Industrial machinery and equipment

Plasticos Castella
Capitalizing on mold know-how to ensure customer satisfaction

Product NX Business challenges Meet customers requirements for faster product delivery Shrink mold design cycle Improve accuracy of molds to prevent redesign and repair Keys to success Upgrade to knowledge-based mold design Take advantage of built-in intelligence to automate timeconsuming tasks Use associativity to quickly update mold designs in response to product changes Results Mold design cycle reduced significantly, by weeks for complicated molds Product changes accommodated in hours instead of days Fewer mold assembly errors so less time is spent reworking molds

Plasticos Castella upgraded to a knowledge-based mold design system to speed delivery of thinwall plastic containers
With customers expecting faster turnaround on their orders, Plasticos Castella needed to accelerate the design and production of its molds. Continuously rising expectations Plasticos Castella is one of the leading plastic injection molders in Spain. It produces thin-wall plastic parts used primarily by food and beverage manufacturers. Although the companys products are highly regarded, its customers are continuously raising the bar, demanding shorter cycle times for products that are increasingly complex. The companys previous approach was based on a combination of Siemens NX I-deas software and 2D CAD. Simple mold components such as levers and hinges were drawn in 2D while cores and cavities for parts with complex surfaces were modeled in I-deas. Although that approach worked, it had two limitations that hampered efforts to speed mold design. First, it was difficult to create parting lines for complicated plastic pieces. Second, since there was no link between the customers part design and the digital mold models, it was impossible to react quickly to changes. Molds are always changing during the design phase, either

because the customer changes the part or because we make a sample and see that we must adjust the mold, explains Fernando Ena, a mold designer at Plasticos Castella. These continual changes presented a problem for us. Trading for advantage These limitations led Plasticos Castella to look for a solution set more tightly integrated with part design. Siemens had the answer: NX and NX Mold Wizard, an advanced, automated system for mold design. Although in many cases, switching to new software would be time and cost-prohibitive, Siemens simplified it for us by letting us swap our I-deas license for a NX license, says Ena. They also provided the training that we needed to make

www.siemens.com/nx

Solutions/Services NX NX Mold Wizard www.siemens.com/nx Customers primary business Plasticos Castella is a thermoplastic injection molder specializing in thin-wall tubs as well as lids and screw caps with liners. The products are used primarily for foods and beverages. www.plasticoscastella.com Customer location Tortosa Spain The more difficult the mold, the more productivity we gain through NX Mold Wizard. Fernando Ena Mold Designer Plasticos Castella

the transition successful. Ena says his companys mold designers were proficient with the new software in two to three months. Plasticos Castellas new mold design process begins in NX, where the end product is either modeled by Plasticos Castella engineers or imported from the customer. The part model becomes the basis for the mold design, which is done in Mold Wizard. There, the part shape is used to create core and cavity surfaces while common mold parts are pulled from a 3D component library. Mold Wizard leads the designer through the process step-by-step. Because the software incorporates the knowledge of expert mold designers, it simplifies the more challenging aspects of mold design. For example, it automates creation of the parting line. Mold Wizards parting line capability contributes greatly to our productivity, Ena says. For simple parts, the parting line process is completely automated. For more complicated parts, the softwares embedded wisdom helps the designer create the line by shading core and cavity surfaces in different colors. Even with the most complex parts, this intelligence makes it possible to create a parting line in minutes. In addition to having built-in intelligence, Mold Wizard has an open foundation so end users may incorporate their own expertise as well. Plasticos Castella has customized Mold

Wizard to include tools for specific needs such as hotrunner design. Faster design, faster changes Since installing the new software, Plasticos Castellas mold design process has shrunk significantly. The more difficult the mold, the more productivity we gain in its design and construction through Mold Wizard, says Ena. Some complicated molds are completed weeks sooner than they were in the past. Not only are they completed faster, they are more accurate. We spend less time than other injectors repairing molds, Ena adds. Much of Plasticos Castellas time savings comes from the efficiency of using embedded knowledge to streamline design operations. The new approach also lets the company react much faster to changes. Since Mold Wizard is fully integrated with the entire NX solution, changes to NX part designs are automatically updated in the mold design. When customers send part files in non-native NX format, designers use Mold Wizards model comparison tool to quickly identify the changes and how they affect the mold. Then they use the model swapping tool to replace the old design with the new one and update the entire mold downstream. With these tools, product changes are accommodated in hours instead of days. The end result of the faster, more accurate process: what every plastics supplier needs satisfied customers.

Some complicated molds are completed weeks sooner than they were in the past.
Siemens Industry Software Americas +1 314 264 8499 Europe +44 (0) 1276 413200 Asia-Pacific +852 2230 3308 www.siemens.com/plm
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