Paramount PDS Paramount PDS

Rapid Tooling

Rapid tooling (RT) continues to offer opportunity for discovery. During the mid '90s when the phrase "Rapid Tooling" was first used, it described any method that would replicate a physical plastic or metal part. The name was coined as an extension of rapid prototyping (RP). Constructing molds was an RP secondary application. The phrase was used to describe rubber molds, plaster molds, ceramic molds and metal molds as rapid tooling. Today RT stands along side RP because several processes have proven to be rapid - through the application of advanced technologies and processes and without the use of an RP model.

The search for a cost and time effective tool-making process was not born of rapid prototyping. It is not a product of the '90s. In fact, cast composite tooling resin systems, spray metal, cast metal, sintered metal molds (3M Tartan process) pre-date CNC. Paramount started using these processes for mold making in the late '70s. These processes standing alone are no more or less rapid today than twenty years ago. What has inspired this new wave of innovation is the RP model. What has fueled financial investments into technology driven mold-making techniques is the need for faster development processes. An increased awareness of the benefits derived from aggressive prototyping in the development process, has given rise to demands for better quality and performance from RT. The catalyst of this innovation is the need to compress product development time, that will leverage a leadership position in our customer's respective markets. The engine is the 3D CAD solid model. The fuel has been solid free-form fabrication systems (SFF), and the wheels are new business practices (Agile Manufacturing).

Paramount has long prided itself in its people's knowledge and ability to qualify a client's requirements and expectations. Our knowledge, experience and industry affiliations, offer us unique expertise of multiple mold-making processes. Paramount's sales and technical associates, having a strong mold-making knowledge base, and coupled with having broad knowledge of the fundamentals of many plastic and metal manufacturing processes, can offer our clients a unique opportunity to solve their time-compressed product development and manufacturing challenges - all under one roof.

Our sales and technical staff can offer high-speed CNC machined 6061, QC7 aluminum or P-20 steel molds, EDM machined molds, SLS RapidSteel tools, SLS Copper PA, cast epoxy/urethane resin molds, cast aluminum or 3D System's Keltool processes. A typical customer scenario we experience may have required multiple parts in the product's assembly design. It would not be unusual for a tooling program to use a combination of mold-making processes to get the job done. As an example: some components may be better suited for HS CNC machining or EDM, while others are best suited for RS 2.0. This client/product evaluation process first asks the question of molded product dimensional, functional and visual AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) expectations. Paramount's process then matches candidate mold-making processes for mold life, based on expected quantity yield, material abrasiveness and material processing parameters. The last step, and no less important than the technical considerations, is available shop resource and machine queue time.

After we have qualified client expectations, Paramount's estimating department will organize a quotation and a Gantt chart supporting the proposed delivery time line. All of our plastic mold quotes include press sampling to groom the mold and qualify it for molding the intended volume. We will submit 12 molded parts with a first article inspection report. When our staff quotes a mold, these are all included elements that define our quoted lead-time.

Products & Services

The Tools We Use:

Rapid Tooling Success Stories

Case Study #1 - NACCO Multi-function Order Picker Handle

This assignment was particularly challenging because it combined several state-of-the-art technologies and soft business practices. Our client originally contacted Paramount because of our affiliation with a new concept of manufacturing. That concept was called Agile Manufacturing. It is a concept born out of Lehigh University that aligns companies in a virtual corporation, offering strategic partnering relationships with broad design and manufacturing capabilities. These are done on an ad-hoc basis as the customer's need arises. NACCO Materials Handling Group was a customer and early adopter of the agile concept and RapidSteel 1.0.

Case Study #2 - Beta Results and Benchmarking RS2

Early 1998 DTM offered Paramount the opportunity to become a beta site for a second generation RapidSteel. Several large mold inserts were produced. The results of those efforts lead to RapidSteel 2.0 (RS 2.0) commercial release. Paramount decided to use the opportunity to build an actual customer project. Initially our customer wanted RS 2.0. Later they shied away and decided to have us produce CAM/CNC high speed machined aluminum molds. Their reason in 1998 was concerns over not being able to achieve required polished surface finish with RS 1.0. At that time no one had experience with RapidSteel 2.0. Needing a pilot project, Paramount chose to use this customer's part designs and make three sets of inserts. DTM was concurrently developing a concept-bridge class injection mold making material called "Copper PA" (Copper Polyamide) This material is a derivative of the popular SLS material Duraform PA. These parts were not particularly challenging, but were indicative of a common consumer or medical products housing, both in size and complexity. The molding resin was ABS. Paramount's client Graphic Controls Corporation needed to reduce their time to market. They saw Paramount and RapidSteel as a solution.

DTM, RapidSteel, Somos, DuraForm, CastForm PS, Sinterstation, and SLS, Selective Laser Sintering are registered trademarks of DTM Corporation.