Part selection for Freeform Injection Moulding: comparison of alternate approaches using a novel comprehensive methodology

The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of a methodology, which will enable the industrial end-users to identify the potential parts to be manufactured by freeform injection moulding (FIM). Our proposed approach can be used ‘with’ or ‘without’ FIM reference parts. In the reference part-based screening method, the process of part selection starts by identifying the most similar parts (from the end-user part libraries) to some reference parts, which can be produced by FIM, followed by part size classification and cluster analysis based on the importance factors. A multi-criteria decision-making approach is then used to rank the clusters and the parts within each cluster using a user-defined criteria. The identification process without using FIM reference part does not include comparison with the reference parts. In both methods, once the first set of potential parts have been identified, the cost of using FIM is calculated using the developed FIM cost model and compared with the production cost using a conventional manufacturing. The novelty of this research lies in using a comprehensive methodology to compare the suitability of a reference part-based approach with the non-reference part-based approach. The results show that using a reference part-based approach is more suitable for the parts with bigger size.