Indiana Business Magazine
May 2004
ToolingNet
An advanced-manufacturing partnership backed by the
21st Century Fund.
by Kathy McKimmie
With the steady loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs, the Indiana
General Assembly took action in 1999, creating the 21st Century
Research and Technology Fund to leverage other grants and
investments, stimulate growth and diversify Indiana’s jobs for the
future.
The seed money provided to a grantee, typically less than $2 million in
a two-year period, helps develop and commercialize advanced
technologies primarily through partnerships between the state's
universities and the private sector. Since its inception, the fund has
approved $109 million on 85 projects that total $342 million when
combined with matching funds from other sources. The next round of
21st Century projects, divvying up an additional $20 million in state
funds, will be announced in the fall from applications received this
month.
"There’s a tremendous demand for 21st Century funding," says Tony
Armstrong, the fund’s director. "Unfortunately, we’re not able to fund as
many as we’d like." The approval rate has run about 12 to 15 percent
since the program began, he says. In the last round, 117 were
received but only 21 were approved.
The tough choices on who gets what is made by out-of-state peer
reviewers (to avoid conflict) who follow the same basic guidelines as
the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation in
awarding their grants, says Armstrong. A cash and in-kind match must
be at least one-for-one. Projects approved to date have ranged from
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development of entertainment video over the Internet to minimally
invasive orthopedic implants to fire-retardant plastic fiber-optic cable.
The basis of manufacturing.
One project that’s trying to take a common part of the manufacturing
process and make it shine is ToolingNet, which received $1.7 million
from the fund last year to develop an online collaborative marketplace
for the state’s tooling industry.
ToolingNet focuses its attention on one of the most primary aspects of
manufacturing: tooling. For the creation of metal parts, for example,
the tooling industry turns out machine tools used in the cutting,
shaping or finishing of materials. "In plastics, it’s called a mold and it’s
a negative impression of a part that you want to make," says J.R.
Spitznogle, president of Indianapolis-based Global Plastics.
"Tooling is really the basis for any manufacturing," says Nainesh
Rathod, president and CEO of Imaginestics, a 2-year-old software
development company located in the Purdue Research Park that’s
operating as the project manager of the grant. "Every manufacturer
has to build tooling to produce a part," he says, whether it’s metal
castings or molds for plastics. If costs can be reduced and efficiencies
gained through a streamlined online process, Indiana companies can
gain a competitive edge and retain and grow jobs.
Karthik Ramani, Purdue professor and director of the Purdue
Research and Education Center for Information Systems in
Engineering (PRECISE), West Lafayette, developed the ToolingNet
proposal in cooperation with other players that could make it happen:
Vincennes University, Tri-State University in Angola, Ivy Tech State
College, WeToolIT in Fort Wayne, the Indiana Manufacturers
Association, the National Tooling Manufacturing Association and
several individual companies. Since then, the Midwest Association of
Plastics Processors and the American Foundry Society have joined in,
as well as dozens more companies.
Eventually, Indiana manufacturers will be able to use ToolingNet as a
one-stop virtual shop to find an expert, share best practices, get
access to breakthrough design technologies in the metal-casting and
plastics industries, take online classes from participating universities,
solicit bids from vendors, and participate in online forums and surveys.
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ToolingNet will seamlessly link every part of the supply chain, from
original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to designers to suppliers.
Ramani also serves as chief scientist of Imaginestics and is part
owner. He was president of WeToolIT, the forerunner of ToolingNet
that was acquired by Imaginestics in April 2003. ToolingNet applies the
latest advanced-manufacturing techniques learned from research
conducted at PRECISE. With an earlier $1.1 million 21st Century Fund
grant, Ramani developed a computer-aided direct rapid tooling design
and digital manufacture program that can dramatically reduce the
design time and expense in the development stage. "Imaginestics is
the entity that takes ToolingNet and makes it real," he says.
Since the project began a year ago, the computer infrastructure has
been built and more companies have been approached to sign on to
try it out and help work out the bugs. Seventy companies are now
members, says Rathod.
Sam Lombard, president of Indiana Precision Plastics, Williamsport,
became a ToolingNet fan after hooking up with Ramani’s rapid tooling
process a couple years ago through Purdue’s Technical Assistance
Program. "Rapid tooling gives the tooling designer an opportunity to
make changes in the same mold," he explains. By making it in
segments, the designer can take out a section or make a new portion.
For example, a cup could be the basic mold and the software could
add a handle or two handles, without making an entirely new mold.
The software will be able to predict the relative cost of the part upfront. With some tweaking of the design, the designer will get
immediate feedback on potential cost savings. ToolingNet could then
automatically find members within a 60-mile radius, for instance, who
are able to make the part and solicit bids.
"The key point here and the major reason we’re losing business is
because of low labor costs offshore," says Lombard. If the costs of
making the molds can be reduced the total bid price will be kept down
and job loss will be minimized. "That’s not to say that in a year or two
they can’t copy what we’re doing, but it will help for now."
Global Plastics is a vertically integrated injection-molding company
with in-house engineering and tooling capabilities providing products in
the automotive, medical component and packaging areas. Spitznogle
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says his company became a partner in the ToolingNet project to share
its insights on the process of tool design and how tooling providers
collaborate with customers, who may be OEMs in a variety of
industries.
"They’re working with OEMs and working with us to say ‘here’s how we
go about doing business,’" he says. To make ToolingNet work,
Spitznogle says its developers needed to learn more about "what
OEMs and manufacturers talk to each other about."
"Speed to market is key, and making it right the first time," Spitznogle
adds. He sees ToolingNet as especially useful for helping OEMs
conceive of a product that tooling manufacturers and parts suppliers
will be able to deliver quickly and successfully. "It is probably more for
an OEM to help in the design process," he says, allowing them to
design parts that are more readily manufactured, then hook up with a
capable vendor.
ToolingNet is free for users until the grant ends in mid-2005. The plan
then, says Ramani, is to create a not-for-profit company to run with the
idea, with trade associations playing a big part in encouraging their
members to sign up to use the services for a fee. Imaginestics is
working with the state of Michigan on a similar program.
Universities team up.
The success of ToolingNet depends on the marriage of a research
university, Purdue, with the training capabilities of other institutions: TriState University, Ivy Tech State College and Vincennes University.
"Research at universities takes too long to get to the general public,"
says Forrest Flocker, assistant professor mechanical engineering at TriState. "At Tri-State, we’re producing educational content for the
ToolingNet Web site, for example: learning modules for the casting
industry." If a company is considering changing its process or
expanding production, Flocker says, it will be able to click on castings
link of the site and find information on 40 different types of casting.
Online seminars, called Webinars, will be offered on ToolingNet, says
Flocker, which can be real-time. You can also find an expert and chat
online. "The whole thing is to help the manufacturing industry in
Indiana, mainly suppliers in the automotive industry." Indiana has the
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trained people, he stresses, but the manufacturing processes need to
be improved to be competitive.
Dan Flick, instructor of CAD/CAM and computer numerical control at
Ivy Tech State College in Indianapolis, says he doesn’t want to
reinvent the wheel with his involvement in ToolingNet. "What you want
is sort of a machining handbook for the Internet." Beginning this
summer, Ivy Tech will put interactive or text-based reference and
learning modules online. The information could be of particular value to
small companies, he says, because larger companies have laid off
workers and are looking to outsource work that used to be done inhouse.
Each of the universities involved in ToolingNet brings its particular
expertise to the project, says John Ludlow, assistant vice president
statewide business and industry training at Vincennes University. For
Vincennes, that includes tool and die and injection molding. In order to
stay competitive, companies must strive for continuous improvement in
processes using robots or automated machinery, he says. "The part
doesn’t look a whole lot more sophisticated than it did 20 years ago,
but the way they’re going about it is much more sophisticated."
For more information, phone 317.692.1200
a Curtis Magazines Inc. publication
55 Monument Circle Suite 300, Indianapolis, IN 46204
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