Progressive Components, Wauconda, Illinois, a developer and distributor of componentry and software for the production tooling industry, has announced three new offerings: the Remote Validation Kit, the ProFile® System and expansion of its Bar Lock Product offering.
Progressive’s new Remote Validation Kit, a product enabling tooling engineers to validate their tools remotely, is a plug and play tool that provides real-time data by connecting the portable system to a CVe monitor on the mold. Then, info is accessible from across the plant or around the world.
The Remote Validation Kit improves the PPAP or IQ/OQ/PQ approval process to help speed molds into production. Additional benefits include:
- For the OEM: Reduce or eliminate the need for tooling engineers to drive or fly back and forth to suppliers’ sites to validate tools.
- For the Molder: Tooling can move into production even if the customer can’t travel on-site. Also provided is a virtual file cabinet for mold documentation, activity reports and process sheets.
- For the Mold Builder: Following the tool build, the qualifying process is expedited.
“The backbone of this capability comes from Progressive’s leadership in mold monitoring,” states Lorena Fisher, OEM sales manager for Progressive Components. “From the first mechanical cycle counter invented in 1993, to developing the first mold management program, ProFile, in 1996, to the CVe Monitoring platform introduced nearly ten years ago, Progressive has the experience and global support team in place.”
To aid tooling managers in keeping track of tools, Progressive has developed ProFile®, a cloud-based asset tracking program. This new system consists of asset tags with a unique QR code that connects a mold’s information to those who need it.
The ProFile asset management system provides:
- Online Filing Cabinet with a capacity of 10GB to store and share essential documents promoting collaboration with all stakeholders.
- Individual asset pages display a GPS map of the last asset scan location.
- Utilize your existing maintenance worksheets, or use PM worksheets provided.
- A standalone approach, or share data with one’s current ERP system.
- In addition to tracking molds, assets can include dies, fixtures and molding machines.
- No long-term contracts or commitments are necessary.
“The system makes it easy to track GPS locations, maintenance, and documents efficiently from a single responsive platform, from anywhere in the world,” states Sujit Sheth, monitoring sales manager for Progressive Components.
Progressive Components has also introduced an expansion of its Z-Series Bar Locks for alignment of large molds and multi-plate sequencing tools.
Bar Locks were first introduced in 2014, and what began as four bars now has expanded to eight, and what started as eight guides now includes twenty. Additionally, a metric series also has been added.
“There are a lot of variables in multi-plate tools,” said Sebastian Jurczak, project engineer at Progressive. “These additions now cover the range for standard plate thicknesses.”
In addition, Progressive now provides Mold-Ready™, custom lengths, as well as corner radii for when a lock pocket is not machined through the full plate width.
“We setup fixturing and optimized the process so that we can ship an altered length with pocket radii, for only the cost of about one shop hour,” added Jurczak.
Uniquely suited towards complex molds for packaging and medical applications, Bar Locks offer Progressive’s patented Z-Series technology.
“Others may offer a warranty that their product isn’t defective, but independent testing shows they score and gall after 50,000 cycles,” states Progressive’s president Glenn Starkey. “Only Progressive offers a warranty for the actual performance longevity, so that a mold will close in perfect alignment for the life of the program.”
For more information, visit www.procomps.com.
