New Composites Spray Molding Equipment (PURCSM) Provides the Flexibility for Molders to Pursue New Markets

摘要

Many of today’s molders are faced with anxious moments when moving into a new polyurethane spraymarket area. A large portion of the anxiety is usually associated with the risk and anticipated costsinvolved. Cost concerns can arise from any of the following factors:1. Will this new part be successful in the marketplace?2. Will the customer purchase the number of parts they predicted?3. Will this technology remain successful for this part from a cost and performance stand point?Probably the biggest concern, related to the above 3 factors, is the spray equipment purchase sinceit is usually the largest fixed cost for the molder.When analyzing equipment costs the molder must consider the following:1. Purchase Price - The cost for a high pressure spray system from a major equipment company,including support and material handling equipment, is often high.2. Equipment Utilization – how much equipment will I need so as not to exceed my budgeted costsbut yet be able to supply the anticipated number of parts required, even at peak times.3. Equipment Flexibility – Will the equipment afford the processing flexibility required should partspecifications, market conditions, or customer requirements change?Molders typically try to handle item 1 by buying used equipment or pressuring the equipment vendorto lower his price. Concerning used equipment there are several problems:1. used equipment is often unavailable when you need it2. the process is usually compromised since you are rarely able to obtain the exact equipment youneed3. large used systems can also run into the $ millions after they are disassembled, modified to suit,reassembled, and started-upSince there is no easy way to get around the significant up-front cost of obtaining processingequipment lets focus on points 2 and 3 above; utilization and flexibility.These points are often times closely associated with each other. To keep equipment fully utilized in today’smarket the equipment must be flexible enough to allow the molder to adjust the processing parameters onan existing part to meet the customer’s changing needs. Even better, if the molder could change thetechnology by merely changing the chemical system or could add a 2nd technology to their existingprocessing system by simply changing chemical systems then they would be extremely flexible and could