b'engineer at machine tool builderorder that in past years would haveThere are more pricing pres-MakinoInc.,Mason,Ohio,saidbeen for 500,000 parts now may besures, Bral said, and molds are shorter production runs will drivean order for only a fraction of thatturning over quicker too. People demand for aluminum tooling. number. are asking themselves how they can And Andre Ey, vice presidentPeople dont want to have largecompete.of die and mold technologies atwarehouses of inventory anymore,MacArthur acknowledged that Makino,saidsomeautomotiveMacArthur said. Product develop- aluminumissofterandwears companies are already using alumi- ment and everything else are goingquicker than steel. However, shorter num for injection molding high vol- a lot faster now. The whole cyclelife cycles for products make alumi-umes of select plastic parts. has shortened quite a bit. num more attractive, along with its Ey said moldmakers that provide tooling from hardened steel are al-ways looking to improve their ef-ficiencies, as are their customers. He cited automotive companies as an example, adding that the vari-There are a lotmore suppliersand customers out there that recognizealuminum as agreat benefit.eties of models, face-lifts and trim changes have increased while pro-duction volumes for any one spe-cific tool have decreased.Their costs are still the same to make that tool, Ey said, but you dont make as many parts with that tool anymore. That means the tool-ing cost has increased. So there is an incentive for automotive companies and tool and die companies to figure out how to make tooling cheaper.Enter aluminum.The historical desirability of the metal for some shorter production runs fits nicely with the modern mo-tivation for lean manufacturing, ac-cording to MacArthur and Bral. An Greg Bartlett is managing editor of CTE. Contact him at (847) 714-0182 or [email protected]/cteguide.com45Moldmaking.indd 45 2/14/18 3:27 PM'