Experience and expertise helped in this situation.
Case Study 2
Experience and expertise are only as valuable as the willingness to use them. At Starbase, there is no such thing as a routine job; only new challenges that need to be met head on.
During a review of a recent estimate request for the development of a new part, Starbase experience came to the table in a remarkably effective way. The client, an international drug delivery company, was looking for estimates for the production of a new needle protection device. During a review of the design, engineers at Starbase identified a number of issues relating to the client's complex part design. The client decided to give Starbase a chance to prototype the part from the ground up.
Designers at Starbase took on the challenge with an added twist. The client wanted to use a production tool shop for the prototypes so they could use the information learned on the prototypes for the production tools. And they needed parts in 6 weeks. Starbase accepted the challenge, and working with the customer’s solid models plus the design changes developed at Starbase to improve the part and tool function, the deadline was met. The quality of the parts was much better than they could have gotten from a rapid prototype shop, and were, in fact so good the client began to use the parts for consumer testing, assembly equipment design, and reliability testing.
The rapid and effective turnaround of the design gave the program a tremendous surge forward, and moved Starbase into the next phase of the development: pre-production tooling. To produce the increased volume of plastic parts needed for the myriad of FDA evaluations and reviews that were happening, and yet not invest fully in high cavitation production tooling, pre-production tools that would produce 1⁄4 the volume of parts were built. The pre-production tools were designed with tooling stacks that would be interchangeable with the final production molds. These molds proved to be tremendously valuable for reviewing and understanding the tight tolerances and final tweaks needed to fine tune the production molds, and save costly rework on a high cavitation mold.
The final and most critical step was to build multiple production molds to identical tolerances, and to manufacture production parts that would pass strict quality control standards. To help in this effort three of the client's molding machines was installed in Starbase’s Tech Center to exactly duplicate the final production environment. This created the opportunity to calibrate the molds performance and baseline the production run before final delivery to the client's production team.
The challenge: perfect tools for a complex part under a tight deadline. The solution: Deep expertise and understanding of the complete process at Starbase. The final result: Making it to market with a cost effective FDA approved part.
