The earth is a watery planet. Two thirds of the earth surface is ocean. The land is covered with lakes, rivers, and streams. The earth is like a sponge soaking up rain. Water collects in aquifers deep below and flows downward to join lakes and oceans. Human bodies range from about 60 to 80 percent water content. Water is the fluid that carries nourishment to living cells of organisms that depend upon it to sustain life.

Rain falls daily on the planet surface and is vaporized off the surfaces of the earth and its water bodies. Vapor is cooled in the atmosphere and collects in the clouds in tiny droplets. These clouds eventually become laden and release their droplets and rain that falls to the earth’s surface. The heating and cooling cycles of the earth function as a global distiller wherein the sun’s rays vaporize water later to be condensed and fall to earth as rain. Rain is distilled water, water that has been purified by vaporization and condensation. As rain drops, it picks up tiny particles and pathogens that hang in the air. On the earth rain water mingles with bacteria, chemicals, minerals, and pathogens in the earth’s oceans and land. This wonderfully pure distilled rain drop is progressively sullied on its return cycle to earth. The development of the industrial revolution has introduced many new toxins into the environment that end up in the earth’s soil and water bodies. That is why that despite the fact that water is ubiquitous many humans do not have access to safe and health drinking water.

The word plastic derives from the Greek plastikos- fit for molding and plastos- molded. Plastic is a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the industrial or commercial products. Plastics are polymers of high molecular mass, that may contain other substances to reduce costs or improve performance. Modern manufacturing processes allow them to be pressed, cast, or extruded into different kinds of shapes—such as bottles, fibers, boxes, plates, films, and much more.

There are two types of plastics:

Thermosets, that can melt and take shape once, and stay solid after they have solidified,
Thermoplastics, that will soften and melt when enough heat is applied, for example: polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, polyethylene, and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE).
Plastics can be classified by the chemical process used in their synthesis; for example, as cross-linking, condensation or polyaddition.

Plastics can also be classified by their chemical structure, for example, silicone, halogenated plastics, polyesters, polyurethanes or the acrylics.

They can also be ranked by various physical properties, such as tensile strength, resistance to various chemical products, density, glass transition temperature, etc.

Other classifications are based on qualities that are relevant for manufacturing or product design, for example, electrically conductive, elastomer, biodegradable, structural, the thermoplastic and thermoset, etc.

Plastics have already displaced many traditional materials, such as paper, wood, stone, leather, metal, glass, horn and bone; and ceramic.

They are used in a huge range of products because they can easily be manufactured, they are relatively low cost and imperviousness to water and versatility.

The term “Brainstorming” is commonly understood as a process in which a group of problem solvers “kick around ideas.” The phrase “kick around ideas” is apropos because few people are schooled in methodology for conducting creative development meetings. Just as there are management consultants who train managers on how to optimize meeting agendas, there also are specialized consultants to train managers to effectively run creative ideation meetings. This article outlines some of the basic tools and sequences that a professional creative meeting facilitator might use to organize a group of talented people for problem solving.

The meeting must begin with a Client. The client is the representative who presents the problem to be solved. This is the person who is in a position to judge if progress is moving satisfactorily toward a solution. For example, suppose that the client works for a medical device company. Let’s suppose that they wish to develop a new product for which a pump is required that can be manufactured for a given price, within a given size and weight, have a delivery capacity, and be actuated by an operator in as specified manner. The group would then be charged to offer alternatives for how this might be achieved.

The meeting must have a facilitator who is leads the meeting. This person selects the participants who should cover a range of disciplines that relate to the various aspects of the client objective. The meeting begins with a statement from the client an the objective. That statement is recorded on some media such as white board or large pad of paper. The meeting requires a scribe who records the notes so that all can read them.

Conceptually, die casting is a manufacturing process and requires articulate calculations to create the required outputs. This process injects liquid material into different molds to solidify the mold. The amalgamation results in different fabricated parts The primal benefit of casting process allows manufactures to create specific parts that are not economically feasible to create on the general assembly line. Million of parts that are made via die casting process could not have been achieved otherwise since the cost of producing certain items are not economical or even production possible.

any form of casting is a labor intensive process that requires a specific skill set. all processes from temperature building, quantity and quality of the liquid to be injected, form and shape of the mold, to the coolness technique of the output products all require specific skill sets. Without an accomplished team, it become very difficult for die casting manufactures to delivery quality products.

Die casting is a similar process in which molten metal is put under high pressure into the cavities of steel molds. The molds are called dies. The dies also come in different shapes and varieties in properties. Die casting process is heavily used in the automotive industry to create different body parts.
http://advantagetool.us/mats/die_casting/

Great products don't happen purely by accident. There is a process by which products are developed that channels creativity with disciplined logical processes. There are clear phases during which a shifting mindset is applied that comprise a continuum that begins with dominant right-brain thinking and culminates in dominant left-brain thinking. Over this continuum ideas freely flow and expand at the initiation phase whereas technical factors and focus on detail are applied to complete precise specificity of product form for the conclusion of the program.

Ideation, commonly associated with the term "brainstorming" is the beginning phase of the product development process. The scope of ideation is related to some specified objective to develop a product that will serve some desired end use. That specified objective can be parameterized by numerous factors that characterize the overall goal. The goal can be driven by market opportunities relating to functionality, cost, size, appearance, features, or on some unique invention embodiments. The goal can be to discover some unique invention embodiment to meet a particular market or research goal. Regardless of the goal, the development process must progress though this continuum of phases to become viable. Ideation is a light hearted process wherein the mind is given liberty to freely express ideas that in turn stimulate other ideas that flow in a synergistic manner to surround the development goal.

In the modern world of product development, 3D CAD (computer-aided-design) and CAE (computer-aided-engineering) are the principle tools for developing products for manufacturing. http://www.cadmodels.biz/creativity_in_product_development.html

Summary

Rapid prototyping quickly verifies designs and reduces development time and cost. In today's rapidly changing marketplace, product development cycles have been compressed into weeks for what may have taken months or years in the past. Computer-Aided Design, or CAD, has revolutionized the way products are developed, and offers the designer a wide range of options to physically build parts and assemblies to validate form, fit and function. This article will discuss the use of CAD models in rapid prototyping to verify designs as it pertains to injection molding and die casting.

Summary

Since the 1940's, demand for high-volume, low-cost manufacturing has increased dramatically. One of the best ways to produce many parts that are dimensionally the same is through plastic injection-molding. And as advances in materials and mold making technology continue, injection molding will increasingly become the manufacturing choice. This article will discuss the application of injection molding for prototype validation and manufacturing.

Since the earliest days of rapid prototyping, experts have envisioned the application of the technology in the manufacturing process, and the focus of this vision has been on the initial cost and time savings that are realized when tooling is eliminated. However, the relative impact pales in comparison to the wide ranging advantages that exist when rapid manufacturing is implemented.

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is the name given to the production of series or end-use component parts made using additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) processes. ALM processes take three dimensional Computer aided Design (3D-CAD) data and directly print or grow parts in a variety of materials.

Although RM remains in its infancy, with up-take restricted almost exclusively to large scale OEM's and technology focused research firms, the technology has been cited as leading towards a second industrial revolution for the digital age, where it could have a significant impact on business, society, the economy and the environment.

Because RM has the potential to change the paradigm of global manufacturing, it is undoubtedly of increasing importance in both further and higher education. To-date however, RM focused learning tools have been restricted to printed materials, static web based resources and on-line multimedia content produced by technology vendors to stimulate sales.

The prime concerns of manufacturing engineers are productivity and quality. The daily challenge is to ensure maximum production quantity while adhering to the specified quality standards. Jigs & fixtures are essential tools to achieve these aims.

SLS, or "Selective Laser Sintering," is one of many additive fabrication techniques used in rapid prototyping today. SLS shows a lot of promise as it provides us with an opportunity to, not only, exceed in rapid prototyping, but also make advances in technology toward rapid manufacturing. The process uses a laser to fuse small particles into parts ideal for functional applications directly from 3D CAD data. The parts are created layer by layer using a wide scope of nylon, metal, and polymer powders. SLS shares many similarities with other additive technologies such as SLA, FDM and DMLS. The machine first reads the provided 3D CAD and then scans each cross-section before creating the first layer. After the first layer has been created, the tray, on which the parts are sintered, is lowered by one layer. The next layer of material is then added and the process is repeated layer by layer until the part is created.

FDM (Short for "Fused Deposition Modeling") is an additive fabrication process which creates very strong parts from 3D Cad data. The materials used in FDM include ABS plastic, Polycarbonate (PC), Polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) and Wax. FDM machines function very similarly to a glue gun in the sense that a nozzle is heated which ejects a stream of molten material. After heated to a semi-liquid state, this material is extruded from the nozzle to form layers. The layer is traced out then filled in with the material in both horizontal and vertical directions. The nozzle is both temperature-controlled and can turn on and off the flow. The material can either go in one end as small beads of thermoplastic material or thermoplastic material which is unwound from a coil. The material hardens immediately after the extrusion allowing a flow of material to gradually form layer after layer. The only downside of FDM is that it produces very grainy parts. The real advantage of this process is that these parts are very tough.