SolidWorks Express | April 2002

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Moldflow Part Adviser enhances innovation for office supplies manufacturer

SolidWorks 2001Plus receives top CAD industry awards

Esselte Leitz GmbH & Co. KG – the world's leading office supplies manufacturer – brings innovation, efficiency, and style to the way people work and organize their lives in the office and at home. The company's principal brands – Curtis, DYMO, Esselte, Leitz, and Pendalfex – are distributed from 31 subsidiaries to more than 120 countries worldwide. With 6500 employees, the company needed an efficient way to design, manufacture, and market its products. Esselte's Michael Blum, Engineer for Industrial Design Research and Development, spoke to SolidWorks Express about SolidWorks Certified Gold Solution Moldflow Part Adviser™.

Why does Esselte need a tool like Moldflow Part Adviser?
"As part of the Research and Development department, we work with tools like SolidWorks® in order to construct our components. When designing plastic injection-molded parts, it helps us greatly to establish the manufacturing feasibility and the quality of the design. We go through several design iterations for each product, and a software tool like the Moldflow Part Adviser allows us to check that design changes do not compromise the manufacturability or the quality of the product."

What were you using before the Moldflow Part Adviser and what were the limitations?

Esselte waste paper basket

"Prior to purchasing Moldflow Part Adviser, we had to request our material suppliers to perform analysis on our plastic part designs. But that arrangement was limiting our ability to apply analysis insight into the continually evolving product design because we had to wait for the analysis results prior to making any design changes."

Why is single-window integration with SolidWorks an important benefit to your design process?
"The seamless integration of the Moldflow Part Adviser within the SolidWorks user interface makes it appear as a natural extension of SolidWorks and not as a separate product. The software is easy to learn and easy to use. Single-window integration eliminates the need to export any models or be concerned about the compatibility of the data."

Provide an example using Moldflow Part Adviser.
"Our challenge was to decrease production costs for an existing product – a waste paper basket in our Esselte line of office supplies. The target costs could only be achieved through a combination of material reduction, decreased cycle times in production, and the inclusion of new materials.

"During the project, several design and material combinations were evaluated. The images below represent two design iterations, one of which resulted in a short shot, which is an unacceptable manufacturing problem, while the other could be successfully filled and manufactured.


Moldflow Part Adviser reveals a short shot in the design on the left while the analysis on the right indicates the product can now be successfully manufactured."

"With Moldflow Part Adviser, we evaluated the economic feasibility and manufacturability aspects in tandem with product development and without the need for prototyping. Only through careful reduction in part weight were savings of approximately 20% achieved in the material cost as compared to a similar previously produced product. If we had attempted to achieve the optimum part weight through iterative mold changes, considerable additional costs and delays would have been incurred. Especially in the case of thin-walled applications with long flow distances, using simulation in the early design phase is very critical. As we realized in this project, the thin wall thickness has a considerable impact on the overall part cost."

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