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Ian Sinclair <sinclair@cadvision.com> wrote in message
news:39643b6f.527169@mail.cadvision.com...
> TLC wants to avoid changing molds as long as possible. Every time
> that's done the injection machine must be purged, cleaned and the
> molds changed. That is a lot of down time.
Maybe that is the case, but I've seen one report that the facilities they
use are fed from a set of huge silos containing raw ABS materials in
different colors for all the common elements they produce.
This suggests to me that perhaps their injection molding machines would be
capable of automatically handling multiple colors one after the other.
Basically, all that is needed is to spit out a small bit of ABS when
changing over to a new color, to flush the old one out of the injection
system. It might even be possible to have multiple colors at the injection
point simultaneously, and just change colors on the fly or as demand for
pieces dictates.
> Therefore, you produce fairly large quantities of uncommon parts and
> store them till needed on the set production runs.
This would probably be the case, but maybe they could also just switch the
molds instead of the colors on a run. Quite feasible, have the old mold
automatically slip out and the new one in, computerized routing
automatically sends the parts to two or more designated bins for later
removal and storage until needed.
Or if two parts are needed in about the same quantities in two different
sets, perhaps it could be automatically be programmed to switch back and
forth from one to the other - I'd still reckon they'd favour just molding
the entire production run in one or two large lots though.
I also wonder if any of the LEGO parts lend themselves to extrusion
molding - especially those small connector pegs with holes through them.
They look like a perfect candidate for extrusion molding at a first look.
I'm also fairly certain that if nothing else, the axles they use are almost
certainly extrusion molded. I noticed that some early axles do have a
cutoff bump at one end of the axle where it gets separated from the sprue it
would be on, but I haven't seen any such bumps in more recent axles, which
would seem to suggest that they're either using extrusion molding for the
axles, or are developing extremely accurate part separation machinery.
> When these elements are needed for sets, these hoppers are dumped or
> placed above any available counters on the secondary lines.
Probably - I've read that they only mold one or two parts in any given mold
at any given time, don't know if this works the same way for large volume
runs though.
I suppose it would be feasible, but molding more than two parts at a time
means that there would be some cost involved in separation of parts from the
sprue or that the molded parts would have to be fed to another machine for
trimming purposes. I guess they would also recycle the excess ABS - if they
used more than two parts in each mold the excess ABS could probably make
another couple hundred worth of pieces, if they are able to reclaim and
recycle it.
Just some ideas I've picked up from reading and browsing the internet not
too recently - it is of course entirely possible that these ideas are
completely out-of-date by now. I'd love to see someone who's had a fair
amount of experience in the molding business come into this discussion -
would be nice to find out some hard data.
Cheers ...
Geoffrey Hyde
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Bulk Sales in the 21st Century
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| (...) I would guess that you are correct. I, and other people (IIRC), have gotten parts with swirls of other colors in them, which leads me to believe that they don't hand clean them between runs. Mine is a pretty nifty brick, actually, and I'd love (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Bulk Sales in the 21st Century
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| (...) I think they do a little bit of post molding finishing. I'm pretty sure I read about this in one of the books. Depending on the cost to do this (which almost certainly changes over time), they may finish some parts and not others. (24 years ago, 6-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Bulk Sales in the 21st Century
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| (...) I'm sure that there is a feed system of pellets (most likely) to each injection machine. Probably one gravity tube, that can possibly have different colors fed into it. (...) Possibly, it would be nice to know. As some have said we often get (...) (24 years ago, 8-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Bulk Sales in the 21st Century
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| (...) This sounds like one of the few things that could stop the flow of ABS, though I doubt it's cleaned inside very often. (...) I totally agree. The unknown here seems to be how many pieces must go through a mold before the new color completely (...) (24 years ago, 9-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Bulk Sales in the 21st Century
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| Erik, you raise many excellent points. I outlined the core idea, the plan is in the details. Some thoughts on what you have said. (...) Erik, if TLC has production lines than currently run unmanned, there is no reason a different organization of (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jul-00, to lugnet.lego.direct, lugnet.general)
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