Technology-Push Products

In developing technology-push products, the firm begins with a new proprietary technology and looks for an appropriate market in which to apply this technology (that is, the technology "pushes" development). Gore-Tex, an expanded Teflon sheet manufactured by W L. Gore Associates, is a striking example of technology push. The company has developed dozens of products incorporating Gore-Tex, including artificial veins for vascular surgery, insulation for high-performance electric cables, fabric for outerwear, dental floss, and liners for bagpipe bags. Many successful technology-push products involve basic materials or basic process technologies. This may be because basic materials and processes are deployed in thousands of applications, and there is therefore a high likelihood that new and unusual characteristics of materials and processes can be matched with an appropriate application. The generic product development process can be used with minor modifications for technology-push products. The technology-push process begins with the planning phase, in which the given technology is matched with a market opportunity. Once this matching has occurred, the remainder of the generic development process can be followed. The team includes an assumption in the mission statement that the particular technology will be embodied in the product concepts considered by the team. Although many extremely successful products have arisen from technology-push development, this approach can be perilous. The product is unlikely to succeed unless (1) the assumed technology offers a clear competitive advantage in meeting customer needs, and (2) suitable alternative technologies are unavailable or very difficult for competitors to utilize. Project risk can possibly be minimized by simultaneously considering the merit of a broader set of concepts which do not necessarily incorporate the new technology. In this way the team verifies that the product concept embodying the new technology is superior to the alternatives. 
Development Processes and Organizations

References and Bibliography
Many current resources are available on the Internet via
www.ulrich-eppinger.net
Stage-gate product development processes have been dominant in manufacturing firms
for the past 30 years. Cooper describes the modem stage-gate process and many of its
enabling practices.
Cooper, Robert G., Winning at New Products: Accelerating the Process from Idea to
Launch, third edition, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2001.
 

Screw threads

Screw threads are complex helical forms and their detailed characteristics in terms of such things as angles, root diameter, pitch circle diameter and radii are closely defined by ISO standards. Thus, if the designation 'M8' appears on a drawing it would appear at first sight to be very loosely defined but this is far from the case. Screw threads are closely defined in the standard ISO 6410, parts 1, 2 and 3:1993. The 'M8' designation automatically refers to the ISO 68-1:1998, ISO 6410-1, 2 and 3:1993 standards in which things like the thread helix angle, the vee angles and the critical diameters are fully defined. Thus, as far as screw threads are concerned, there is no need to do a full drawing of a screw thread to show that it is a screw thread. This takes time and costs money. The convention for drawing an engineering thread is shown using a combination of ISO type A and B lines as shown in the drawings in Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3. A screw thread is represented by two sets of lines, one referring to the crest of the thread (type A line) and the other referring to the roots of the thread (type B line). These can be seen for a bolt and a hole in Figures 3.5 and 3.6. This representation can be used irrespective of the exact screw thread. For example, on the vice assembly drawing in Figure 3.1, the screw thread on the bush screw (part number 5) and the jaw clamp screw (part number 6) are very different. In the real vice, the former is a standard vee-type thread whereas the latter is a square thread. Line thicknesses become complicated when a male-threaded bolt is assembled in a female-threaded hole. The thread crest lines of the bolt become the root lines of the hole and vice versa. This means that in an assembly, lines change from being thick to thin and vice versa. This is shown in the vice assembly drawing in Figure 3.1, with respect to the bush screw (part number 5)/jaw clamp screw (part number 6) assembly.

Engineering Drawing for Manufacture
by Brian Griffiths
Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology Books
 

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND BLOW MOLDING

Blow Molding (BM) process makes it possible to manufacture molded products economically, in unlimited quantities, with virtually no finishing required. The basic process of blow molding involves a softened thermoplastic hollow form which is inflated against the cooled surface of a closed mold. The expanded plastic form solidifies into a hollow product. Blow molded components are now seen all over the markets and industries for traditional materials, particularly in liquid packaging applications. The last few decades saw the introduction of polyethylene (PE) squeeze bottles for washing liquids, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for cooking oil and fruits squash bottles, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for carbonated beverage bottles. Nowadays, it is also used for the production of toys, automobile parts, accessories and many engineering components. Blow Molding Process is intended also for manufacturing of most automotive parts and accessories. Below are some of the car plastics parts that are being produced by blow molding process. The use of plastics parts make our car more light weight and helps our car run faster. Extrusion Blow Molding Machine Parts and Functions • Extruder Motor—Drives the screw in the barrel to rotate and push the melted material into the die head. • Gearbox—Reduces the speed of the extruder motor into a required speed enough to push the material into the die head. • Hopper—A feed reservoir into which the material is loaded. • Extruder—A part of the machine that accepts solid resin material, conveys it in a surrounding barrel by means of a rotating screw, melts the material by means of heaters, and pumps it under pressure into the die head. • Cooling Fans—Cools down the barrel during machine shut down to prevent the material from degradation. • Heating Bands—Device attached on the barrel and the die head used to melt the solid material at a required set temperature. • Die Head—Used to form the melted resin into a parison and also used for adjusting the characteristics of molten resin to create a stable parison. • Die & Pin—Used to align the flow of parison to get a good and centered parison. • Hot Cutter—Cuts the parison after the mold is closed for the blowing process. • Blow Pin—Used to blow compressed air into the parison to inflate it after the mold has been closed and form the desired design of the mold. • Mold—A hollow form or a cavity into which a molten plastic material, called parison, is introduced to give the shape of the required component. • Deflasher—Used to cut the excess material on the bottle which is called a flash material (top and bottom). • Post Cooling—A part of the machine that is used to cool down the inside of the bottle, to lessen the cooling time required inside the mold. • Article Discharge—A part of the machine used to take the bottle out.

Higher Institute for Plastics Fabrication
WORKBOOK for Extrusion Blow Molding
Practical Course
Prepared by
Extrusion Blow Molding Department

Flats on cylindrical or shaped surfaces

It is not always obvious that surfaces are flat when they are on otherwise curved, cylindrical or spherical surfaces. In this case, flat surfaces such as squares, tapered squares and other flat surfaces may be indicated by thin 'St Andrew' cross type diagonal lines. An example of this is shown in the entirely fictitious gear shaft in Figure 3.17. The extreme right-hand end of the shaft has a reduced diameter and approximately half of this cylindrical length has been flat milled to produce a square cross-section. The fact that the crosssectional shape of this region is square and not cylindrical is seen in the end view as a square and in the right-hand side elevation by the crosses. 

Engineering Drawing for Manufacture
by Brian Griffiths
Publisher: Elsevier Science & Technology Books