the die maker prepares NC data and makes dies by CAM.

(Hasegawa Kakouzyo)

The customer adds detailed modifications to the original dies and molds products with the modified dies.

(Customer)

When the dies are worn out from long-term use, the die maker is asked to re-model the dies. (Customer Hasegawa

Kakouzyo)

The original 3D CAD/CAM data cannot be used because the customer added modifications to them (as described

in 2. above). Thus, the die maker re-models the dies based on the original dies that have been modified by the

customer. (Hasegawa Kakouzyo)

Conventionally, the die maker re-models dies by using profiling machines as described above. However, this method

causes the following problems:

Problem 1:

When the profiling machine had a problem, this company considered purchasing a new machine. However, the

machine manufacturer said that the machine production had been discontinued. (The same situation occurred with

the NC profiling machine.) This company wanted a secondhand machine but they were informed that maintenance

of secondhand machines is impossible.

Problem 2:

As customer requirements for faster delivery and lower costs intensify, the current remodeling method cannot meet

the customer needs. (For details, refer to the following description.)

Under such circumstances, this company decided to introduce the VIVID 9i system as a tool for solving these

problems.

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