Modular injection mold manufacturing in a selective laser sintering machine

Reduced time to market places exacting requirements for the speed and quality of the design, manufacture and testing of new plastic parts. Traditionally, the greatest time for getting a new plastic product prototyped and tested is that for the mold fabrication phase. New metal materials for selective laser sintering (SLS) rapid prototyping technology allow direct mold fabrication for prototype plastic parts. Typically these molds are also useable for small scale production runs up to 50,000 parts. Using this technology prototype parts can be manufactured using the same materials and processes as used for the final product allowing testing of the whole manufacturing process for the prototype. This gives a company new opportunities to get a new or modified product to market faster and cheaper than by using traditional mold making processes. In this paper ave describe this new technology and discuss how small and mid-size manufacturing companies can benefit from it.