Int. J.

Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Int. J. Production Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe

Life cycle cost for technology selection: A Case study in the manufacturing of
injection moulds
R. Folgado, P. Pec- as n, E. Henriques
IDMEC, Instituto Superior Tecnico, TULisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: During mould design phase different approaches are envisaged to materialize part production and they
Received 28 March 2008 must be evaluated not only in technological criteria, but also in an economical perspective. However,
Accepted 21 July 2010 the comparison of such alternative approaches is not always evident for the mould designer. The
Available online 29 July 2010
solution proposed in this paper, based on the development of a life cycle cost model, fosters its
Keywords: application as a methodology to compare two mould manufacturing alternatives: a spray metal shell
Life cycle cost mould backlled with a resin and aluminium powder resin and a conventional machined aluminium
Plastic injection moulds mould. A better mould or a better alternative is the one that incurs in fewer life cycle costs, assuming
Low production moulds that the injected part is produced within a conformed quality.
Spray metal moulds
& 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Technology selection

1. Introduction production of large parts in small quantities implies presently the

The European industry has been confronted with strong
competitive pressures coming from the emergent productive
regions of the globe (Chiang and Trappey, 2007; Li et al., 2005),
where wages are substantially lower and the labour force and the
all shop-oor facility work around the clock. As moulds are
involved in the manufacturing chain of every industrial product,
possessing a profound impact in their efciency and robustness,
and are in the critical path of any new product development,
determining largely the time to market, these pressures are
deeply affecting the moulds industry. The European mould-
making industry, although still holding its own in sales, is rapidly
losing ground in the manufacturing sector to low production cost
countries (Pec- as and Henriques, 2004:1; Pec- as et al., 2009). To
face competition in future, mould makers are likely to be highly
technology oriented and highly innovative and unique as regards
to the establishment of business models adapted for particular
market niches, to which they must offer an expanded range of
value added capabilities (Ribeiro et al., 2008).
The production of parts through conventional plastic injection
technology can only justify its economical viability for large
production volumes, due to the high cost and high manufacturing
lead time of the required injection mould. For small production
volumes, it is difcult or even impossible to accommodate in a
competitive part cost the spreading of the mould cost. So, low cost
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 21 8417316; fax: +351 21 8419058.
E-mail addresses: raquel.folgado@gmail.com (R. Folgado), ppecas@ist.utl.pt
(P. Pec-as), elsa.h@ist.utl.pt (E. Henriques).
use of manufacturing solutions involving non-conventional
processes like RIM or RTM, bre reinforced resins (using open
moulds) or sheet metal processes (bending, cutting and welding
technologies). As a direct consequence of this fact, thermoplastic
materials are frequently not considered as an option at the
product design stage, constraining design issues like weight
saving, complexity of the geometrical features and aesthetic
issues, dimensional accuracy and surface nishing.
To cope with the progressive reduction of products life cycle
and the subsequent need of a rapid market launch of new and
customised products, the development of technology to allow the
production of small volumes of products through injection
moulding is perceived as a real breakthrough, which has become
a competitive priority in mould-making industry (Williams and
Exley, 2002; Bullinger, 1999). In fact low production moulds
adapted for production volumes of a few hundred units demands
for a huge reduction in the cost of the mould associated to a quick
delivery time (Yarlagadda and Wee, 2006).
Nowadays, Rapid Tooling (RT) is emerging as a set relevant
technologies used in moulds manufacturing. Since RT offers
several possibilities to reduce mould manufacturing time at a
reasonable cost, these technologies are traditionally used to
obtain technical prototypes of the part by moulding it in a
prototype mould (Rosochowski and Matuszak, 2000). However, if
only a small series of nal parts is required, then the denitive
mould can be the prototype mould itself (Pec- as and Henriques
2004:2; Johnson and Kirchain, 2009). The mould manufacturing
industry is embracing this option to obtain moulds for low
production at a reduced cost and time (Chua et al., 2000:1, Cheah
et al., 2002).

0925-5273/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2010.07.036
 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378
To understand the economic advantages of RT technologies
applied to moulds for low production volumes relatively to the
conventional machining based ones a comprehensive comparison
study is recommended. All the relevant production steps to obtain
the mould, the materials consumed, the skilled labour involved,
the equipments used, the process time required, the tools and
consumables spent should be considered. The identication
and computation of all these data together with materials and
equipments cost, and labour wages allow the estimation of the
moulds manufacturing time and cost. The comparison should also
include the subsequent mould-life phases like plastic part
injection, mould maintenance, mould dismantling and recycling
or components reuse. In fact, the selection of a mould manufac-
turing technology has effects not only in the manufacturing costs,
but also in the mould in-use costs, in the mould duration and in
its reuse/recycling potential. So, to comprehensively compare
mould manufacturing options, a mould-centred Life Cycle Cost
(LCC) methodology is mandatory.
The term Life Cycle Cost appeared somewhere in the mid 60s
when it was object of interest of US government agencies
(Barringer, 1998) to proceed to cost optimization when acquiring
large equipment goods. Horngren et al. (1994) refers life cycle cost
as the sum of all costs incurred from the cradle to the grave.
Barringer and Weber (1996) point to life cycle cost in a foreseen
perspective. For them, life cycle costs are summations of foreseen
costs from inception to disposal, for both equipment and projects
as determined by analytical relations and cost factors experienced
during their total life.
The objective of the LCC analysis is then to choose the most
cost-effective approach from a set of alternatives considering their
enlarged time scope, so the least long term cost of an ownership is
achieved. The growing demand on producers to develop products/
systems that are less expensive to acquire, use, and dispose has
pushed LCC as an evaluation methodology to be considered during
the earliest stages of their development (Asiedu and Gu, 1998).
Since it nds the solution with the lowest long term cost for a
given set of requirements, a proper LCC analysis contributes to
improve the competitiveness of the nal product/system. For all
those reasons, the LCC analysis has been used in several
engineering elds by adapting the methodology to the particula-
rities of each specic case and by setting up the desired boundaries
of the problem. Research work has been published demonstrating
LCC ability for design, equipment acquisition and materials
selection (United States Department of Energy, 1997; Walls III
and Smith, 1998; Barringer, 1997; Buncher and Rosenberger,
2005). The scope of the life cycle costing technique goes as far as
analysing the labour factor considering the costs of the whole
employment cycle, (Dahlen and Bolmsjo, 1996) or nding the price
and warranty length of a product (Wu et al., 2006).
LCC limitations are accepted as normal restrictions as on every
engineering tool. Its inherent difculty concerns to the necessity
of collecting a large amount of objective data, which most of the
times is not registered or is hard to process into an LCC model
(Greene and Shaw, 1990; Saccardi, 2004). An approach to deal
with the difculty of obtaining objective data in an early stage of
design or development is based on stochastic modelling of cost
elements, using subjective judgements (Jiang et al., 2003, 2004).
More than that, as with all cost estimation techniques, these
limitations can result in substantial setbacks if an organized and
step-by-step procedure is not followed or if judgment is not
correctly used. However, an LCC usefulness has been demon-
strated by passing the test of time with practitioners who have
learned how to minimize LCC limitations (Greene and Shaw,
1990; Ramasesh et al., 2010).
In this paper, the LCC analysis is applied to compare two
technological solutions to produce low cost moulds for low
369
production volumes, using objective data. A case study approach
was followed, putting side by side two moulds, obtained with two
distinct manufacturing technologies, but allowing the injection of
the same plastic part. One of the moulds was produced based on a
Rapid Tooling technology: the spray metal tooling. In the other
one, a conventional manufacturing approach was used based on
the machining of aluminium alloys. The LCC analysis considers
not only the mould manufacturing phase, but also the injection
phase, where technological characteristics of the mould, such as
the thermal conductivity, affect its productivity. The comparison
of the alternatives will contribute to the assessment of the
economical effectiveness of the solutions based on Rapid Tooling
technology in the support of mould-making businesses dedicated
to the market niche of moulds for low production volumes.
It should be noted that, according to Chua et al. (2000:1), spray
metal tooling is dened as an indirect soft tooling technique, in
which rst step involves the production of a positive master of the
nal part to inject. Machining or rapid prototyping technologies
(i.e. Selective Laser Sintering, Laminated Object Manufacturing,
y) can be used to build the initial master. Then the mould parting
lines are established over the master with clay or parting boards.
At this time, the surface of the two halves of the mould (core and
cavity) are sprayed on generating two metallic shells. Water lines
and any additional supports can be added if necessary. After-
wards, a high strength aluminium lled epoxy resin is poured into
each shell to back ll the core and the cavity. The epoxy resin is
similar to the material used for the epoxy moulds (Chua et al.,
2000:2). The aluminium addition to the resin intends to increase
the thermal conductivity of the resin, although it remains
considerably lower than the conductivity of the aluminium by
itself (Harris et al., 2004; Chung et al., 2003). This fact results in an
increasing of the injection cycle time of the spray metal mould,
when compared to the conventional metallic, which affects costs
during the mould in-use phase in a life cycle perspective.
2. Life cycle cost analysis procedure
Based on the principles proposed by Greene and Shaw (1990)
for the LCC analysis, an approach that guides the procedure
through the required steps (Fig. 1) was dened. The developed
procedure can be easily applied to other comparisons of mould
manufacturing options, when cost comparison in a life cycle
perspective is intended.
The procedure begins with the characterization of the object of
study. In the present case, it involves the characterization of a
mould produced with Spray Metal Tooling (SMT mould) and
another produced with Conventional Manufacturing (CM mould)
for very low production volumes. After dening the mould life
cycle, in order to establish the borders of the analysis, it is
possible to develop the LCC model. The following step is the
gathering and input of data into the model. The variation of the
input data allows by one side the validation of the model, through
the accurate judgment of the outputs, and, by the other side, a
sensitivity analysis. Finally, the results of the cost analysis can be
presented and discussed.
3. Plastic injection moulds characterization
A mould for plastics injection is a tool used to create
repeatable products with diverse geometries. In its most simple
form, the mould is composed by two half dies: the cavity and the
core. When these are together, they compose the geometry of the
part that is intended to produce. The two moulds produced for
this research inject the same plastic part (Fig. 2). They differ
370 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378
essentially in the cavity and core materials and also in the
technologies used to produce it. All the complementary
components like plates, injectors, ejectors and others are similar
and based on standards commercially available.
Required data related to the plastic part geometry and moulds
dimensions, as well as the moulds production steps and proces-
sing time are presented in Table 1. Regarding the production
processes of both moulds, given that different technologies are
used, they differ in the number of steps and in the resources and
time required to accomplish each step. The part production
process, through injection technology, is similar in both moulds.
However, the injection differs in the cycle time, because the
thermal conductivity of the CM mould is signicantly higher than
one of the SMT mould.
The production of the CM mould comprises four main steps:
high speed milling (HSM) of the aluminium alloy (Al 5083) to
produce the cavity and the core with the required geometrical and
technological features; cavity and core CNC drilling to install
complementary components; components and cavity and core
tting; and nally the mould assembly. These last two steps
require mainly manual labour. Fig. 3 presents the nal CM mould
already positioned in the injection machine.
Six steps are required to produce the SMT mould. Initially, the
master is built in polyamide using the SLS-plastic technology.
Then over the master, the parting surface is dened and the
overall surface is coated with a demoulding agent and then
Fig. 1. Life cycle cost analysis procedure.
Fig. 2. 3D CAD model of the part.
sprayed with a zinc alloy using spray metal technology. A metallic
shell is obtained, which is backlled with the aluminium powder-
lled epoxy resin. The process is repeated to build both the cavity
and the core. The resin has to be cured for about 12 h in a vacuum
oven to guarantee the elimination of air bubbles. The steps that
follow are the same as in the CM mould: the cavity and core are
drilled to install the components, the components and the
moulding cavities are tted and nally the mould is assembled
(Fig. 4). However, the tting of the core and cavity of the SMT
mould is easier and less time consuming than of the CM mould.
Since both halves of the STM mould were produced starting from
the same master and were cured assembled, altogether the core
and cavity are naturally tted.
The CM mould requires around 75 h of production time, in
which 52% involves the use of milling machines. The SMT mould
requires around 66 h. Note that the 12 h of resin cure may be done
over night, since it does not require an operator supervision,
reducing the manufacturing lead time. A similar situation arises
with the master sintering in an SLS machine. However, the CM
mould only takes 49 s to inject each plastic part comparing with
120 s required by the SMT mould. The real importance and cross
inuence of these different production characteristics and their
impact on the cost of the nal part will be fully analysed with the
LCC model developed and explained in the next section.
4. Mould life cycle phases
The application of life cycle approaches to product demands
for the denition and characterization of the life cycle phases. In
the present research, four life cycle phases for the injection
moulds were considered (Fig. 5).
The rst phase is related with the production of the materials
used during the subsequent life cycle phases. The second phase
comprises the mould manufacturing. This phase can be divided
into sub-phases: mould design, process planning, machining,
tting, assembling and nal tests. The next phase is related with
the use of the mould to produce the plastic parts. Usually in the
use phase of a product, the considered aspects are related with
maintenance tasks, replace of complementary components,
energy consumption and consumables in general. In the case of
injection moulds, it is not enough to consider those operational
costs related with the plastic part injection. In fact, the ultimate
aim of an injection mould is to inject a plastic part, so the mould
performance in that task must be included in the mould life cycle.
The consideration of the plastic material consumed, the produc-
tion time required, the energy consumed by the injection
equipment and the parts pos-processing are essential to compare
mould design and mould manufacturing alternatives. Using this
approach, the engineering characteristics of an injection mould,
like the cycle time, the plastic wasted, the pressure and
temperature required to inject the material are included and
have an impact in the analysis of the mould life cycle. The last
 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378 371

Table 1
Production steps, materials and dimensions of the two moulds.

CM mould SMT mould

1 h Setup
1. Milling HSM: 2 h Setups 1 SinteringSLSplastic: 12 h sintering
4 h Preparation for step 2
31 h Machining 2 Spray metal: 4h
2 h Preparation
2 DrillingCNC: 2 h Setups 3 Resin lling and cure: 12 h Cure
Production sequence
2 h Finishing
2 h Setups
4 h Machining 4 DrillingCNC:
4 h Machining
16 h Components
3 Fitting: 16 h Components 5 Fitting:
8 h Moulding cavities
20 h Moulding cavities
6 Assembly: 30 min
4 Assembly: 30 min
Nylon (Duraform polyamide)
Zn wire (MCP 400)
Raw materials Al 5083
Epoxy resin
Al powder
3
Mould structure: 360  396  396 mm
Dimensions
Plastic part: 302  279  47 mm3
Injection cycle time (polycarbonate) 49 s 120 s

Fig. 4. Mould core obtained with spray metal tooling.

phase is the mould end of life, where several alternatives arise.

The mould can be destroyed by an incineration in an open loop
life cycle. But the mould materials can also be recycling or the
mould components reused in a closed loop life cycle. In the
present study, a close loop life cycle is considered since the reuse
and remanufacturing, as a higher form of reuse, have become an
added value in many elds and leads to a more sustainable
development (Tang et al. 2007). The end of life of the two types of
moulds will be analysed considering the recycling of the metal
components and also the potential reuse of ejection and injection
sub-systems and some structural components of the moulds.
The aim of the study is to analyse the mould life cycle and not the
plastic part life cycle. A better mould is the one that consumes fewer
resources and incurs with fewer costs during its life cycle, assuming
that the injected part is produced within a conformed quality.

5. Life cycle cost model

The determination of the cost incurred during the overall life

cycle is achieved by the sum of the several costs inherent to the
successive phases, which depend on the type and quantity of the
Fig. 3. Conventional manufacturing mould positioned on the injection machine: used resources, materials and energy and obviously on their
core view (to the left) and cavity view (to the right). specic costs. In each production phase, there are different types
372 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378

Fig. 5. Mould life cycle.

Fig. 6. Life cycle cost model.

of labour with different cost rates, different types of equipment
and consumables, specic energy consumption rates and different
types of scrap and wastes are generated as a result of the
transformation process. Additionally, the time extension of each
phase must be considered, in order to calculate the quantity of
items used, consumed or produced. Finally these quantities are
translated into costs using specic cost rates for each item. In the
particular case of the mould production phase, these calculations
must be done for the several manufacturing processes required.
So, to accomplish the goal of determining the mould LCC, it is
necessary to compute a signicant amount of technological, time
related and cost data. Furthermore, a special attention is required
to assure the results consistency since the same data is used in
several processes.
To deal with this data compilation and crossing over calcula-
tions, a spreadsheet based model was built allowing LCC
determination for each mould type. The overall model structure
is presented in Fig. 6. In fact the cost of each life cycle phase is the
cost of the use of intrinsic materials and technological process, or
the sum of the several processes. For each process, the algorithm
 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378 373

used is the one presented in Fig. 6, so the global model is Table 4

composed by several sub-models based on the general algorithm. Most relevant cost input values used (working days per year: 228; effective
working hours per day: 7).
The general algorithm uses the parameters of process under
analysis to perform the specic life cycle inventory, accounting Item Cost
the mass and energy streams, in order to evaluate respectively,
the resources and energy consumed. Simultaneously, the inven- Operator wage per month
tory takes into consideration the process facilities to evaluate the HSM, CNC, SLS, Polishing 1300.00 h
Spray metal, injection, other 1000.00 h
labour and machine resources used. Then the algorithm crosses
Equipment procurement
this information with costs databases, retrieving the total cost. HSM 250,000.00 h
The total cost is divided into three categories: the Process CNC 150,000.00 h
Costs, including machine and labour costs; the Materials Costs, SLS 350,000.00 h
associated with the consumption of materials (raw materials and Spray metal 10,000.00 h
Vacuum oven 5000.00 h
standard components, disposable tools and other consumables) Injection machine 81,700.00 h
during the process; and the Energetic Costs, related with the Materials
amount of energy consumed by the equipments. Aluminium Al 5083 4.40 h/kg
To apply the model to the different processes involved, several Cutting uid 9.00 h/L
Polycarbonate (PC 243 R) 3.50 h/kg
inputs are required. These inputs were aggregated according to
Nylon (Duraform) 92.00 h/kg
their specic types: Materials, Part, machining Tools, Time, Zinc alloy 25.00 h/kg
Equipment, Operator and part Batch (Table 2). The inputs Resin 10.00 h/kg
required for each process are presented in Table 3. For instance, Aluminium dust 3.50 h/kg
for the Sintering and the Spray Metal processes, the Tools input is HSM and CNC cutting tools
CM mould 200.00 h
not required, since tools are not used in these processes. Similarly, SMT mould 25.00 h
when the model is applied to processes like the Fitting and Complementary components 2230.00 h
Assembly, the Part and the Equipment inputs are also not
necessary, since they are essentially manual processes and do
not involve signicant modications in the processing geometry. 6. Results analysis
The injection process is the only one, where it is mandatory to
input the Batch related data. Table 4. In this section, the LCC model is used to compare the economic
The LCC model presented was developed using a parametric- effectiveness of two moulds, produced through different technol-
based approach dening the relationship between the most ogies, under the scope of low production volumes. Aiming to
relevant technical parameters, but avoiding the detailed denition compare the costs associated to the life cycle of each mould, some
of the mould or of the process itself (Qian and Ben-Arieh, 2008; simplications were assumed. The operators wages, the energetic
Johnson and Kirchain, 2009). This allows the user to test several costs, the consumables and materials costs, the equipments life
congurations and scenarios for a particular mould without a time (depreciation time) and their annual uptime were kept
signicant effort. In the next section, the model is applied to the constant for both moulds. The input value for each item is an
two selected moulds for different production scenarios. average value according to the current practice in the market.
The moulds comparison is presented in three steps. First the
Table 2
moulds production phase is analysed, aiming to compare the
Input types description. contribution of the processes and the importance of each cost
category in the mould cost. Next, considering the different life
Input duration of both moulds, the overall cost is discussed for a
Description
type
production volume of 200 parts. The nal analysis compares the
Physical characteristics (like density, conductivity, y) of the used
moulds economic effectiveness considering production volumes
Materials ranging 1001600 parts for different durations of the SMT mould.
materials.

Part
Initial and nal geometrical features of the part/component that In this last scenario, the rebuilding of the core and cavity of the
results from the specic process. SMT mould are considered for production volumes higher than its
Tools Disposable tools spent during the process.
life duration. It analyzes also the reusing potential of some
Time Amount of time that the process lasted (setup time, operation).
Equipment Type of equipment used and energy consumption. components of the SMT mould.
Kind of operator required and its percentage of occupation during
Operator
the task.
Production volume and batch dimension (this input is required 6.1. Mould production phase
Batch
only during the use of the mould phase).

The cost structure of the two moulds is presented in Table 5.

The contribution of each cost category for the mould production
cost is quite similar. The materials are responsible for the larger
Table 3
Inputs required for the different processes.
part of the total cost (  58% in the CM mould and  70% in the
SMT mould), followed by the process costs (  47% in the CM
Input type Materials Part Tools Time Equipment Operator Batch mould and 30% in the SMT mould). The smaller percentage of
Process costs belongs to the energy category.
The production costs of the SMT mould are 75% of the CM
Sintering | | p | | | p
Milling | | | | | | p
mould ones, mainly because of the lower production time and of
Drilling | | | | | | p the relatively lower process hourly cost. The assumption of
Spray metal | | p | | | p considering the availability of all the technologies inuences
Fitting | p p | p | p these results. In fact, the SMTs related technologies are not
Assembling | p p | p | p
available at most of the mould-making companies, so the specic
Injecting | | p | | | |
cost related with components transportation and information
374 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378

Table 5
Mould production phase cost for the two moulds and cost distribution by costs category.

Mould production phase costs

CM mould SMT mould

Items Cost distribution Items Cost distribution

Zinc alloy 6.1%

Epoxy resin 5.0%
Raw materials Aluminium 6.6% 6.6% Raw materials 13.4%
Al powder 1.5%
Sintering dust 0.8%
Labour+ machine 26.8% Labour + machine 14.1%
Sintering 14.3%
Energy 3.0% Energy 0.3%
Tools+ uids 3.7% Labour + machine 2.4%
Milling 33.5% Spray metal 2.4%
Energy 0.03%
Labour + machine 1.6%
Resin lling and cure 1.7%
Energy 0.1%
Labour+ machine 3.0% Labour + machine 4.0% 4.8%
Drilling Energy 0.1% 3.6% Drilling Energy 0.1%
Tools+ uids 0.5% Tools+ uids 0.6%
Labour 9.4% 14.7% Fitting Labour 7.8% 7.8%
Fitting
Materials 5.3%
Assembling Labour 0.1% 0.1% Assembling Labour 0.2% 0.2%
Standard components 41.5% 41.5% Standard components 55.5% 55.5%
Total cost 5386.00 h Total cost 4021.50 h
Cost category Cost category
Process cost 39.3% Process cost 30.0%
Materials cost 57.6% Materials cost 69.4%
Energetic cost 3.1% Energetic cost 0.6%

processing should be taken into consideration. Also this kind of Table 6

mould needs a larger number of steps to accomplish its Life cycle phases cost for the two moulds and cost distribution by cost category.
manufacturing process. If a company choose to produce SMT
Moulds life cycle costs (200 parts injected)
moulds, it is convenient to have all these different technologies
and skills available in-doors or at least in a nearby company, Cost distribution
Life Cycle Phases Itens
which plays the role of a very close and habitual partner.
Knowledge and hands-on experience related to spray metal CM mould SMT mould
application, and process and cure of resins are mandatory to
Mould production Process 36.1% 92.0% 26.3% 87.8%
produce this kind of mould and to use it later in the injection Materials 53.1% 61.0%
phase. Energy 2.9% 0.5%
Use of the mould Process 1.1% 7.0% 3.3% 11.0%
Materials 5.7% 7.3%
Energy 0.1% 0.5%
End of life Process 0.9% 0.9% 1.2% 1.2%
6.2. Mould life cycle cost Total cost 5849.70 h 4581.10 h
Cost per part 29.25 h 22.91 h
Table 6 presents the total costs of the mould life cycle and its Cost category
Process costs 38.2% 30.8%
distribution by cost category for the production of 200 plastic
Materials costs 58.8% 68.2%
parts (Fig. 2). The Mould Manufacturing phase represents the Energetic costs 3.0% 1.0%
major contribution for the total cost (around 90%). In such a low
production volume scenario, this is an expected result, as the
mould production cost can only be spread over a small number of Fig. 7 illustrates the inuence of the production volume in the
nal parts. So, the lower manufacturing cost of the SMT mould has total life cycle cost of both moulds. Although the importance of
a great inuence in the difference of the total life cycle cost of the the Process Cost decreases with the production volume for both
two moulds, which results directly in a lower cost of the part types of moulds the intensity of the decreasing is slower for the
injected by the STM mould. The cost per part, when injecting 200 SMT mould, due to the higher injection cycle time. In addition the
parts in one batch, results in 29 h with CM mould and 23 h with total Materials Cost increases with the same rate for both
the SMT mould. alternatives. However, its relative importance within part cost
Regarding the use of the mould phase, the lower cycle time increases signicantly for the CM mould and remains almost
required for the CM mould results in a cost that is 81% of one of constant for the STM mould. For the later, the relation between
the SMT mould for the injection of 200 plastic parts (409.50 and material and process costs for the mould in production and in-use
503.90 h). The differences can only be found in the Process Costs are similar. It must be noticed that in this comparison, it is
and Energetic Costs categories, since the parts injected in both assumed that only one SMT mould is necessary to inject the
moulds are geometrically identical. The plastic parts require more considered production volumes. With this assumption, the SMT
time to cool in the SMT mould than in the aluminium cavity of the mould permits lower cost per part even for a production volume
CM mould. Consequently more labour and machine time as well of 1000 parts. These calculations were made keeping constant the
as energy are spent. However, the small cost of the CM mould in SMT mould production costs whatever the required mould life
the Use phase is not enough to compensate its higher manufac- extension. In fact, it is expected that the production of a SMT
turing cost, since only 200 injected parts were produced. mould to support the injection of 1000 parts, if possible, generates
 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378
Fig. 7. Inuence of the production series volume in the total life cycle cost of the moulds: (a) CM mould and (b) SMT mould.
a higher cost than to build one for an overall life of 50 parts. There
is not yet enough information and knowledge about this type of
moulds to quantify it, especially as regards the quality of the
backlled material. So, the analysis proposed aims strictly to
contribute to the understanding of the inuence of the several
variables involved targeting the evaluation of the potential of
improvement.
6.3. The inuence of the SMT mould durationmould
complementary components reuse
In this section, two analyses are performed to understand the
inuence of the duration of the SMT mould in the previous
comparison of the cost effectiveness of the moulds life-cycle.
The rst analysis is done based on the SMT mould duration of
200 parts. In fact the SMT is adequate for very low series, since the
impact of each injection cycle in the condition of the mould cavity
and core is signicant. After the injection of 200 parts, the spray
375
metal surfaces presented evidences of wearing and degradation
that resulted in the non-conformity of the nal part. If series
larger than 200 parts are required, a subsequent mould must be
produced. However, only the cavity and core must be rebuilt, as
several components from the rst mould can be reused. Within
this context, the LCC model is used to estimate the costs related
with the subsequent mould or moulds and to understand the
inuence of the limitations of this type of mould in its LCC
performance when production volumes larger than it can with-
stand are required.
The production cost of the rst SMT mould and the subsequent
ones is presented in Table 7. The cost of the subsequent moulds is
only 23% of the initial mould, due to several reasons. For the
subsequent mould, a new master is not necessary since a part
injected with the previous one can be used instead. Also, new
standard components and their tting to the mould geometry are
not required since the existing ones in the degraded mould can be
reused in the new ones. Only some small adjusting operations
remain necessary to assemble them to the rest of the mould.
376 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378

Fig. 8 represents the evolution of the cost per part with the be considered as having an unlimited duration life (an aluminium
production volume. The effect of building a subsequent mould is mould is expected to inject dozens of thousands parts without
represented in the graph by the vertical discontinuities in the cost major evidences of performance degradation).
function. Note that within such small volumes, the CM mould can It is possible to conclude that the SMT mould has economical
advantages for very low production volumes. In fact, for volumes
smaller than 200 parts, the STM mould presents clearly an
Table 7 economic advantage. For volumes larger than 400 parts, the CM
Cost of producing a subsequent SMT mould in euros. mould starts to assume a more cost-effective behaviour. In
between, the STM solution is still more competitive even if a
First mould Subsequent mould
new core and cavity must be produced to integrate in a
Process costs 1205.70 h 367.40 h subsequent mould.
Materials costs 562.60 h 530.40 h The second analysis considers the mould duration as a process
Aux. components costs 2230.00 h 0.00 h variable. This analysis allows the extrapolation of the comparison
Energy costs 23.20 h 12.80 h
based on the assumption of keeping the SMT mould production
Total 4021.50 h 910.60 h
costs independent of its duration. The question to answer within

Fig. 8. Variation of the cost per part with the production volume in euros (duration of the SMT mould equal to 200 parts).

Fig. 9. Economically viable domains of the CM and SMT mould as a function of the production volume and STM mould duration. * 2 SMT and 3 SMT moulds mean 1 SMT
mould and 1 subsequent mould; and 1 SMT mould and 2 subsequent moulds, with the production costs stated in Table 7.
 R. Folgado et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 128 (2010) 368378
the technology selection framework is: if the SMT mould
duration was lower or higher, what would be the decision cut
off point? The cut off point is understood as the maximum
production volume, apart from which the SMT mould is no more
competitive and the CM mould starts to allow a lower cost per
part. Fig. 9 presents the results of this analysis.
The use of the SMT mould, even based on the build of
subsequent moulds (partial reusing scenario), is limited to very
small series. For production volumes higher than 2817 parts the
CM mould always allows a lower cost per part, even when the
duration of the SMT mould can accommodate the entire
production volume. The reason for this behaviour is related with
the increasing importance of the cost of the injection phase in the
overall cost. The higher injection cycle time of the SMT mould
causes a higher life-cycle cost, despite the lower mould cost.
For production volumes between 2817 and 920 parts, it is
required to know how many SMT moulds are needed to stand for
the entire production. In fact for this production volume range, if
the SMT mould duration is lower than the production volume, a
subsequent mould is required and in that situation, the overall
production costs are higher than the ones caused by the CM
mould, making the SMT alternative a no competitive one. Note
that a partial reusing strategy is followed for the subsequent
mould, which makes use of the same structural and standard
components of the previous mould.
For very low production volumes, below 920 parts, the reusing
strategy is competitive for production volumes double of the
mould duration. If the SMT mould life time is lower than half of
the production volume, the SMT alternative is not competitive
even for very low production ranges.
Once again, it must be noticed that the SMT mould cost was
kept constant within the duration range considered. In fact, this
might not be true and if one considers that more resistant and
robust SMT moulds (higher performance backlled resins, more
wear resistant metallic shell materials) will be required (higher
cost of the STM mould) to support longer durations, the
competitive domain of the SMT mould tends to decrease.
7. Conclusions
The injection moulding of thermoplastic parts in very low
production volumes has severe competitive constraints, due to
the high cost of the mould which represents a large portion of the
cost per part injected. Spray metal shell moulds backlled with
resin and aluminium powder moisture appears as a technological
viable approach to deal with the injection of small quantities of
parts. The economical viability can be deeply understood through
the application of LCC procedures to the mould life cycle.
In this paper, an LCC parametric model was developed to
compare two manufacturing processes alternatives: one that uses
a spray metal mould and another that uses a conventional mould
based on machined aluminium. By varying the inputs of the LCC
model, according to the analysis scenarios, the life cycle behaviour
of the alternative moulds can be observed, understood and
predicted. The alternative, emerging as having the lowest life
cycle cost, comes out as the best solution.
In a very low production scenario, the SMT mould reveals to be
the best choice, in an economic point of view. However for larger
production volumes, the CM mould arrives on the economical
scene. This is due to two factors. By one side the smaller injection
cycle of the aluminium mould, by the other side the need of
replacing the core and cavity of the SMT mould after a
considerably reduced batch of parts, due to wearing and
degradation mechanisms of the moulding surfaces. In other
words a small SMT mould duration affects its life cycle cost and
377
consequently its economic performance. However, it should be
noted that in some competitive conditions, where the market risk
is considerable and supported by the mould maker the STM
mould alternative can be the sustainable solution. The initial
investment cost in the mould is lower and the subsequent
moulds, if necessary, turn up as a variable cost.
The developed work of analysing different industrial scenarios
concludes that the LCC is a useful approach to analyse the life
cycle of moulds for injection of plastic parts.
Acknowledgments
To Centimfe, the Technological Center for the Mouldmaking,
Special Tooling and Plastics Industries placed in Marinha Grande,
Portugal, for supplying relevant data for the cost analysis
performed in this paper, and to the European Commission for
the nancial support of the EuroTooling 21.
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