How Plastic Injection Molding Becomes Smarter
Interview with Dr. Bastiaan Oud, CEO of Simcon kunststofftechnische Software GmbH
The development and manufacturing of new components and tools in the plastic injection molding process is a highly complex process. Initially, extensive technical simulations are often conducted, which are intended to enable precise design of the corresponding molded parts. This is precisely where the company Simcon excels, which now relies heavily on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the further development of its solutions. In an interview with Wirtschaftsforum, CEO Dr. Bastiaan Oud revealed which changes Simcon is currently particularly focused on and how the company wants to continue to grow in the coming years.
Wirtschaftsforum: Mr. Dr. Oud, for over 30 years, Simcon has been supporting with strong software solutions in the simulation and optimization of plastic injection molding processes - how exactly do you proceed?
Dr. Bastiaan Oud: Our users are mainly engineers who are involved in the design of new parts, focusing on component and tool configuration – and it is in these areas that a lot can go wrong: It is not enough to develop a cavity of the same shape as the component to be produced into which the hot plastic is injected – because when it cools, the mass shrinks, and due to thickness differences at different places, it shrinks unevenly, causing the part to distort and no longer fit accurately into the respective assembly product. Cadmould predicts filling behavior and 3D distortion very precisely based on proven, physics-based models and derives specific measures for mold and process design from it. With Cadmould, customers regularly reduce iteration loops in tool making and shorten tool sampling – this leads to faster series approval and more stable tolerances. In many cases, the number of expensive tool changes can be reduced by more than 50%
Wirtschaftsforum: What role does AI already play in this solution today?
Dr. Bastiaan Oud: Simcon has been active in the market for over 30 years, so we can draw on an enormous pool of data to recalibrate our algorithms in a targeted manner, and of course, to train corresponding AI models, which we have been working on for several years now. Thus, our AI solution Varimos now also understands various cause-effect chains and provides the user with helpful optimization suggestions based on this foundation.
Wirtschaftsforum: How significant will AI-driven changes at Simcon be in the future?
Dr. Bastiaan Oud: I believe it's a question of the time horizon. In several years, value creation from CAD through injection molding simulation to downstream testing and quality processes will be controlled much more holistically by users and will proceed much more seamlessly than today: One will be able to talk to a single AI agent that accesses various software engines in the background: The user interface will shift, and operating the software will become even easier. The AI will then be able to make even more detailed optimization suggestions. However, all this is not only technologically anything but trivial, but also depends heavily on the availability of training data for the agent, who must understand each step as precisely and intricately as an engineer: However, these data often remain, for good reason, proprietary information in the silos of the respective companies.
Wirtschaftsforum: How will Simcon's relationship with its customers change in this context?
Dr. Bastiaan Oud: Despite these changes, we will continue to build on our matured values: at the technological level, these are primarily precision and speed, which in our view are not contradictory. We like to see ourselves as a German engineering company that wants to support its customers with pragmatic perfectionism. Artificial intelligence will not only continue to be incorporated into our company in the form of agent-based models but also in internal service areas - for instance, to shorten support response times and accelerate project executions. Thus, customers benefit more quickly and directly from our solutions. In addition to the DACH region as our home market, we want to establish ourselves more strongly internationally in the future, focusing particularly on the South Asian market and the USA - with the perspective of even achieving higher sales abroad than domestically. To expand our customer base not only geographically but also in individual industry verticals, we have also made extensive changes to our business model and now also offer our solutions as flexible subscription models.
Wirtschaftsforum: What role does ecological sustainability play for you and your customers?
Dr. Bastiaan Oud: Until now, the carbon footprint has often been seen as a retrospective metric that needs to be measured and reported. However, with our simulations, sustainability criteria can be incorporated into the target function from the development stage, so that they can shape engineering decisions just as much as all other relevant factors, and can also be solved within the same optimization problem. This not only creates a holistic view but also lays an important foundation for better, integrated decisions.