IMS (Integrated Molding System) Project

IMS is a new initiative of CIMP designed to implement the concept of Concurrent (or Simultaneous) Engineering to injection molding of plastics. The project is supported by a Special Interest Group (SIG) in the CIMP industrial consortum. It is amied to develop the next-generation technologies for the injection molding industry. The project is conducted in collaboration with C-MOLD who provides some new software, such as Dr. C-MOLD, QuickFill, and 3D QuickFill. These CAE tools are used in different phases of plastic parts production, from conceptual design to quality assurance of the parts in production.
The overall objective of IMS is to develop necessary technologies in order to achieve "the best performance" in injection molding. The best performance is defined as that plastic part can be produced better (in quality),cheaper (in cost),and faster(in time-to-market).

IMS consists of three major functional components: part design, tooling technologies (mold design and manufacture), and process control. These components are treated concurrently on the common foundation of IMS.

The philosophy of IMS is based on a strong belief as described as follows:

a) The best performance begins with the best design of the part. Ill-conceived part design guarantees troubles ahead, during the later stages of mold design and part production.

b) Mold should be designed the first time right without the need for costly mold trials. CAE tools should be extensively used to supplement prior experiences.

c) Rational determination of initial setup points for process control is essential. Such determination should be based on first principles, rather than ad-hoc or even heuristics. Effective control algorithms are necessary to cope with unpredictable system disturbances in order to assure part-quality consistency automatically.

The two-year project is designed for the end-users of the injection molding technologies. Interested parties are advised to contact CIMP administrator for a prospectus.