24 August 2010
This 175 people company, established in 1967 in Niigata area, is a precision mould maker specialized for designing and producing plastic parts of very small size. Like plastic gears for electronic devices, with diameter less than 10 mm. It is high precision work, and the mechanical tolerances to be reached are about the micron. Parts are controlled by microscopic vision, and a size of a mould can be less than 100 mm. Taking account all the material and heat problems, it means a high end and very particular knowledge that is really part of the company culture.
As explained by Mr Katsuhiro Kamimura, it is very important that the company peoples are able to understand and take care of the whole process. Everything is linked, and such tremendous precision results can not be obtained without a great polyvalence of the staff. So the company is encouraging people to move from studies to manufacturing, from manufacturing to quality and so on. Hakkai is now using 9 TopSolid’Mold seats.
The complete mould design is done in 3D, and it allows avoiding errors and improving greatly the precision of the parts. Machining is performed mostly using wire Edm cutting. It was something unbelievable for Christian Arber that such precision could be reached and mastered when so much parameters and processes are involved. Integration between design and manufacturing, not only reflected in the means (CAD/CAM, machines...), but also in the staff brains. A culture is certainly the key point of this incredible technical success story.
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