Last April, Jeff Mengel from Plante & Moran’s business advisory for the plastics industry projected that, “as many as 10-20% of North American plastics processors could falter by the end of 2009. The resulting reorganization will include the transfer of more than 360,000 tools.” 1
Five short months later, we’re seeing the need to document transferred products and takeover tooling accelerating rapidly. The transfer of tooling from one organization to another includes having accurate documentation – both of the tooling and the qualified part. All too often a tool transfer does not mean “full documentation transfer”.
That’s where using an accurate laser scanning process comes in. With a precision laser scan, the tool or part can be quickly validated with a color comparison to the CAD model. If no CAD data is available, the scan can be developed into a complete CAD model that is tooling and production ready.
Verifying the product with a laser scan is a cost-effective way of preventing failures in the future. An accurate CAD model developed from a scan may also prevent errant tool changes down the road.
Hopefully your organization was ready and is now on the receiving end of some of these transfers. I expect we’ll see many more of them as this plastics industry reorganization plays out over the next 12-18 months.
1 Injection Molding, April 2009
