Ever since the beginning in 1940's Chicago to today's modern and
newly extended premises in St. Charles, Illinois, Chicago Mold
Engineering has continually seized on the latest technological
advances to help the company produce ever more quickly and to ever
tighter tolerances.
Chicago Mold Engineering specialises in large molds. Single-cavity,
complex multi-cavity, injection, compression, stack and combination
molds are all within the company's capabilities. The end customers
are predominantly active in the automotive industry and the
leisure, consumer electronics and household sectors.
One of Chicago Mold's latest investments, an ATOS
III for contactless measuring of physical
objects.
Ralph Oswald, the second generation manager of the company,
emphasises three areas where, over the years, investment in the
latest technological development has sharpened the company's
competitiveness - machinery, automation and programming.
When CNC EDM machines became available in the early 1980s, Chicago
Mold was amongst the first to replace manual machines and
immediately equip the CNC equipment with automatic electrode
changers.
Chicago Mold's 5-axis high-speed milling machine represents a
considerable investment. One common opinion is that hard milling
will replace EDM. However, Ralph Oswald has a different view of the
matter: "Certain jobs, deep cavities for example, are quite clearly
better suited for EDM. If there is a lot of EDM on a component, we
run the whole job in one of our unattended EDM cells. EDM is
certainly far slower than hard milling but, in the unattended
production cells, we run nights and weekends. This gives us shorter
lead times and quicker deliveries."
Ralph Oswald - "If you want to compete successfully
on the global market, then automation is one of the foundations for
offering the competitiveness that so many companies in the western
world need."
True to its habit of always being at the cutting edge, Chicago
Mold was also one of the first mold makers to invest in a camera
for contactless measuring of physical objects such as electrodes
and workpieces.
Early in the 1990s, Chicago Mold invested in a fully automatic cell
for electrode production. This comprised a modern machining centre
for milling graphite electrodes and a WorkMaster robot from System
3R. Even today, Ralph Oswald cites this cell as his best investment
ever!
The cell can hold 140 finished electrodes in a rotating
magazine. A single operator handles all the preparations for the
electrode making process - electrode design, programming and
operations list. The operator knows which electrodes may be
critical in a process and when the EDM machines need electrodes so
that machining can run smoothly. Established in the 1990s, this
methodology has proved extremely successful. Preparing everything
for a weekend or a night "production run" can take quite some time.
However, when all is ready, the cell can be started and then run
unattended as long as there are tools and electrode blanks in the
magazine.
A triple cell comprising a high-speed milling
machine and two die-sinking EDM machines. All these machines are
served by a single WorkMaster. The cell handles both electrodes and
workpieces
The first automatic cell was such a success that, a few years
later, Chicago Mold invested in a new production cell. As increased
EDM capacity was needed, the investment covered two new die-sinking
EDM machines and a machining centre for steel and graphite. The
machines were placed in a circle, a single robot serving all three
of them.
Ralph Oswald: "Quite a few companies consider that automation is
only for mass production. A common objection is, 'Automation isn't
for us, we're not a production company.' These companies were
probably the same who bought their first CNC machines without
automatic electrode changers. People who don't like change.
"If you want to compete successfully on the global market, then
automation is one of the foundations for offering the
competitiveness that so many companies in the western world
need."
One example of the thousands of molds
thatChicagoMold Engineering has delivered to is customers since
1944.
Ralph Oswald cautiously assesses that Chicago Mold runs its
cells a little over 5,000 hours per year per machine. There is
capacity for more but, just like life in general, few things are
perfect. The machines have to be cleaned and maintained. Late
delivery of materials can delay machining. A last-minute design
change can defer start-up by several days.
Chicago Mold Engineering makes the most of every possibility.
For example, operators can monitor night and weekend production
runs from home. If a problem should arise, the operator can go to
the factory and do whatever is necessary to get the cell running
again.
The third area that Ralph Oswald names as a very important part of
the company's competitiveness is its use of the latest and best
software.
Nowadays, there is no way of escaping the fact that everything
revolves around computers. Without the latest and best software,
the company would lose its position. The arsenal of possibilities
that Chicago Mold Engineering offers its customers is impressive.
"Whether it's exporting a new set of drawings to the customer's FTP
server, or importing and handling a file in Unigraphics,
MoldWizard, Key Creator, SolidWorks, SolidView, AutoCAD, PS
Exchange or Pro/Engineer, we can do it," concludes Ralph
Oswald.
The first fully automatic cell for production of
graphite electrodes.
Production is now a highly technological affair. Modern premises
filled with state-of-the-art computer and production systems run by
expert operators in optimised teams - the combination allows
Chicago Mold Engineering to manufacture molds that are second to
none.
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