1、 PDF外文：http:/ Journal of Materials Processing Technology 139 (2003) 212218 Computerised price quoting system for injection mould manufacture S.F. Chan a, C.K. Law b, K.K. Chan c a School of Science and Technology, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China b Hasbro Far E
2、ast Ltd., Hong Kong, PR China c Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education, Chai Wan, Hong Kong, PR China Abstract The budget for making injection moulds is inevitably the major development expense that needs to be well prepared and controlled in the toys in
3、dustry. This is especially important for making hard toys such as Action Figure Toys, which accounted for 27.7% growth as in September 1999 in the total toys industry. The current major practice in the toys industry for quoting prices for manufacturing an injection mould is either by experience or b
4、y comparison with a similar product. Owing to the complexity of mould construction and the increasing variety of toys, the application of some commercially available computerized package for estimating the cost of manufacturing injection moulds is inaccurate, impractical or slow. This consequently l
5、eads to an underestimated quote which will also become a disaster to the mould manufacturers in terms of manpower planning, delivery schedule and profits. In order to overcome these practical situations and to meet the keen market competition, a user friendly, more accurate mould cost calculat
6、ion and quotation system should be introduced. This paper focuses on introducing a computerized quotation system for injection mould manufacture (CQSIM) coded in Visual Basic. This can be performed on a personal computer (PC). The system is typically useful for the toys industry area, but it c
7、an also be applied in plastics related industry. Based upon a database of costing elements, an integrated system is established for the purpose of streamlining the process of mould cost quoting. Apart from improving the accuracy and efficiency of mould quoting, the system is focused upon robus
8、tness, such as being easy to learn, use and update. The system was designed to be expandable and to be integrated with other material planning systems, such as engineering resource planning (ERP) or systems, applications, and products in data processing (SAP). 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
9、 Keywords: Mould making processes； Injection mould cost； Machining time； ERP； SAP 1. Introduction Toys design and development usually involves expenses on development cost and tooling cost. Tooling cost in the industry relates to the mould cost in a specific production process such as injection mold
10、ing, rotational molding, blow molding and other toys production processes. It is widely recognized in the toys industry that the budget for making injection moulds is the largest expense that needs to be well prepared and controlled. Hard toys are usually made of engineering plastics (such as ABS, H
11、IPS, PVC or PP) as the major parts. Investment in injection mould tooling is important in the hard toys category for which they are frequently used. Hard toys are playing an important role in the total toys market. There are many well-known hard toys in the market, such as Action Figure Toys, which
12、accounted for 27.7% annual growth as in September 1999 in the total toys industry 1. Mould makers and toys professionals in Hong Kong are showing more interest in advanced mould making techniques in the market, such as computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing (CAD and CAM) software dev
13、elopment. Manufacturers may have some difficulties in finding commercial software for injection mould cost estimation that really suits their immediate use. Some existing software in the market has many restrictions in data entry. For this software, machining process selection and mould struct
14、ure selection are very limited, and good knowledge in the structure of an injection mould and its fabrication processes is required for cost estimators. Even if it is easy to use, users require a long time to grasp and to modify the values of the difficulty levels of machining methods for precise co
15、st estimation. They are time consuming for learning, not user friendly and the mould cost estimate is not accurate if users do not well understand the meanings for individual input. Owing to these factors, the current major practice in the industry for quoting the price of an injection mould is stil
16、l for it to be made by experience or by making comparison to similar toys products. An empirical cost estimation method is generally used, which is regarded as a faster and a more user friendly method. This cost estimation approach agreed quite closely with Menges and Mohren 2 that the respect
17、ive mould costs are “often not computed at all” but “estimated based on experience or in comparison with moulds made in the past”. Moreover, the fact that the number of order is only 5% of the number of quotations is also affecting the amount of time allowed for a proper quotation. However, th
18、e empirical cost estimation method requires mould makers to memorize the detailed mould construction steps and tool materials. Occasionally when they forget some mould construction details, underestimates may occur which will affect the mould cost significantly. Another problem is the imprecise esti
19、mation of material cost, which could be a main cost element for mould making in Mainland China because the labor cost will be comparatively lower. It is hard to remember all the prices for standard components without reference to handbooks. Without calculating the components volume and density, it is difficult to know the weight of raw materials. Finally, it is hard to estimate the cost for a certain mould fabrication process. Hence, the estimated cost by the empirical method is quite inconsistent. Theoretically, cost estimators who calculate mould cost manually to a very
