Early estimation of manufacturing cost for SLS tooling for injection moulding: a cost model.

The estimation of mold manufacturing cost performed during concept design stage helps the designer in taking decisions about part and mold configuration before actual investment in tooling and testing is made. A study has been conducted to develop a procedure for estimating at the early stage of product design the manufacturing cost of mold for injection of polymers where inserts are built-in by the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology. A feature-based approach has been utilized to relate the geometrical and technological data of the part to be molded, generally known at the concept stage of design, to the main costdrivers which determine manufacturing cost of the mold. To this aim, the technological aspects of manufacturing processes involved in the manufacture assembly of both the based-mold and the cavity-core inserts have been investigated. The basic structure of the cost model together with some cost algorithms and functions necessary for its implementation are presented in the paper.