Into GDM, Unravelling the Mystery of mold

Preface

Mold is the mother of industry, and manufacturing is the main body of national economy. Zhuhai Gree Daikin Precision mold Co., Ltd (GDM) has been pursuing excellence in quality, delivery and cost reduction of mold, and now it has become a leader in the field of mold, with its main products covering automotive mold, home appliance mold, electronic sensor mold, medical mold, OA mold, printer exterior mold and global services in over 13 countries, enjoying a good reputation in the global mold market, and playing a vital role in the direction of Made In China to Wisdom In China.

Zhuhai Gree Daikin Precision mold Co., Ltd (GDM), located at the bank of Qianshan River, is a large-scale professional precision mold company established by Gree Electric Appliances and Japan Daikin Industries in March 2009, with a registered capital of RMB 395 million, of which Gree Electric Appliances accounts for 51%, and Daikin Industries accounts for 49%, and occupies an area of 40,000 square meters. The company is mainly engaged in the development, production, sales and after-sales service of precision mold (automotive mold, household appliance mold, mold for OA parts, other mold) and molded products. GDM takes "Exceeding Customer Expectations" as the management goal, and strives to create a world-class mold enterprise. In September 2011, GDM passed the ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 system certification. In 2013, GDM was awarded the first batch of high-tech enterprises by the state. In 2014, GDM was awarded the certificate of AEO (Authorised Economic Operator) senior certified enterprise. In 2022, GDM was awarded the speciality, speciality and new enterprise of Zhuhai (cultivation).

GDM has the technology and equipment to provide a complete set of solutions for sheet metal and plastic products, providing one-stop service for customers' products and projects. There are more than 200 sets of various large-scale and precision imported equipment, mainly Makino and Mitsubishi, which can ensure the processing accuracy of 0.001mm in constant temperature and humidity environment and help customers to achieve "perfect quality". With the leading CAE/CAD/CAM technology and advanced ERP system, we can realise the information management of the whole production process and help our customers to achieve "ultra-short delivery time".

Main Competitiveness

The first is the professional technical team, GDM has about 450 people, college and above education staff accounted for more than 50%, technical staff accounted for about 30%, more than a hundred technical team has 12 years of technical experience precipitation, from process analysis, CAE, data review, CAD, design acceptance, material preparation, CAM, to the final output, the whole process is done by the professional team.

The second is logistics, workshop U-shape layout, to ensure efficient logistics, to achieve standardized logistics management, to integrate the assembly line production concept into the discrete production organization process of the mold, to reduce the waste of process turnover, to create a convenient and efficient logistics environment.

The third is information flow, using the EPR system, to achieve standardised information flow management, attach a barcode to each part, fine management for each process, the ERP terminals to check the actual process compared with the production plan, real-time control of the production progress and capacity status, to achieve the "right time and place, by the right people using the right materials and equipment, to produce the right product".

The fourth is high-precision and high-efficiency equipment, mainly using the world's leading equipment brands "Makino" and "Mitsubishi", through the use of similar brands and models of equipment, to achieve standardised equipment management. In recent years, we have CNC five-axis machining centre, CNC gantry machining centre, three-axis vertical machining centre, two sets of Shanghai Tetra WEDM, these machining equipments have greatly improved the production capacity. In the mold manufacturing process, the material is the most basic thing, if mold steel is provided by customer, GDM will first carry out the inspection, using different inspection equipment such as Rockwell hardness tester, flaw detector and spectral analyser, etc., to check the qualification of the mold steel to ensure qualified steel, to avoid cracking issue. Through first-class equipment, leading processing technology and standardised management concepts, it creates an automated, intelligent, unmanned or less-manned production environment, provides staffs with a safe workplace, continuously reduces the working intensity and improves processing efficiency.

Ultra-short delivery time

In order to ensure no delay, GDM implements efficient management measures for personnel, which greatly shortens the mold maufacturing cycle.

New No. 1 project: one time trial (T1) before production, before this project only 15.6% of the mold is qualify (calculated from January to September in 2021) After 40.5% of the mold is qualify, an increase of 24.9% (calculated from October 2021 to December 2022) mainly through the following measures:

1. Will keep diving parts into A (difficult), B (medium) and C (easy) grades, and constantly summarize and analyze the issues of parts of A and B grades, so as to do a good job of technical precipitation and form relevant standards.

2. In the part analysis stage to make a pre-judgement of the product deformation, design the mold as per the pre-judgement, so that the product deformation be in line with the requirements of the drawings. And summarise the pre-deformation data to form a database for the subsequent project with similar parts for reference purpose.

3. Continuously improve the database, and make typical cases study for those molds failing the goal of one time mold trial.

4. Keep using Moldflow2023, Autoform R10 version, DFM-PRO, PDW and other software analysis software to analyze the data to make the deformation data closer to the actual deformation, the introduction of checke analysis software to reduce the problem of omission errors due to manual viewing of products, so that the problem is effectively identified and found in the early stage, set the stage goal of CAE analysis accuracy, and steadily improve the accuracy of CAE analysis. Setting CAE analysis accuracy rate milestones and steadily improve CAE analysis accuracy rate.

5.Control all stages, from part analysis, design, manufacturing, assembly, mold trial, inspection t prevent abnormalities from going to next stage, make things right by one time.

Project No. 2 aims to shorten the mold-making cycle (2020~2022 actual performance, 2023 target). 2020~2021: Implemented measures for efficient management of personnel, which shortened the mold-making cycle. 2022~2023: Invested to achieve IT automation (or semi-automation) to further reduce the lead time.

Education for all staff

Go deep into the education for staffs at the workshop, which can happen anytime, anyplace and for anything, to achieve the management goal of "standard goes first, training before operation, standardized operations", to eliminate the waste of quality and time that may be caused by individual differences of staff. GDM sticks to the implementation of 5S management, all the staffs follows the principle of "say what I do, do what I say", and pursue the goal of "be responsible for my job, be error-free for my job, be assured for my job", to achieve good education for all staffs. The company has been carrying out the project of "full participation, continuous improvement" for a long time, tens of thousands of improvement projects from "a piece of paper, a drop of water", each staff is persistent to their own continuous growth, by which give full play to everyone's ability, personality, passion, enhance the ability of the organization.

GDM’s market distribution at home and abroad, in 2022 the mold export accounted for 60% of GDM total production, to Japan, the United States, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc. GDM will strictly control the mold quality, as once the exported mold occurs the problem overseas, not only will it affect the production of the customer but to carry out mold repairing by sending personnel overseas, which will result in uncontrolled cost, so mold should be 100% OK before leaving the factory.

It has been fourteen years trying the best to make the trip, GDM deeps dive into the precision mold, continue to strive for high precision, high productivity and low energy consumption , so intelligence and digitalization of mold manufacturing helps for industry high-quality development, GDM is always adhering to the ISO9001 quality policy, "to exceed customer expectations as the goal, to create the world's first-class mold enterprise".