Synchronization Design System for Plastic Injection Mold

摘要

Traditionally, plastic injection mold design is carried out in a linear manner. This linear process results in long development cycles, as some of the design activities can be carried out simultaneously. In addition, different steps may lack coordination and communication. Without coordination and communication, mistakes are inevitable. Through analyzing the mold design process and the mold design modules, this paper presents a Synchronization Design System (SDS) in a concurrent mold design environment. The SDS includes the following functions: (1) uses client/server technique to realize communication between designers, (2) provides background information about the current design status and provides suggestion of the next available steps, (3) provides conflict detection and conflict resolution and coordinates between different designers so that the mold design tasks can be distributed to different specialists to be done at the same time, and (4) checks mold design modules periodically to maintain the consistency. SDS reduces any human error in mold design process. Thus, SDS shortens the lead-time and cost to market.