Brampton, Ontario, Canada: StackTeck Systems Ltd., a global manufacturer of multi-cavity, high-volume production molds, has added multiple new machines in the last 6 months to increase productivity in their dedicated space to develop prototype and pilot molds.
In 2018 alone, $1.5 million dollars have been spent in equipment for the development of prototypes, including 7 pieces of new equipment such as advanced technology close tolerance milling and turning machines, universal grinders, 3 and 5 Axis mills. The cell also has CAM programing where no 2D drawings are required and is able to develop prototype molds in an average of 3 to 6 weeks depending on the complexity of the plastic part.
This pilot cell offers flexibility regarding effect on speed and cost to custom tailor the mold design and prototype mold materials to suit project needs, including number of samples needed, accuracy, shrinkage and cycle time.
In addition, StackTeck offers its existing prototyping mold bases for typical packaging items such as lids, containers or tamper evident closures among others.
Lou Dimaulo, StackTeck’s Vice President of TeckCenter stated: “We have put together a dedicated team of 13 highly experienced members in this pilot cell and have doubled the number of machining centers that we had in 2015 going from 6 to 12, having a total of 24 dedicated machines to serve this cell alone. We have been successful at completing prototype molds for beverage caps from CAD to test in only 3 weeks. This represents a huge advantage for our customers looking to take advantage of StackTeck’s turnkey services: from part concept, finished part design and prototype tool to the production tool.”
The advantage that a dedicated pilot cell offers to our customers is rapid prototyping, as a faster alternative to advanced production stacks with simplification of cooling and/or ejection while expanding sampling capacity. This new dedicated cell is isolated in a closed manufacturing area for customers’ confidentiality requirements.
This dedicated prototype mold making area is in a closed room to ensure project confidentiality.
This prototype cell includes 12 machining centers and an enclosed CMM inspection room.