Connecting Mold Builders and Buyers at Amerimold 2018

Bridging the gap is basically lessening the differences between two things. In our industry, those two things are the mold builder and the mold buyer, who have more in common than they believe. Mold buyers and builders experience many of the same challenges for which they are each seeking solutions, and that is where Amerimold comes into play. Amerimold, highlights those similarities through the technology and processes on display (see the product section or the products tab in the Amerimold Expo Zone) and the topics presented in the showfloor Tech Talks program.

Here is this year’s program:

The Future of Making Things

Omega Tool, CS Tool Engineering and Eifel Mold and Engineering and Autodesk

Automotive mold manufacturers reveal how they are leveraging the latest advances in manufacturing for prototypes and production runs and how they are capturing, analyzing and managing sensor information from products in real time.

Avenues to Additive Manufacturing

Proper Group International, Avante Technology LLC, Linear AMS and Forecast3D

Additive manufacturing users share how to employ a hybrid laser metal sintering/high-speed milling approach, ease into 3D-printed injection molds, build direct metal-laser melted parts and conformal-cooled inserts and use Multi Jet Fusion technology.

Leadtime Leader Awards: Honoring Excellence in Mold Manufacturing

Cavalier Tool & Manufacturing, Westminster Tool and Industrial Molds

To mark the15^th anniversary of the Leadtime Leader Awards, past recipients share the impact of winning and how their companies have grown.

Best Practices in Closing the Skills Gap: Local Activism Moves the Dial

AMBA

This panel provides implementable take-aways to fill the skills gap in local communities.

Supporting the Supply Chain: From the Custom Molder's Desk

Sussex IM and A1 Tool

Custom injection molders will learn a strategy for investing in tooling personnel to support their original equipment manufacturer customers, and mold builders will learn how to best support, understand and manage the custom molder.

Proactive Strategies to Troubleshoot Mold Performance Issues

Mold Trax and Beaumont’s AIM Institute

This presentation brings processing and tooling together to explore strategies to optimize mold performance, maintain efficiency, maximize part quality and minimize machine downtime on many different types of injection molds.

Melt Delivery Systems Required for Scientific Molding

ROI Industries and Scientific Molding

This presentation dissects the melt delivery system into the required steps for processing a pellet into a quality part and links each step directly to plastic injection molding issues, their sources and potential solutions.

In-booth demos have also returned. This year’s topics include the impact of combining the latest in shrinking, balancing and presetting technology from Haimer, the benefits of flexible workholding solutions from Makino and the value of optimized mold cooling by Progressive Components.

An added educational opportunity this year is the popular AMBA plant tour workshop. On Tuesday, June 12, Quest Industries will open its shop doors in Lapeer, Michigan, to share the success of its ERP implementation because this mold builder believes that “communication is the fix to all problems." Only limited seating is available, so register today at amba.org (see the related article Quest Industries and ERP software).

I look forward to seeing you in Michigan!