Moldmaker Finds Value in Swiss-Type Machining

During my 16 years writing for sister brand Modern Machine Shop, I often reported on the trend of “conventional” machine shops adopting multifunction Swiss-type turning technology with an eye toward producing highly intricate, small parts ideally complete on one machine.

That trend continues.

During that time, though, I don’t recall encountering an injection mold tool maker that had purchased a Swiss-type sliding headstock machine. I recently learned of one, though, by way of my colleague, Christina Fuges, editorial director of another sister brand, Moldmaking Technology (MMT).

The idea for this company wasn’t to use a Swiss-type to machine mold components. Rather, it was to be an enabling technology, with the addition of injection molding capability, to more thoroughly serve the medical industry.

The ultimate example would be to machine parts on the Swiss-type and then overmold plastic onto those parts using the company’s own tooling and injection molding machines. All this could be completed under one roof in a vertically integrated structure.

In truth, though, we’re talking about two roofs on a single manufacturing site, one topping a building that is home to Eden Tool and the other to the recently created Eden Manufacturing.

The Path to Vertical Integration

New Freedom, Pennsylvania’s Eden Tool location, was established in 2000 by Mike Eden to produce plastic injection molds primarily for the medical industry. This shop continues to thrive in this arena thanks in part to its expertise in hard milling.

In fact, David Tomic, who knew Eden for many years, had offered Eden’s shop guidance with respect to hard milling. Tomic also had experience in production machining and stamping. Ultimately, in 2019, the two partnered to form Eden Manufacturing to be located a parking lot away from Eden Tool.

Eden Manufacturing was launched to complement and expand upon Eden Tool’s tooling support of the medical device industry . Although Tomic started designing the new building in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its completion to July 2023.

But in the midst of all this, Mike Eden, essentially Eden Tool’s “management team,” unexpectedly passed away in December 2021. Today, Tomic serves as the president of Eden Tool and Eden Manufacturing, which are operated as separate businesses, and Mike’s son, Jake, serves as the vice president of both entities.

Tomic says ISO certification was the first goal in establishing Eden Manufacturing. It has since achieved both ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485:2016 on the plastic injection molding side of the business and has four automated Milacron FANUC Roboshot injection molding machines capable of running unattended 24/7.

Eden Manufacturing’s first medical part machining job was to be a threaded drive component for a surgical device that required wire electrical discharge machining (EDM) work to create an intricate feature. Having years of experience with wire EDM on the tooling side (using equipment from Makino), that operation wasn’t a problem to complete while delivering the requisite accuracy and high-quality surface finish. But while the proof of concept was established by way of multiple wire-EDM samples, its OEM customer ultimately gave the job to another shop.

After a few months, though, it was clear that the other shop could not validate the part due to the complex wire EDM work. At that point, the OEM reconnected with Eden Manufacturing to learn how it could add Swiss-machining capability needed in combination with wire EDM to produce the parts realizing the wire EDM work was the most difficult aspect of production.  

“That’ll be easy,” Tomic thought.

It was at that point that he contacted George Bursac, the general manager/vice president of sales for Star CNC, who he knew very well. Star CNC happened to have a demonstration Swiss-type lathe in its facility highly configured just as Tomic wanted. Within a week, Star CNC provided samples to Tomic which he offered to the medical OEM as proof of concept, and Eden Manufacturing was awarded the job.

The model Eden Manufacturing purchased was an SW-12R11. This is a 12-mm Swiss-type machine with Y-axis cross slide, dual sub spindles and two auxiliary 50,000-rpm high-speed electric spindles from NSK America for drilling micro holes. It is also fitted with an FMB bar feeder to enable long stretches of unattended operation.

Eden Manufacturing, which currently employs eight, hired a manufacturing engineer to take the lead on the Swiss-type machine. There is a learning curve, but Tomic points to the relationships he and others have made with companies such as Star CNC and Makino.

“Where this concept really comes together is machining parts on the Swiss-type then overmold them after that, combining all the expertise we have in terms of tool making, injection molding and machining.” — David Tomic

“It’s been our policy that when we go into a new type of machining platform, it is well configured and tooled,” Tomic says. “When it comes to new work, we tend to look for ‘parts in crisis,’ so having advanced machining capability gives us the best options to deal with that type of work in the future. Where this concept really comes together is machining parts on the Swiss-type then overmolding them after that, combining all the expertise we have in terms of tool making, injection molding and machining.”

Eden Manufacturing has had discussions with another potential customer with a part in crisis. Tomic says this leads to discussions explaining the value of the manufacturer’s vertically integrated structure as the component would combine mold making, Swiss-type machining and injection molding capabilities. “These are precisely the types of conversations we want to have,” Tomic notes. “We’re trying to be all about vertical integration of advanced manufacturing technology.”

And this company’s tale validates what I mentioned at the beginning. Most of today’s machine shops are much more than companies that simply machine parts per customers’ specifications.