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Divergences in global powder injection moulding
Feature article: PIM International, Vol.2 No. 1 March 2008, pages 45-49, 2216 words
College of Engineering, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-1326, USA
Introduction
This past year was a high-water mark for powder injection moulding (PIM), with global sales nudging past $1 billion for the first time. All regions report strong gains, and the number of firms, employment levels and total sales all show positive trends. There are, however, significant regional differences. Professor Randall M. German* reviews the international PIM industry’s performance over the past year.
Regional variations
In Asia, the three C’s are driving PIM – computers, consumer goods, and communication products. The Asian market gains are dramatic. In metal powder injection moulding, the Asian firms now consume over half the world’s supply of PIM grade metal powders and employ over half the total workforce employed in PIM.
Meanwhile, Europe is riding a surge in automotive component fabrication that builds on top of the well-established production of cutting tools, eyeglass, firearm, and watch parts. For North America, a divergent path is evident. Larger parts in lower volumes are being produced for aerospace, industrial, and medical applications, while at the same time there are many very small parts for orthodontic and medical components. North America has the largest ceramic injection moulding efforts. These are often captive operations focused on casting cores, melting refractories, medical devices, electrical insulators and industrial components.
In the rest of the world, especially in Russia, Brazil, and Israel, PIM is focused on the production firearm, military, and industrial components.
What emerges is an impressive growth pattern for the PIM industry. Strong gains are taking place in metals and cemented carbides (hard metals). At the same time, regional differences are becoming more pronounced. In a sense, PIM is less global since there is a selective stratification of applications by geography. As PIM matures, the leading firms in Japan, Germany, and the USA have moved to value-added projects where low-cost competitors do not have the required attributes. The products succeeding in these three countries are......
Further sections of this article include:
- Procedure
- General findings
- Industry attributes
- MIM segment
- Productivity issues
Figures and Tables:Fig. 1 Global sales for PIM (upper curve in black) and MIM (lower curve in red) over the past 20 years Fig. 2 Cumulative 2007 PIM sales distribution (square yellow symbols) and the corresponding log-normal distribution fit to the sales distribution (solid red line). Almost half of the PIM firms recorded under $1 million in sales for the past year Fig. 3 Distribution in the number of PIM firms by major geographic regions, giving the percent of 330 operations Fig. 4 Relative use of various metals in MIM. These data are based on number of firms and their reported usage. If tabulated on the basis of sales, then the stainless steel would reach 50 to 55 % of all sales value in MIM Fig. 5 Relative use of nonmetallic materials in PIM. The 'other' category includes a wide range of materials such as composites, diamond, titania, boron carbide, silicon carbide and silicon nitride Fig. 6 Partition of the number of MIM operations by geographic region, shown here as percent of the total. Asia is the largest with 40% of the identified firms Fig. 7 Employment distribution in MIM as a percent of the total for the major geographic regions Fig. 8 Global sales breakdown in percent by region for MIM in 2007, showing the Asian dominance with 44 % of sales Table 1 Summary Comparison of PIM and MIM for 2007 Table 2 Summary Statistics for MIM in 2007 |
_______________________________ For a detailed report of the global powder metallurgy industry please view the IPMD Global Market Review. The 13 page report reviews key statistics in regional and global shipments relating to ferrous and non-ferrous PM products, hardmetals, diamond tools, and powder-based magnets. Additionally, two special insets review PM’s special relationship with the automotive industry and the accelerating global growth in the powder injection moulding sector. ____________________________________ |
