The Japanese mold industry has reached the point where reform is necessary

Mold manufacturing is a typical single-piece small batch production method, but mold manufacturing companies in Japan are responsible for dumb felt linden, CNC machine tools, machining centers (mc) or cnc EDM equipment. According to the staff of Nagoya Gold Type Company, due to the use of advanced processing equipment such as CNC machine tools and machining centers, the delivery period of the molds has been greatly shortened and the production cost has been reduced. The delivery time of the injection moulds for the front and rear taillight lampshades produced by the company is three months, of which the time for cad and cam is about 100 hours respectively, the machining time is about 100 hours, and the rest is polishing and assembling. In this small mold factory, which mainly produces injection molds for front and rear taillight lampshades of automobiles, among the more than 20 machining equipment, EDM equipment accounts for about 1/3, CNC milling machines and machining centers account for about 2/3, and only 1 The gun drill for deep hole processing is semi-automatic equipment. A high-speed machining center with a spindle speed of up to 20,000rpm has two worktables. It is processed with a carbide ball end mill. The machining accuracy of the mold cavity surface can reach 0.01mm, which greatly improves the production efficiency and machining accuracy, and reduces the cost of machining. Polishing workload. Although advanced equipment dominates, the polishing process is still done by hand. The polishing of the lampshade injection mold is divided into rough polishing, fine polishing and fine polishing, etc. The polishing force, grain direction, cleanliness, etc. require experienced workers and strict operating regulations, otherwise it is impossible to produce a car lampshade with good transparency. Mold manufacturing enterprises in Japan rarely use profiling milling machines. One reason is that the machining accuracy of profiling milling machines is low, which increases the polishing workload and time; the second is that the production of profiling parts increases production costs and time. The use of EDM machines in some moldmakers is also decreasing. At the Toshiba Machine Tool Plant, several copy milling machines are used for general milling. Its staff pointed out that due to the rapid development of high-speed milling technology, the continuous improvement of machining accuracy and efficiency, and the shortened production cycle, EDM not only takes time to make tool electrodes, but also increases production costs, and is likely to be replaced. In the Japanese mold manufacturing industry, the copy milling process has a tendency to be replaced. Regarding high-speed milling, it is a hot topic in the Japanese mold making industry and machine tool industry. The key technology is that the machine tool spindle requires high precision and high speed, and the second is the use of milling cutters suitable for high-speed cutting and high temperature resistance. The model of the high-speed milling machining center used by Nagoya Gold Type Co., Ltd. is makinoa77 (three-axis numerical control), which uses a special high-speed air bearing milling head with a speed of 20,000rpm. In Universal Industrial Co., Ltd., which mainly produces forgings, the matsuurafx-5 high-speed cnc milling machine jointly produced by Switzerland and Japan (the speed of the milling cutter can reach up to 30000rpm and the milling accuracy is 0.01mm) is used to process the forging die. The milling machine is also equipped with a special cam software. Japan's okuma Metal Cutting Machine Tool Co., Ltd. has developed and produced a five-axis high-speed mold machining center okumamicro-bi-hp (nu003d30000rpm, fu003d30m/min), and equipped the machine tool and products with cad/cam software. It is reported that the output value of the Japanese mold industry has been decreasing year by year in recent years. Experts believe that the Japanese mold industry has reached the point where reform is necessary. Industry insiders said that compared with other manufacturing industries, the Japanese mold industry has a heavier cost burden on mold processing equipment and a heavier cost burden on mold processing equipment. Therefore, the depreciation rate of equipment directly affects revenue. As the semiconductor and other industries gradually moved out, in order to improve the operating efficiency, the country's mold industry also had to move its business focus overseas. Japan's mold production capacity accounts for about 40% of the world's, ranking first in the world, but since the output value reached a peak of 1.87 trillion yen in 1998, it has shown a recession. In addition, due to the large-scale development of molds in other Asian countries and regions, both cost and technology are quite competitive in this region. Influenced by the establishment of an all-round mold production system, the price of Japanese molds has also dropped by about 20% in recent years. At present, the operating difficulties of the Japanese mold industry can be roughly summed up as unstable orders, lower prices to obtain orders, inability to cope with the trend of shortened delivery times, high-tech technology, and increasingly stringent quality requirements. In view of this development background, in addition to making more efforts in high-precision machining technology, how to differentiate from general molds and create high-value-added processed products is the direction of the Japanese mold industry, which is also what other Asian countries and regions need to face. new subject.