At present, the upsurge of automation in the mold industry is unabated. It is of course a good thing from the perspective of social progress. However, if you want to rely on automation to replace technicians to make molds, the current level of technology is far from enough.

Since the reform and opening up, we have seen many cases of automation in the Western world. Why do foreigners who are not far away come to China and other countries with relatively abundant human resources and relatively low labor quality to place mold orders? Why do they Instead of using Industry 4.0 methods, use automated unmanned factories to make molds? It seems that they don’t think that molds can be made by automated methods.

After walking through so many mold manufacturing sites, I think that the profitability of molds depends on two guarantees: the best design scheme and the best processing efficiency.

There is no inevitable relationship between high-efficiency processing and automation of typical single-piece flow workpieces such as molds. The core of automation is numerical control, and the core of numerical control is programming. The programming mentioned here includes the meaning of the entire process of data generation and control. It is precisely to quantify the high-complexity three-dimensional objects such as the mold, and the huge quantified data stream, according to the process sequence and quality requirements of mold processing, follow the physical object of the workpiece one-to-one, and reach the satisfaction of the human brain. The effect is absolutely impossible at this stage.

I have seen countless problems in mold workshops that are mainly slow, ranging from slow finding things to slow processing to slow logistics, and this is not something that can be solved by automation. Automation means that after humans transfer the limited digitization of the knowledge system in the human brain to the computer, they are just very rigid and perform a series of actions without perception. Of course, they do not know the meaning and purpose of these actions. Automation at this stage is in fact dull.

We all feel that there are no craftsmen in the workshop, so we can’t make molds well. Similarly, we can’t expect robots without perception to make molds. Do they know what is called?

Just like PM software can’t program good toolpaths by itself, UG software can’t draw good graphics by itself, it still needs high-quality designers and programmers to use the software well.

Then we need to have a high-quality team to solve all the problems on the production site with people first, and after satisfying the customers, then quantify the satisfactory results with data to form instructions that can be executed by the automation equipment, and let the automation equipment execute the instructions. Only when the result of the action is closest to the result of manual operation can the function of the automation equipment be achieved.

When a team can’t rely on the knowledge system and practical ability of the human brain to achieve customer satisfaction, let alone use automated equipment to achieve customer satisfaction?

There is a case outside the circle: Jiangmen’s China Tobacco Moody Company manufactures the white paper on the outer surface of cigarettes. The fierce competition in their industry far exceeds the cruelty of the mold circle, but they can achieve 24 times more than their counterparts in the industry. Profit margin! The president of the company, Mr. Jiang Zixue, said that it is not relying on equipment that other people do not have (the equipment in the industry is similar to the same), but relying on lean production!

In an earlier article, I stated my personal view of Industry 4.0, which is 2.0+3.0, which is standardized operation + information management and control.

A mold factory that can operate normally must start from the 5M1E ergonomics method of measuring loops, step by step to improve all aspects of the problem, including water, electricity, fluid, tooling, logistics, design, process, plant planning, supply chain optimization It’s not too late to talk about automation after the human brain solves this series of problems, such as information management.

How many mold companies now dare to say that they have solved these problems?