Japanese MIM producer seeks production partner in Europe
February 16, 2015
Taisei Kogyo Co Ltd, one of Japan’s leading producers of Metal Injection Moulded (MIM) parts, is seeking a production partner in the European Union. The prospective partner will be expected to have technical knowledge and experience of MIM manufacturing and to possess some MIM manufacturing equipment.
Taisei Kogyo specialises in the development and production of small, highly complex MIM parts and micro MIM parts. The company is seeking a partner who will either undertake some aspects of the MIM processing, or who will cooperate in the develop- ment of the complex moulds required for small MIM parts.
Taisei Kogyo, which was profiled in the June 2008 edition of PIM International, has been involved in MIM production for around 15 years and micro MIM parts for ten years. The company uses its own in-house developed feedstock and moulding technology and supplies MIM parts to a range of markets including camera and related precision equipment industries, industrial machinery, automotive, IT, microelectronics, medical devices and robotics.
Micro MIM is one of the company’s specialities, producing parts from stainless steel, titanium, copper, nickel and tungsten mainly for microelectronics but also for cameras such as a tiny 17-4PH stainless steel MIM part weighing just 0.007g. Other specialities are composite MIM parts where the injection moulding process is used to over-mould plastic substrates, multi-layer MIM parts involving different metals and porous metal and micro-porous metal components using proprietary ‘space holder’ technology. The latter parts are produced using a mixture of a special space holder agent mixed with standard metal powders and binder. The mixture is injection moulded, debound and sintered to form the required porous structure.
Dr Shigeo Tanaka, President of Taisei Kogyo, believes that the company is one of only a few MIM producers that is capable of offering a wide range of materials combined with high dimensional accuracy and complicated shape components. The company already has customers in Europe, including Austria, Italy and Germany, but it believes that by cooperating with a European partner it can broaden its MIM knowledge and expertise with new applications. The company would also be keen to cooperate with the partner in the reciprocal development of European MIM production know-how in Japan.
Further details can be obtained from: [email protected]
