Fundamental Requirements for a Successful IML Launch Bill Cole, Senior Director, World Wide Plastics

1
Fundamental Requirements for a Successful IML
LaunchBill Cole, Senior Director, World Wide
Plastics, Flextronics International
2
Topics

• Some fundamental Criteria to think about before
  you engage
• Customer Engagement
• Setting the stage of understanding
• Clear and concise Design reviews focused on the
  need of the Application
• Separating the Components of IML Development
• Base Materials , The Film Supplier
• Printing house knowledge
• forming
• Die Cutting
• Tooling Design Knowledge
• Partnering
• Breaking the industry perception that plagues
  this technology
• Developing a open industry consortium to jump
  Start The industry.

3
Customer Engagement

• Setting the stage for understanding
• One of the most important milestones to a
  successful launch is fully engaging and
  understanding the customers expectations. This is
  where your partners such as printing and forming
  should be with you along with an experienced
  tooling/process person knowledgeable with the
  peculiarities of IML manufacture. Working with
  customers design people certainly has its
  challenges as they are looking from artistic
  perspective rather than a manufacturability
  perspective. It is absolutely a must to insure
  that you have a checklist specifically for IML
  development that outlines the fundamental
  requirements and limitations of decoration
  graphics, color schemes, registration
  requirements that are considered deliverables for
  the customer. This engagement MUST be regimented
  and approached scientifically to insure that the
  deliverables are achievable and agreed upon by
  you and your customer. This is where we usually
  fail and start down a difficult path that could
  be avoided.

4
Clear and concise Design reviews focused on the
need of the Application

• Again, this must be a concerted effort that is
  strategically planned before you meet with the
  customer. Design for Manufacturability is needed
  at this stage and discussed with your Film,
  Printing and Die cut partners.
• Some Design for Manufacturability Important
  Attributes
• Material choices
• Film/Resin/ink
• Design criteria
• Part Design/Forming Tool Design /Trimming Tool
  Design/Injection mold Tool Design
• Registration requirements ( Especially with
  multiple IML parts that are assembled together. )
• Process
• Base material selection, Ink Selection,
  Printing/Film Forming/Trimming/Injection Molding

5
Clear and concise Design reviews focused on the
need of the Application

• Base Materials , The Film Supplier
• Some base materialsand their flow
  characteristics

6
Separating the Components of IML Development use
Knowledge

• Printing House knowledge
• Clearly, selecting and partnering with your
  printing house is paramount to success of an IML
  launch. Historically, printing houses have the in
  depth knowledge of base materials, graphics
  development and printing methods. Historically
  however, quite a few good printing houses have
  expanded their services to include thermo forming
  , die cutting and some have ventured into
  injection molding as well. My opinion is that
  this evolvement has diluted the success long term
  of IML development as we are taking three
  specific methodologies and trying to be god at
  all three. Clearly, the 100 focus on ink and
  printing solutions with a printing house PARTNER
  would and does allow for a much more focused
  solution to IML. ( A point of discussion at the
  end)

7
Separating the Components of IML Development

• forming
• forming cannot be underestimated when developing
  a repeatable and robust IML. In many instances,
  especially with complicated graphics, the desire
  to get significant output drives the former to do
  multiple cavitation form positions. When we
  increase the form positions we also exponentially
  increase the amount of registration problems
  during the forming process.

8
form Ratios, Example of what should be included
in the DFM

• As an example ( Many should be included in the
  criteria during the initial stages for Forming
  tool development and strategy.

Draw RatioThe draw ratio for a male-forming tool
is suggested to be a maximum of 11.  For the
female-forming tool it should be a maximum of
14.    
9

Separating the Components of IML Development

• forming

OpeningsForm film at least half way down
openings or holes to improve registration in
injection mold. 
Trimming AssistanceForm in a flat flange to aid
in top-down trimming.
10
Die Cutting

• Matched Metal
• This method uses hardened male and female
  halves.  These tools are used to make cuts on
  multiple planes and 3D curved surfaces with a
  single stroke.  They are also used to cut
  intricate patterns, maintain tight dimensional
  tolerances, and cut thicker films on larger
  volume production runs (greater than 100,000
  parts).  These dies can have a tolerance to
  0.0005 inch.  Its cost is  comparable with
  injection molding tools. This is an area where
  expertise and knowledge must prevail. Many IML
  jobs have failed because of poor engineering and
  cost cutting which has resulted in poor fitting
  to the cavity walls causing excessive scrap
  during production.

11
Tooling Design Knowledge

• Clearly an important area when developing the
  injection molding tool for IML production. A
  trained and knowledgeable tool designer must work
  closely with a experienced processor familiar
  with the peculiarities and process demands for
  IML application. Some important areas to consider
  in your DFM
• Flow analysis to clearly understand end of fill
  on the part. For gate location may cause the end
  of fill to end up in a place that causes
  rolling of the IML Appliqué during filling.
• Strategic venting to insure proper flow of the
  material and reduce injection pressure.
• Spring load pins that allow for retention of the
  film during filling.
• Gate location and diameter to eliminate Ink wash
  problems.
• Proper location of robot guide pins to insure
  accurate and repeatable appliqué insertion to the
  cavity.

12
Partnering

• One of the most important strategies to a
  successful IML launch is to understand that we
  need other experts to partner with to insure
  that we find the correct solution to an
  Manufacturable product. There are many specific
  technologies that come into play and it is my
  opinion that trying to be all inclusive
  manufacturing will lead to a less than desirable
  result.
• Printing technology is a technology that needs
  100 focus on just that ! Printers should be
  developing advanced ink systems, advanced film
  applications to print on by partnering with film
  suppliers.
• Forming technology must not be taken lightly. It
  needs to have specific methodology and 100 focus
  on precision in the areas of forming cavitations,
  stretch and registration.
• Die cutting must be developed with a knowledge of
  the registration and part to part precision
  cutting. This along with a clear knowledge of the
  dimensional accuracy of the finished form.

13
Breaking the industry perception that plagues
this technology

• All of us are guilty of holding this technology
  back due to our inability to trat it as an
  industry. All of us think that we have a better
  way to solve a problem and have worked
  independently and in secrecy thinking we are
  protecting some special way that works better
  than the competitor. The result is a less than
  appealing use of this technology based on some
  very poor experiences from our customers. All of
  us need to change the paradigm of secrecy and as
  an industry, corroborate with each other to
  develop solutions for the industry. Truly, if we
  can drive the technology from a industry
  perspective, the end result would be a 10 fold
  increase in the amount of business that
  ultimately benefit the entire industry.

14
Developing a open industry consortium to jump
Start The industry

• A challenge to all of us. A consortium needs to
  be formed with IML industry leaders with a clear
  charter of identify, developing, and
  commercializing advances to increase IML market
  share.
• Open to Questions