The World now aims at the trend of Industry 4.0. Industrial sectors such as automotive, motorcycle, electrical, and other sectors that can be mass production are working towards this manufacturing model in order to generate more productivity. Besides the upgrade of manufacturing facility, the upgrade of operation of molds and dies is also crucial to improve productivity. Highly efficient mold and die change is a key to achieve smart manufacturing. This is the critical step.

President Hsiao of Forwell said that the introduction of quick die and mold change system is a must do in order to achieve smart manufacturing; such as the utilization of pallet switch system for the automotive sheet metal processing, which belongs to the clamp system regarding the QDCS mechanism. In the 3C sector, small dies are utilized to produce the end-products, and the system is more on universal smart QDCS.

Hsiao pointed out that nowadays the development of automotive components are to be light, environmental protective and lower cost. Many compound materials except certain metal sheets like pure irons, others are treated differently, such as plastics, iron, aluminum, are made to be more endurable. With the newly updated physical features, one die set can achieve many procedures at once, rather than utilizing many dies for one workpiece. Moreover, this also make the die with better precision.

President Hsiao shared that, the basic requirement for the automotive components are to be environmentally friendly and better lifespan. The goal of compact, green, and durable is necessary and the selection of materials need to be recyclable. These efforts together make a car easier to be repaired and the component repair to be easier. Consequently, now the production of vehicle components is of modular production model, which exploits molds and dies in a even higher frequency. The mold/ die change plays a very important role in the modern production.

For automotive and motorcycle sectors, smart manufacturing can achieve advanced productivity as well as quality, while lowering the cost and stock. These altogether increase manufacturers’ competitiveness in the market and advance products’ quality, quantity by cycle, and smart manufacturing steps. These efforts eventually lead to the upgrade of the business.

President Hsiao further pointed out that, the life time of vehicles becomes shorter due to the exploitation of car styles, functions, technological devices, and audio visual equipment, so it is a trend that “High-Mix/Low-Volume Production” model is the primary production model in the sector. And this will further activate the demands for molds and dies, so that the management method of molds and dies which would be changed, and a productive management of dies and molds is very crucial to business owners.

Forwell continues to dedicate itself into the goal of Industry 4.0 by developing smart machinery. Now the company is able to offer an integrated system that includes mold/ die change, transmission, carry, storage, warehousing, and maintain. This smart mold/ die management system, especially the mold/ die transmission system and automatic mold/ die storage system are in mass production for customers’ demands and the mold/ die maintenance is about to complete. The whole system can assist manufacturers in metal forming and plastics injection sectors to deal with complicated manufacturing procedures with easier, safer, more systematic management model.