TK Mold and Engineering Modernizes Mold Manufacturing with Production Methods

Thomas Barr, president of TK Mold and Engineering, considers the 18 people he employs at his Romeo, Mich., company to be family. What matters most to Barr is that each family member continues learning, growing on the job and that they feel great about what they accomplish together.

Barr also wants to keep each and every one of them employed. In the highly competitive mold manufacturing marketplace, he says that no one can know everything, so everyone in his work family must keep learning. Barr has put that into practice by asking all employees, including himself, to change from their traditional approach of mold manufacturing to a more production-oriented method.

TK Mold invested in a Makino a61nx horizontal machining center along with the FCS modular work-holding system to help make the company’s vision a reality. The additional capacity enabled TK Mold to match its 2014 revenue total in just the first six months of 2015. Barr projects his company to nearly double revenue year over year as a result of the new machining technology.

That growth is not the impact of just adding another mill, however. TK Mold can now produce more custom molds for the automotive industry because of how the a61nx and the new modular clamping work together to significantly speed up mold manufacturing.

“Water lines, angled setups, 3-D contouring and some things you would have three machines do, you can now do in one machine,” Barr said. “This horizontal machining center has not stopped running since we installed it. We would not have been able to handle what we’ve got going on without it.”

Custom Mold Manufacturing Needs Facelift

TK Mold and Engineering, located near Detroit, is a family-owned business Barr founded in 2003. Barr has witnessed firsthand the ups and downs of mold manufacturing, learning how to guide his company through shifting changes in the economy, customers’ needs and technology. In 2013, when faced with increasing global competition and customers’ demands for lower pricing, Barr and his team decided to take a leap forward in capacity and quality. TK Mold would continue to make high-quality molds but would do so in new ways not only less expensive but also consistent and repeatable.

To accomplish this goal, Barr would lead his company through a transformation to approach every job with a production mindset. He wanted TK Mold to move from every job requiring custom setup to a mold-handling system that could be set up once and used on every machine on his shop floor. However, in order to do that, Barr would need new machining technology.

A Partner for Transformative Success

In 2014, TK Mold accepted recommendations from Single Source Technologies, a North American distributor of machine tools and related supplies, and purchased the a61nx horizontal machining center with an FCS modular work-holding system that provides unrestricted access to five surfaces. This design results in less time setting up and more time machining—enabling TK Mold to achieve the goals Barr set.

Barr turned to Single Source Technologies because the distributor has been one of his long-time suppliers. He appreciates the knowledgeable support and no-nonsense approach of SST representatives.

TK Mold didn’t make a purchase as much as establish a partnership with SST, which recommended an a61nx horizontal machining center with an FCS modular clamping system. The a61nx, traditionally considered a production machining center, arms TK Mold with the quality, speed and utilization rates to significantly boost capacity. Simultaneously, the FCS system enables the company to dramatically reduce setup time and focus on achieving a production mindset while still performing one-off mold processing.

Adopting a production mindset wasn’t easy and it required employees to learn how to operate the precision controls for the a61nx, along with techniques that are different from what they were used to when running commodity vertical mills. Among the changes: machine operators now can set up the next pallet outside the a61nx while running another job. That’s typical in a production environment but central to the new approach to mold manufacturing that Barr wanted.

“With the ease of setup afforded by the FCS and the second pallet for exterior setup on the a61nx, flexibility has improved dramatically,” said Barr. “Schedule changes are simple with this combination of technology and they no longer require a substantial amount of time or labor. We’re more responsive than ever before.”

Picking Up the Pace with Modular Clamping

Since investing in the a61nx with FCS system in 2014, TK Mold has been able to quote work much more aggressively and produce more molds than the company could make with its previous machinery.

Barr compares the capabilities and capacity of the new horizontal machining center with FCS to running three stand-alone verticals, but without the additional manpower or extended setup times.

The combination of the a61nx and FCS has yielded additional benefits. Bruce McGregor, TK Mold’s plant manager, describes FCS to be both as simple and as complex as a box of LEGO blocks, the popular toy building bricks. The FCS system is so flexible with individual parts that it at first seems overwhelming; however, once his operators were able to gain hands-on experience with FCS, McGregor said they could design and build fixtures with ease. The technology enables new employees to accomplish far more than Barr said he was able to do during the same point in his own career. One operator with a year’s experience in the industry loaded a mold onto a machine in a matter of minutes. This same setup once took hours without the FCS clamping system.

Key to the speed and accuracy the FCS system delivers is its precision design.

Molds are mounted on four points bored into the bottom. Once the mounting holes are machined, they become the fixed x-y reference points for the life of the mold. The FCS system achieves positioning repeatability down to 5 microns with precision-made clamps and rods that support molds of all sizes at all angles on a base plate that attaches to a machine’s table. The base plate has mounting points on a 50-millimeter grid that ensures positioning. No special equipment or maintenance is needed for this system.

Shops that use FCS increase production time by an average of 88 percent, said Darrell Johnson, SST product manager-milling consumables. The FCS system makes it easy to recreate the exact fixture needed when another copy of a mold is ordered or molds are returned for engineering changes or repair.

Moreover, TK Mold is no longer locked into manufactured or fixed work-fixture sizes. The FCS system can be used with any size mold block and can be taken apart and reconfigured for each specific project.

“Even though your work base is unique, custom, a specialized job, the discipline behind it is a production approach,” McGregor said. “You’re not spending so much time on the art of mold making. You’re spending more time on the production of the mold. It [FCS] removes or starts to constrain the number of variables so that you end up with a very simple process.”

Additionally, the FCS system has been integrated within other machining centers TK Mold owns. Employees now create fast, accurate setups of molds and mold components, and move them onto various machine platforms, including vertical mills and EDM equipment. The combined performance of the a61nx and FCS has also led to a 60 percent reduction in handwork and spotting. EDM processing has been reduced or eliminated in several applications, saving additional time.

As a result, lead-times have improved, along with the ability to meet customers’ demands for delivery. TK Mold can now be more flexible with customers who have urgent needs.

“You can’t have a production mindset in a mold shop without FCS,” Barr said.

Machining Technology Opens New Opportunities

Based on these results, Barr anticipates a full return on his investment in the a61nx and the FCS modular work-holding system within two years.

TK Mold’s initial results also have confirmed the strategy for achieving Barr’s goals for his company and his family of employees. Each employee can keep learning and growing on the job and feel great about what they accomplish, which is possible because of the investment in the a61nx and FCS work-holding system.

“It’s amazing what the technology enables us to do,” Barr said. “We are creating efficiency for TK Mold and opportunity for our employees.”