Feature-based integration of conceptual and detailed mould design

The plastic production industry has been growing rapidly in recent years, and injection mould, which is especially widely used in 4C (computer, communication, consumer electronics, and car) products, is the most popular in moulding plastic. The diverse requirements of customers and pressures of just-in-time production are big challenges in the injection mould industry. The advantages, that keep products’ quality and increase work efficiency, will decide a company's competitive capabilities. Therefore, this study proposes a feature-based integration of the conceptual and detailed mould design process within the computer-aided design (CAD) tool. It adopts a feature-oriented method and the dedicated application programming interface (API) to implement the features integration function of the conceptual and detailed mould design. Based on intellectualised, customised, and standardised procedures, not only does this prevent probable engineering mistakes and generate consistent web reports, but also transmits the intact feature information from conceptual to detailed mould design, thus shortening detailed mould design processes. In the case studies of this paper, using the feature-based navigating system can result in time savings up to 56% and 59%. The results show significant time savings over traditional mould design processes.