Automation, tool tech keeps
personal care product stateside
By Tony Deligio
Published: March 2nd, 2011
One way to avoid the difficulties of
“reshoring” molding and moldmaking work from
China is to keep the business onshore in the
first place. For custom molder Cashmere, the
answer has been
smart automation and smarter
design, including two-shot molding.
As market acceptance of the
product grew and production consequently
heated up, Cashmere Molding made a proposal to
its OEM client Clarisonic: Invest in new
tooling and automation to switch production
from two presses and two two-cavity family
molds—one requiring five hand-loaded
inserts—to one two-shot injection molding
machine running a four-cavity family tool that
would have inserts placed robotically and
produce finished parts.
Perhaps predictably,
Clarisonic’s paraphrased response amounted to,
“What’s in it for us?” Mike Gladwell, director
of engineering at the Woodinville, WA custom
injection molder, had a ready answer:
estimated costs savings of at least 40%
(ultimately the new setup doubled capacity and
reduced labor costs by 70%), with a
less-than-six-month return on the tooling
investment.
Clarisonic’s Sonic Skin
Cleansing Systems use a patented sonic
frequency of more than 300 movements per
second to reportedly remove six times more
makeup and two times more dirt and oil
than cleansing with your hands alone.
.The EOAT begins a new
molding cycle by preparing to dock with
the light pipe shuttle fixture. The light
bars are arrayed vertically in two sets of
two and each set has its own array of
three spring-loaded docking pin receivers.
The receivers and docking pins ensure that
the EOAT picks the light bars exactly the
same way each time, while the receivers’
location on the shuttle fixture matches
the receivers mounted in the cavity half
of the mold.
Here, unlike in production
where they’re placed on a conveyor,
finished molded parts remain on the EOAT.
Normally, these parts would have been
placed on the conveyor prior to the new
set of light pipes being picked from the
shuttle fixture. |
Founded in 1991 with two
employees, including current president and CEO
Greg Herlin, Cashmere has championed
intelligent process design, highlighting
automation and advanced molding techniques to
grow to more than 50 employees. Instead of
reducing headcount as it has automated, the
company has added 20 staff and, perhaps most
impressively, has lured five customers back
from China on the basis of Cashmere’s quality
and cost competitiveness.
Tough project, able
partners
For the Clarisonic project, the company worked
with Wittmann Battenfeld for robotics, SAS
Automation LLC for custom end-of-arm tooling (EOAT),
The Turner Group for cell design, and Engel
for injection technology. “Cashmere’s
engineering came, pulled together those
vendors and the customer, and coordinated the
effort with everyone,” Gladwell says, “so it
really was a team effort to get it all
working.”
The product itself is the
Clarisonic Pro-Handle powered facial cleaning
device. Cashmere was molding the handle
enclosure, including an overmolded elastomer
grip and an indicator lens in the form of a
light pipe that had to be inserted into the
cavity prior to molding.
The light pipe proved a
particular challenge given its small size,
about as big as two BBs side by side, and the
need for its precise placement. SAS was tasked
with creating a customized EOAT that could
insert two of the light pipes and work within
a 2+2-cavity transfer mold that requires the
EOAT to pick two inserts at once. The mold
itself had only 0.0015-inch clearance on
either side to fit the inserts, and since
floor space was limited, the insert shuttle
table and guarding needed to be as compact as
possible.
When Cashmere started on the
project, it created two sets of molds, running
substrates on a 150-ton press, placing the
parts in a box, and walking them to a second
machine where a worker would manually insert
them for overmolding. For the front part of
the handle, two lights are inserted in its
front, as well as three small brass pins that
hold the brush in, a total of four hand-loaded
inserts. A family mold, the tool also produced
one handle’s back portion, which also had a
light.
“That was all well and
good,” Gladwell says, “but as volumes grew,
the cost was high and the production was
slow.” It was particularly hampered by
operator error in the hand loading of inserts.
“Even though you couldn’t technically put [the
inserts] in backwards, we managed to get a
couple of guys who did.”
At this point in time, the
success of the product meant that Cashmere was
running it on a 24/6 schedule, a “sweet spot”
of volume that could allow for a more
automated solution. Gladwell says, “Cashmere
came to the table and told Clarisonic, ‘Hey,
there’s a better way to do this. We’ve got
this two-shot equipment; you should consider
retooling and turning this system into a
four-cavity family mold that will produce two
completely finished parts.’”
Clarisonic approved the
switch, and Cashmere moved forward with the
new molding concept. For the three brass pins,
it decided it would be best to handle those as
a postmolding press-in insert. The biggest
challenge remained the light pipes. One placed
in each cavity was an orientation nightmare:
They only had 0.0015-inch of wiggle room. If
they skewed diagonally, light would not travel
through the pipe. In conjunction with its
moldmaker Premier Tool, and EOAT supplier SAS,
Cashmere decided the best plan would be to
include numerous locating features within the
tool, with three to four in each cavity
helping locate the end effector within the
cavity.
SAS also supplied a sliding
table, from which the light tubes would be
picked up. The design was such that the robot
and end effector could automatically tell
where the light pipes were. “One of the big
challenges was, ‘Man, how do we get an end
effector to land within a thou [0.001 inch]
vertically and horizontally in the press and
come out and land on a table within the same
thou and grab the parts to be installed,
24/6?’ That’s a lot of shots to keep
everything perfect,” says Gladwell.
In between those shots, the
Wittmann robot picks up two light pipes, drops
them into the press, goes to the A side,
installs them in the side of the tool, then
goes over to the end effector on the B side of
the tool to pick four parts—two complete
products and two substrates ready for
overmolding.
Beating China on
price
At this time, the process is running 24/6,
with good output of 99.6%, having done so
since its initial startup. “Really, the first
time it went in the press, it started up
seamlessly,” Gladwell says. “It was the
coordination between the toolmaker, and the
molder, and the gripper people, with some
support from Wittmann and The Turner Group
that really made this thing work like a
champ.”
The company has carried over
the concept for other parts, building three
more two-shot tools that use the exact same
system. “It was super exciting for us, and it
was super exciting for them,” Gladwell says.
“They’re saving a ton of money, and they’ve
got super-reliable production.”
The money savings are
helping Cashmere compete at a time when many
smaller shops are dropping out of the game.
“We’re very proud that Cashmere found a way to
not only compete with China, but also beat
China on pricing,” Gladwell says. “In a large
part, that’s thanks to Clarisonic making the
investment and allowing us to purchase that
equipment, having faith in a U.S.
manufacturer. You know, I’m not waving the
flag; that’s just cost savings and service,
not patriotism.” —Tony Deligio
Cashmere Molding Inc. |
www.cashmeremolding.com
Engel |
www.engelglobal.com
SAS Automation LLC |
www.sasgripper.com
The Turner Group |
chuck@turnergroup.net
Wittmann Battenfeld |
www.wittmann-ct.com
|
