Date：2025-06-10 Views：1004
Table of Contents
The PIM industry is centered around component production, which is divided into captive and custom molders. Captive molders produce components for internal use, integrating PIM parts into final assemblies. Custom molders serve external clients, offering specialized PIM services. The industry is supported by two parallel supply routes: polymer and powder suppliers, and feedstock compounders. Equipment fabricators focus on providing mixers, molders, debinding, and sintering devices, while other suppliers offer consumables such as processing atmospheres, substrates, and tooling. Lawyers, researchers, consultants, and designers also play adjunct roles in the industry.
Figure 14.1 illustrates the conceptual layout of the PIM industry, highlighting component fabricators as the key actors. Table 14.1 compares the global characteristics of the PIM industry for the years 1997 and 2000, showing significant growth in sales, number of operations, and production capacity. The PIM field has experienced compound annual sales growth of 22%, accompanied by a 34% increase in the number of operations. As outsourcing becomes the standard for multinational firms, custom PIM fabrication is expected to expand further.
The PIM industry comprises firms at various stages of development, from evaluation mode to full-scale production. These stages are characterized as follows:
Level 0 - Evaluation Mode: Involves a small technical and business effort designed to learn more about PIM. Typically includes in-house trials and testing new concepts, with no measurable sales or profits.
Level 1 - Pilot Mode: Represents companies with some capabilities, examining possible products and developing new customers. Usually involves purchased equipment and single-cavity tooling, with marginal profitability.
Level 2 - Small-Scale Production Mode: Companies have entered production, often with a single shift and low equipment utilization (10 to 30%). Feedstock use is typically less than 5 tons per year.
Level 3 - Full-Scale Production Mode: Companies with a history of constant parts production, operating 24 hours a day up to 7 days a week. This group dominates sales and profits.
Figure 14.2 outlines the typical maturation curve from startup to full production, showing profits versus sales. Most firms start in Level 0 with a fixed annual expense and transition to Level 1 pilot efforts. As business grows, profitability emerges, though dips may occur with additional production shifts and equipment. Sustained profitability is achieved in Level 3.
Evaluating financial data for PIM involves determining where to assign value. For example, the sale price of a PIM orthodontic bracket can vary significantly depending on the stage of production and added value. Table 14.3 provides a statistical profile of the operating characteristics of the top 25 PIM production operations. These top operations account for a significant portion of industry sales, employment, and profit, with metallic component production being dominant.
The PIM industry is geographically distributed across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The Americas account for 43% of companies and 50% of sales, with the majority of jobs. Europe follows with 36% of companies and 27% of sales, while Asia accounts for 21% of companies and 23% of sales. Within Europe, Germany is the dominant player, followed by Switzerland, France, and the UK. In Asia, Japan leads, followed by Taiwan and Singapore. New company creation is increasing in regions such as Brazil, China, and Eastern Europe.
The PIM industry is dominated by metallic production, which accounts for the majority of sales and employment. Alumina and silica production generate a significant portion of jobs, followed by the production of steels and stainless steels. Figure 14.5 shows the employment distribution across specific materials. Figure 14.6 highlights the focus of PIM companies on metals, ceramics, and cemented carbides. Figure 14.7 illustrates the relative powder usage by material segment, reflecting the high density of metals versus ceramics.
The PIM industry relies on a diverse vendor and supplier base. Key equipment includes mixers, molders, debinding apparatus, and sintering furnaces. Feedstock is available from more than 12 different sources, while effective PIM mixers are supplied by 4 firms. Molding machines are fabricated by over 100 companies, with at least 6 focusing on PIM. Debinding systems and production sintering furnaces are available from several firms. The supplier base is now diverse, with most feedstock suppliers having capacities that exceed demands.
Productivity in the PIM industry can be measured using parameters such as sales per employee, sales per molding machine, and more. The industry average sales per employee in 2002 was near $120,000 per year, with Level 3 operations generating much higher values. Figure 14.9 shows the distribution of sales per employee for full-scale PIM operations, highlighting significantly high sales productivity at top firms. Ratios such as parts per year per molder are also good indicators of operational productivity.
Q: What is the powder injection molding process, and how does it differ between metals and ceramics?
A: The powder injection molding process is a hybrid between plastic injection molding and technologies that rely on sintering, such as ceramics, powder metallurgy, and cemented carbides. It uses a mixture of powder and polymer to form a feedstock that can be heated and molded in a cold die. The feedstock freezes in the die and the shaped powder is ejected. Subsequent removal of the polymer and sintering causes the powder to densify, providing a smaller component with the shape complexity created by molding. Subcategories are based on the specific materials, but all variants are based on injection, molding the powder prior to sintering.
Q: How is powder injection molding different from traditional ceramics and powder metallurgy?
A: A key difference is in the shaping process. Powder injection molding uses sintering to densify the structure formed from the powder-polymer feedstock. Densification occurs in the sintering step since the forming pressures are too low to deform the particles. The low forming pressures allow molding of more complicated features. In uniaxial die pressing the pressures are high and the ejection step dictates simple geometries to minimize tool damage. Further in press and sinter technologies the density gradients lead to a decision to under-sinter the structure to avoid warpage, but uniform sintering shrinkage in PIM allows densification to high property levels.
Q: How large of a component can PIM fabricate?
A: The record is 1600 kg (3500 lb) out of alumina for a steel processing application. But this is extraordinary. In routine production, there are a few examples in the 18 kg (40 lb) range. For large-scale production, even these are not common, but several components are near 300 g (0.66 lb) with fabrication rates of thousands per month.
Q: What is the thickest component feature possible by PIM?
A: The rate of heat transfer, important in molding, debinding, and sintering, is thickness dependent. A natural goal is to increase productivity by keeping the thickness small. Hence, section thicknesses are reduced where possible. In current production, the thickest section is 125 mm (5 inch). More routine is less than 10 mm (0.4 inch).
Q: What is the thinnest wall thickness possible by PIM?
A: Demonstration components have been fabricated down to 10 pm (0.0004 inch), but with difficulty and expense. Components at 100 pm (0.004 inch) wall thickness are in production. And when the wall thickness reaches 1 mm (0.040 inch) there is little difficulty.
Q: What shapes are best by PIM?
A: Think plastic injection molding. Generally the same shapes are possible using powders.
Q: What materials are the most common?
A: In ceramics the alumina-based compositions are most common. Silica (SiO2) is also widely available. In the metallic systems, low alloy steels and stainless steels are most common, due to powder availability. Other common materials are cemented carbides (WC-Co), tungsten (W), tungsten-copper (W-Cu), and special materials such as molybdenum (Mo), nickel alloys, copper alloys, cobalt alloys, electronic alloys, and various nitrides, oxides, and carbides.
Q: What is a typical tool cost?
A: The cost is similar to plastics, and generally a two- to four-cavity mold is recommended with a cost from $15,000 to $35,000, depending on details and delivery. As more features are added (slides, unscrewing motions) the cost increases. At the extreme, a large 36-blade heat engine tool set (single cavity, 200 mm or 8 inch diameter) for silicon carbide molding costs $100,000. Simple tools cost just $2,000 for an insert mold.
Q: How long from concept to full production?
A: The lead time is usually dictated by the customer design cycle, first article evaluation, purchasing negotiations, and vendor qualifications. Automotive components went from CAD drawing to production in less than 2 months. PIM products for the microelectronics industry often reach production rates of 1 million per month within 8 weeks from drawing submission.
Q: What is the expected production life for a tool?
A: The answer is very dependent on the powder and dimensional tolerances. For an abrasive material, such as coarse alumina, the tool may need reworking every 50,000 shots. This can be accomplished using a chromium electroplate to replace lost material. On the other hand, a smooth, lower hardness stainless steel powder has been shot 2,000,000 times with no tool wear. For many materials about 500,000 shots is realistic, after which some reconditioning is recommended.
Conceptual Framework: What do companies do that makes them leaders - measured by growth, innovations, sales, or profits? Who are these leaders? Questions on leadership are common as PIM gains widespread notice. Often confusion occurs since there are several different ways to measure and rank performance. Formally, best is associated with a high productivity. Leaders are the ones that set the pace for the future. In many cases, the terms "best” and “leading” are associated with a combination of quality, cost, and performance. A financial view might be based on investment performance. As prospective employees, we might want to look at stability, growth, and opportunities for personal development. We are attracted to the leaders because they set the metrics for success and often develop the new markets. Benchmarking efforts include a contrast and comparison with the leaders. Further, a properly executed benchmarking exercise maps the changes needed to become a leading firm.
Industry Structure: Technology is an ingredient in being best, but the systems management perspective is the discriminator between operations. The best firms have established systems that address a wide array of issues. In other words, world-class PIM firms that we label as the best have learned to manage the total system via business practices and customer and vendor relations.
In any PIM organization there are five fundamental segments. On top of the organization is the central MANAGEMENT with the vision, systems view, and structure required to balance and coordinate the diverse inputs from the underlying OPERATIONS, MARKETING, FINANCE, and ENGINEERING. For a fully operational PIM production house (24 hours a day, 7 days a week), the distribution of costs is approximately 5 to 8% MANAGEMENT, 60 to 70% OPERATIONS, 15 to 20% MARKETING, 5% FINANCE, and 2 to 8% ENGINEERING. Initially there is an emphasis on ENGINEERING. As success occurs, each PIM operation should mature to match the profile of a production house.
Attributes of World-Class Operations: The world-class PIM operations compete against each other, even though they are located around the world. They are recognized by their consistently high quality products and quantitative performance advantages. Indeed the leaders are innovators that set the agenda for the rest of the industry. These firms are well-planned enterprises that have allocated resources to reach their goals.
Top performance in PIM is distributed around the world, and is not aligned with any one binder technology. In terms of attributes consider the top 5% of the PIM industry is categorized as follows:
Custom versus captive; 37% of the production is for captive use, 63% for outside customers
Geographic distribution; 20% are Asian, 27% are European, and 53% are North American
Primary material focus; 77% are metallic, 20% are ceramic, and 3% are cemented carbides
Debinding practice; 35% use thermal, 19% use solvent, 19% use catalytic, 3% use drying, and the balance use a mixture of technologies
Molding pressure; 87% use high pressure molding, 13% use low pressures
Feedstock; about 80% of the feedstock is mixed in-house
Mixers; they own 20% of the installed mixers
Molding capacity; they own 26% of the installed molding capacity
Furnaces; they own 19% of the installed furnaces
Sintering capacity; their furnaces tend to be larger, consequently they control 49% of the installed sintering capacity
Sales; they account for 63% of the annual PIM industry sales
Employment; they account for 42% of the industry employment
Profits; they account for 81% of the industry profit.
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