Capitalizing on the Miniature Mold Market

Shorter Lead Times Allow TomKen Tool & Engineering to
Capitalize on miniature Mold Market
AS MOLDS HAVE BEEN GETTING SMALLER, TOMKEN’S MARKET HAS BEEN GROWING LARGER.

Bruce Carmichael

A former teacher, Bruce Carmichael knows the importance of doing one’s homework.

When Carmichael, president and general manager of TomKen Tool & Engineering, began converting his firm’s EDM department from manual RAM machines to CNC, his comparison and selection process was extensive. “I rated speed of burn, accuracy, finish, polishability, footprint and price,” he said.

After making a decision in 1995 to select a Makino EDNC43 sinker, TomKen added a second one soon after. The Muncie, Indiana-based company recently acquired an EDGE2 EDM machine to complement its two EDNC43s.

“When I bought the second and third machines, I really didn’t shop around any,” Carmichael said. “Having exhaustively researched the first one, there was no need to do so for the second and third ones.”

Consistency and similarity in controls from machine to machine are a boon to operators, says Carmichael. “In an EDM room, I don’t think you want a huge mix of different controls and different logic, which would be the case if you had several different manufacturers’ machines. So buying the first one was critical, because after I get a piece of equipment the others should just fall right in line to support it.”

Miniature Molds, Big Market.
TomKen, founded in 1960, specializes in miniature molds, and insert and encapsulation molds primarily for the computer, automotive and medical industries. It is currently expanding its shop by two-thirds—from 17,500 square feet to more than 29,000 square feet. TomKen has more than 30 employees.

“For the most part we build molds that we design ourselves,” Carmichael said. As molds have been getting smaller, TomKen’s market has been growing larger. “Smaller molds are a niche we’re focusing on, and we’re still well known for insert and encapsulation molds for shuttle and rotary molding machines.”

TomKen is characterized by how it adapts to meet ever-changing time-to-market challenges, with prime examples being its investment in CNC EDM equipment and its current expansion. “Customers de- mand shorter lead times,” Carmichael said.

TomKen’s initial experience with its first EDNC43 was “a real success story,” he recounted. “A few days after installation, we had a 32-cavity mold coming in and our EDM specialists were set to go to Makino’s Technology Transfer program in Mason, Ohio. Our operators had had enough training in-house that we let it run for the five days they were gone.”

Upon their return to the shop, the operators found that the EDNC43 had accurately completed the mold cavities in 150 hours of unattended burn time.
The majority of TomKen’s mold production is smaller than 32 cavities, but due to its early success “there are cavities that we are not afraid to take on,” Carmichael said. “One of the things we like about the Makino machines is the repeatability for multi-cavity work, and the ultimate benefit for the customer is that multi-cavity work is cheaper now.”

Benefits of CNC EDM Boost Productivity and Efficiency.
“In an area of the shop where floor space is at a premium, the footprint of the EDNC43s and the EDGE2 is one the machines’ major features,” Carmichael said. “The amount of travel they have for the footprint is excellent. As I’ve studied different machines, footprint size as compared to the X, Y and Z axes is important. I’m a little more cramped in that room than in some of the other areas of the shop, and as EDM has become more important, the footprint of the machines has allowed me to get more equipment in and increase capacity. We bought the EDGE2 partly because of floor space.”

TomKen’s CNC EDM machines have slashed benchwork by more than half. “The amount of polishing we do has been cut by about 60 percent,” Carmichael said. “It wasn’t the reason we bought them, but a benefit is that we aren’t polishing nearly as much as we used to. The machines give a better finish than we had on the manual machines. And along with the finer finish, the other advantages are unattended time and multiple-piece setups.

“The precision they give us matches everything that we’re trying to do to please our customers,” he continued. “For the type of parts we make, we have plenty of capability both tolerance-wise and precision-wise. We’ve not run into any jobs that we can’t handle with our EDM equipment. The EDM part of the job never scares us off.”

New Technology Keeps Rates Down.
Carmichael said the CNC EDM machines “help you become more competitive by helping to keep your shop rate down. We’re all faced with competition in the United States and abroad. We have to try to do things to keep our hourly costs reasonable, and with unattended time you basically just have machine costs and no labor costs. So it helps keep your overall rates down. That’s been a big benefit.

“In fact, in our accounting methods we keep track of unattended time and we have a goal of so many hours a week,” he said. “We count on that to help minimize our shop rate.”

TomKen Tool & Engineering TomKen’s volume has steadily gone up since converting to CNC EDM machines, showing about 10 percent increases annually. “We are putting out more molds this year than the year before,” Carmichael said.“Our EDMs are faster and more efficient, and we can produce a higher volume of work than we could five years ago by a long shot.”

While volumes have been going up, prices have decreased. “That’s where the unattended time and improved efficiency come in,” Carmichael said. “Toolmakers are expensive, but they are everywhere in the country. Despite the cost of new technology, CNC EDM is delivering a more accurate mold at a lower rate.”

“TomKen has achieved greater sales volume and production diversity with essentially the same employment level as a few years ago,” Carmichael said. “We try to be progressive, and converting to Makino’s CNC EDM machines was the right move. That’s been a solid decision.”