From the 4th to the 8th of April, Open Mind Technologies will once again be returning to the Mach exhibition at the Birmingham NEC, giving its exhibition premiere to the latest version of its Hypermill CAD/CAM software.

France — A cooperation between mould makers, robotics and IML label manufacturers, material flow specialists, raw material suppliers and Arburg France resulted in a fully automated Injection moulding cell for the production of thin walled containers.

Welcoming back in-person attendees for the first time in two years, the Plastimagen 2022 trade fair taking place from 8 to 11 March at the Centro Citibanamex in Mexico City is not just of fundamental importance for the Mexican market, but for the Latin American market as a whole. Accordingly, Arburg will once again be in attendance and will have its own stand in Hall D, no. 730.

Germany — In spring 2022, the VDWF will be represented at two trade fairs within a few weeks of each other. At Medtec Live in Stuttgart from 3 to 5 May, 40 tool and mould making companies or suppliers will present their products at the VDWF joint stand. And Euroguss in Nuremberg from 8 to 10 June is also well attended: around 10 companies have come together for the VDWF stand.

What happens when three specialists go wild in their field of expertise can be seen on a workpiece for tool and mould making. A project developed for an online seminar demonstrates the know-how and the successful cooperation. The clamping specialist Schunk, the programming professionals from Open Mind and the tool experts from Horn were on board. New approaches met proven technologies.

Wild & Küpfer (W&K) produces plastic injection moulded parts that meet high quality standards. The main player is the company's own tool shop, where a Kern Micro and, since 2020, a Kern Micro HD ensure precision and productivity.

With Mold Wizard, Siemens offers a special application for the support of mould design in the injection moulding sector. In order to improve the availability of standard parts, leading companies in the supply of mould components cooperated to further improve this tool.

Software developer Open Mind has upgraded its Hypermill CAM software for machine- and controller-independent NC programming. These include optimisations for Virtual Machining, enhancements to the 5-axis strategies for better results in terms of surface quality, new options for 2D functionalities, as well as efficient innovations in the area of electrode manufacturing that deliver even more convenient and faster programming.

3D printing company Stratasys announced that Danish shoe manufacturer Ecco is using their Origin One 3D printing technology to accelerate product development, allowing conceptual footwear samples to be reviewed early in the development cycle using 3D printed moulds and lasts (mechanical forms shaped like a foot) with resin materials from Henkel Loctite.

Sacmi Imola is specialised in mould making for rigid packaging production. To further automate and digitise its production, the Italian company invested in robotic systems from Erowa to make machining and EDM operations more efficient.