VIDEO: Explaining MoldMaking Versus Mold Manufacturing

The pandemic has changed how training must be handled in moldmaking. In order to train the next generation of moldmakers, it is important to differentiate between a moldmaker and a mold manufacturer. MoldMaking Technology’s Christina Fuges sits down with Don Smith, Scholle IPN’s North American tooling manager, to discuss the distinction.

Transcript

CF: Don's here with me to talk about how COVID-19 transformed training within moldmaking. I know that first there are a few key concepts we need to understand before we kind of break down how training has changed. One of them is the difference between moldmaking and mold manufacturing. So what is that?

DS: Moldmaking is basically an individual process. The toolmaker in the shop would drive the information through the shop, go through the different machines and explain what they wanted on a one-on-one basis. Mold manufacturing is process-driven. So you have the current day shops with a mold-based department and a grinding department and EDM, and everybody's coordinated through that. The toolmaker and engineering will get together, and then engineering distributes the information to the different departments. It’s still overseen by the toolmaker, but it's less hands-on, more predictable, and more process-driven. This aids in the training of the younger generation. So they will be able to understand what the whole process is, and if they find something of interest in another department, they can learn how that process is created. So that's really the difference.

CF: So, what's the difference between a mold designer and a mold engineer?

DS: In today's world, we're all getting engineer-based. We want to have in our tooling the capability to extract data out of it. An engineer is really going to go through the engineering calculations to do the accurate, for example, flow per minute, waterlines, things of that nature, so that we can capture those outputs through sensors, whereas the designer is somebody that is still important, but really just designs for that whatever that customer wants. It all depends on the customers and what the customers really require. For example, we're in that transition right now where we're going from using the conventional type to something that I can extract data on and then really go into a lights-out environment. So those types of molds have to be engineered, whereas the other ones could be designed and still meet the function.