Tech Makes Commitment to
Moldmaking in Far East

Tech Inc. of Merrimack, NH is developing manufacturing capabilities in Asia, including moldmaking, injection molding and assembly. This development is designed to complement capabilities in New Hampshire, chief operating officer Roger Somers said in an interview at the New England Job Shop and Custom Component Show in Boston.

A subsidiary based in China - Tech Asia, Ltd.® - will initially provide services through existing mold makers and molders that Tech has qualified and developed a relationship with over the years.

Like many American mold makers, Tech is already importing tools, but the development of its own division in Asia raises the bar. Typically, Asian built molds can cost 40 to 50% less than American built tools, but according to Somers, without the proper controls often those savings can mitigated by poor designs and choice of steels. This can cause additional costs in debugging tools prior to production or premature tool failure that can wipe out the initial savings.

Why Asian Manufacturing?
Tech is taking the "built-in-Asia" strategy because so many of its customers and potential customers are already dealing in Asia and are looking for a better way to handle the overall project management. Many would prefer to deal locally if they had the opportunity.

Tech still expects to make tools and mold product in New Hampshire. Mostly OEM's in highly priced competitive consumer markets tap in a big way into the Asian markets. According to Somers, OEM's in the intermediate to lower volume markets who need complicated tools that produce tight tolerance product tend to prefer domestic suppliers. That is even more the case when it comes to the initial product design, another service offered by Tech. This gets Tech involved in the "napkin sketch" stage of development.

One of the principal building blocks for Tech is ProEngineer software. Tech has 11 seats of ProE. In their design group and three seats in the mold shop. The company uses ProManufacture, ProMold Design and Moldflow for the manufacture of its molds. "We have use many other platforms in the moldmaking area but ProE has helped us to improve our deliveries and reduce costs," said Somers. "We can design tools concurrently with our customers (most of whom have ProE.) or our design division and any changes are made associatively all the way through to the cutting paths without translation problems," says Somers, who feels the software gets Tech to market faster than many competitors.

Recently, for example, a production tool for a medical device was built in six days.

Tech was started in 1982 as a prototyping house and soon developed into a full service custom mold maker/molder and then to and art-to-part company, long before that concept was fashionable. It is not unusual for Somers to hear other shops say they are the "only" or the "first" full service contract mold maker/molder offering these services - a claim that makes the quiet Yankee company shudder.

Tech's manufacturing facilities include four pieces of CNC EDM equipment (two Sodick four axis sinkers with 16 station tool changers and two Sodick wire machines) and three Fadal vertical machining centers with tool changers in the mold shop. The molding facility has 21 machines ranging from seven 28-ton Arburgs to three 400-ton Nisseis. Somers says that Tech is exploring installation of electric presses and improved automation to build its business in the medical and portable electronics markets.

--Doug Smock, Modern Mold & Tooling June 1999