Dear List
Does anyone know of any independent information on the size of the current and potential markets for prototype tooling?
I am thinking primarily re. the injection moulding of polymeric materials, although any info. on the die and investment casting industry would also be most welcome.
At one end of the scale we have information on the number of RP systems sold, the general value of primary and secondary RP markets, etc. (e.g. Terry Wohlers' annual report http://www.WohlersAssociates.com, Marshall Burns @ http://www.ennex.com).
At the other end there is info. on the size of the injection moulding industry, in similar terms, i.e. number of injection machines sold, how many million tonnes of material processed, etc. (e.g. K98 website - http://www.kunststoffweb.de/k98newsweb/eng/back.htm).
We know of several companies whose annual tooling budget is >£1m - one in particular systematically budgets for £2m and regularly spends £3m or more, i.e. overspend of 50% or greater, with the understanding that: "it's the nature of complex injection tooling...it goes with the territory".
I feel sure that the actual figure spent on injection mould tooling globally would make interesting reading, given the level of hype around / interest in / demand for prototype tooling.
It would seem that more and more companies are recognising the hidden benefits of getting not just the design, but also the true functional capabilities of a component, fully evaluated before committing to (still expensive, still time consuming) production tooling.
I will post a summary of any responses to this enquiry to the list - thanks in advance for any information.
Regards
Nick
Nick Osborn
Technical Director
------------------------------------------------
nick@lip.co.uk
Laser Integrated Prototypes Ltd.
140 - 144 Station Road, March,
Cambs. PE15 8NH, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1354 650 789
Fax: +44 (0) 1354 650 799
-------------------------------------------
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 22:47:00 EEST