Design for thermoforming operations can be a tricky objective to complete given how important the design of both the end product and new tooling can be. That’s why engineering teams at manufacturing companies – including Allied Plastics – place a premium on supporting OEM projects and taking them from concept to production through completion.
How exactly do engineering teams, however, support OEM projects when design for thermoforming operations are at hand? Allied Plastics highlights a few different areas where these teams play a pivotal role in creating the foundation for successful projects.
Identifying Concept and Part Feasibility
When a consultation from an OEM and a manufacturing company has been established, typically the first action performed is for engineering teams to ensure that the project can actually be thermoformed from both an economic standpoint and a reliability standpoint. This has many industry terms including feasibility review, manufacturability assessment, and early risk reduction.
It’s critical to note that these actions take place before tooling is finalized. That allows any last-minute considerations or alterations to take place without impacting the final tooling and keeps costs in check.
Design for Thermoforming Equals DFM
It’s a very wise design approach to utilize design for manufacturability when working through the design for thermoforming operations. Before any production begins, engineering teams focus on eliminating future challenges by adjusting the part geometry early on. This can range in a variety of ways such as including draft angle differences, wall thickness, radii, reasonable tolerance expectations, and material-specific limitations. These choices affect forming stability and downstream trimming.
Additionally, DFM practices catch potential defects early in the process and can lead to solutions prior to manufacturing that saves both costs and time, getting products to market faster.
Prototyping
Another design for thermoforming operations that helps OEMs take their projects from concept to production is the usage of prototyping and pre-production part validation services. Prototyping could either be for tooling or for the part itself and is used to validate critical aspects of a design that might have engineering teams and customers on the fence about such as a wall thickness or a certain draft angle.
While the materials used for prototyping likely will vary from the real operation, it gives a more tangible result compared to a CAD file or another digitized form, allowing engineers to create solutions after parts have been validated.
Tooling Considerations
Tooling is one of the core components when discussing design for thermoforming. It’s where engineering decisions truly turn concept into production. Allied Plastics tooling operations take place in the Allied Plastics Tooling Center. We will cut a prototype pattern from your 3D model CAD file using CNC equipment. Sample parts will be run on the pattern for your approval. Once approved, a cast of the pattern will be made, and the precision tool will be detailed with water lines and vacuum holes to achieve maximum Thermoforming performance. This tool becomes the master key of the process to provide peak efficiency and consistency of your vacuum formed plastic parts time after time.
Connect with Allied Plastics for Design for Thermoforming Operations with our World-Class Engineering Team
Allied Plastics provides world-class custom heavy-gauge thermoforming operations for numerous OEMs and other customers across the country and around the world. Since 1995, in our Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, facility, our engineering team performs multiple operations to help take OEM projects from concept to completion.
Design for thermoforming operations at Allied Plastics entail state-of-the-art equipment and ProEngineer 3D product design software to ensure your custom vacuum formed plastic product will be manufactured to your exact requirements and specifications time after time. In addition to our design capabilities, we also have in-house tooling capabilities where the Allied Plastics Tooling Center will cut a prototype pattern from your 3D model CAD file using CNC equipment. Sample parts will be run on the pattern for your approval. Once approved, a cast of the pattern will be made, and the precision tool will be detailed with water lines and vacuum holes to achieve maximum thermoforming performance.
Stuck with your design for thermoforming operations? Contact the team at Allied Plastics today.