About the Project
Objectives
Strategic objectives of Pro4Plast are:
- Cut the time to market by 50% by the development of a new SME applicable product
development process with a Product Development Guidance System.
- Cost reductions of 30% in injection moulding production and mould making SME
by the application of enhanced, easy to use simulation technique.
- Sustaining the use of the new product development process in SMEs by certification.
The overall objective of Pro4Plast is to enable European plastic injection moulding
and tooling SMEs to produce complex, highly functional parts from special polymers at
low costs with short time-to-market, to sustain European SME competitiveness against
challenges from low cost countries outside Europe. This can only be achieved by a new
technology driven product development process avoiding today's standard approach of
trial and error.
Therefore, 9 IAGs initiate this project with 28 partners, addressing the common
threats of ~ 40.000 EU-SMEs. Today's product complexity makes trial and error as a
method of product development and problem solving more and more inefficient, too slow
and to expensive. Using this method means, that the design of a new plastic injection
moulded product, needs the design and manufacturing of an injection mould, and test
production runs, to test the functionality of the injection mould and the quality of
the plastic part. The optimisation of the part, the mould and the production process
leads usually to multiple iterations in the product development process until an
optimised solution is reached. This procedure does cost enormous amounts of time and
money, which makes it unacceptable for the European economy in competition with low
wage countries. As a solution for this problem injection moulding simulation has to
be used in at least 3 stages of the product development process (offer, tool design
and start-up of serial production).
Another important instrument to succeed in achieving the project main objectives is
the Product Development Guidance System - PDGS, which enables EU SMEs to establish
themselves as "strategic development and production partners". Thus they can become
fully able to produce highly functional and complex parts at low costs, with a short
time to market. The development of the PDGS is therefore the instrument to achieve the
overall project objectives. PDGS software is going to be the powerful tool to guide
their users (designers, toolmakers, converters and OEMs) thought the plastic value
chain, reducing insecurities in the product development process of complex parts,
according to EU-SMEs necessities and possibilities: more productivity per employee/hour
and machine/hour; reducing cost of tryouts in several steps of the product development;
faster answer to quotations, design modifications, adjustments, OEMs questions; less
design modification, then less tool ones. The successful effects will be as it is
described above because the PDGS software (easy to install and to use) will show the
users the optimal way to approach each singular project situation according to the
necessities and the requirements.
Fig. 2.1: PDGS software economical objectives: time
to market and cost savings.
In addition, the PDGS software should not be too expensive to buy and to maintain
for the EU-SMEs. The target price for the software is below 5.000,-- € with an annual
maintenance fee of 12 %/a. It will be available by all up to date ways of software vending.
The SMEs investments will be justified with the PDGS software effectiveness and
the profitable results of its applications in real projects.
Based on this situation and the overall objectives identified, S&T objectives
are defined below according to the WPs:
- TO 1.1: Analysis of Product Development (PD) Process
Analysis of real weaknesses, detailed cost and time drivers within the plastics product development process in coreSMEs to identify the bottlenecks (DE1-5 - month 7)
- TO 1.2: Obligation book "ideal PD-process for SME"
Based on the developed "Ideal PD-Process" (DE1-5) the key factors & properties for each stage / gate of the PD-process are fixed as the basis for the technical specification of the PDGS-Software (DE1-6 - month 9
- TO 1.3: SME requirements "simulation software complex parts"
Based on the results of questionnaires-analysis and the results from 5 cases "optimisation of 5 existing parts by simulation" the real SME-requirements for NEW simulation-software is specified (parts/moulds/materials) (DE1-7 - month 9)
- SO 2.1: Innovative expert software tool as a guidance system based on sophisticated High-Speed-Low-Cost Product Development Process – PDGS
Nowadays, there are digital technologies for the product developments based on several tools integration of different origins for CAD/CAM/CAE processes and generic software for the projects development, however, there is not any software which leads designers, toolmakers, converters and OEMs to the properly way of plastic product development from the view of plastic parts and their processes. The new PD guidance system will offer its users the lowest cost and fastest way to the development of high functional and complex plastic products. (DE2-2, 3, 4 - month 20, 22, 24)
- TO 2.1: Key parameters for PDGS-System for “Ideal” PD Process in SMEs
The objective is obtaining the list of relevant and crucial parameters to give a properly definition of plastic product and its process. The obligation book of OEM must be established from more than 1,000 parameters. (DE2-1 - month 9)
- TO 2.2: PDGS Beta Version Software implementation and validation in SMEs
It is necessary to carry out several practical experiences of the PDGS software use to show the potential of the tool in real practise, obtaining real results. Depending on these feedback results, some improvements and adjustments must be done in PDGS Beta Version Software for its validation in core SMEs. Then, the innovator PDGS software will be ready to be showed to EU-SMEs. (DE2-7 - month 34)
- TO 2.3: PDGS training programs and materials
When it is developed the PDGS software is necessary to develop the training bases and procedures for showing the advantages of it uses. Materials and training programs that the training responsible (mainly RTDs) are going to need for training EU-SMEs during project activities. (DE2-5 - month 27)
- TO 2.4: Handbook and Guidelines for Certification for dissemination
As a consequence of PDGS software development a Handbook & Guidelines to certificate its applications are necessary to develop to spread out its benefits and to give a warranty of quality process. There will be established the key stones procedures of the certification for PDGS users, because use the PDGS and will be a warranty of a controlled, verified and useful method. (DE2-6 - month 33)
- TO 3.1: New SME easy to use injection moulding simulation software for insert- and multi component injection moulding
At the end of the project it is planned to have a new SME compatible (easy to use) injection moulding simulation software for insert- and multi component injection moulding based on the existing Cadmould software. The software will be able to read and display the geometry of the insert (overmoulded part) and the plastic part, to determine the location where the parts meet, allocate a heat transfer coefficient and perform a filling, packing and shrinkage & warpage simulation. (DE3-8, 13, 16 – month 18,24,36)
- TO 3.2: Development of a low cost and easy to use measurement system for viscosity (costs reduction 50% compared to today’s measurement systems)
In month 24 a low cost, injection moulding machine based and easy to use for SME measurement system (mould) for the viscosity will be available, which will reduce the cost of todays standard system by 50 %. (DE3-12 – month 24)
- TO 3.3: Case studies for core SME usable for analysis, training, dissemination
During the project numerous case studies for the application of injection moulding simulation will be performed, which document the technical and economical needs and advantages of this technology. With this material it will be possible to address in the long run the interest of the whole mainly SME based plastic industry in Europe. (DE1-4, DE3-15 – month 7,35)
- TO 3.4: Prepare SMEs to be able to handle necessary material data for simulation
Plastic material behaviour is very complex. Most SMEs do not have the expertise to handle this material data correctly, nor to be able to derive material data from other sources, if the used material is not or only partly measured. This very often leads to bad simulation results or hinder SMEs from using injection moulding simulation. Therefore a SME aimed handbook for material data deriving and handling covering the following data: pvt data, Young’s Modulus as a function of temperature and fibre orientation, specific heat capacity(T), heat conductivity(T) … will be produced during the first project year. (DE3-5 – month 10)
- TO 4.1: Providing ~180 trainings
A number of ~180 trainings is necessary to broadly spread the project results to the coreSME and additional national SME.
- TO 4.2: Development of new model for efficient and sustainable training of SME in high-tech processes and injection moulding-simulation
The new training models will be developed, which will enable an efficient regional training to reach a maximum of SME. The training is provided by local IAG, regional IAG or the national ones. Support will be given by the RTD partners and experts from SME.
- TO 4.3: Train the trainers for the certification process
To establish a sustainable dissemination and exploitation of the project results, especially the certification, it is necessary to form a critical mass of trainers all over Europe.
- TO 5.1: Final development of dissemination strategy
All necessary support activities for dissemination at European level will be developed to assure, that the outcome of the project will reach the estimated number of ca. 40.000 SMEs in Europe. (DE5-4 – month 8)
- TO 5.2: Final development of exploitation strategy
The strategy is closely linked to the consortium agreement and connected with the Intellectual Property Rights and a Certification System for SMEs. Users of PDGS should be certified by national IAGs to guaranty, that their products are developed under a high technology and quality process, to describe their customers the high competitiveness against low cost countries outside Europe. (DE5-6, 10 – month 15, 36)
summary  consortium |
