Niche focus takes A v e n u e t o s u c c e s s Despite having been in business for only twelve years

Niche focus takes A v e n u e t o s u c c e s s

Despite having been in business for only twelve years, Sligo based Avenue Moulds has already established itself as one of the leading mold makers in Ireland. Its customers come mainly from the medical and electronic sectors and include international names like Abbott Laboratories, Honeywell/Allied Signal, and Braun.

Selection from the wide range of parts made with tooling from Avenue Moulds

Felim McNeela, Avenue’s Managing Director and one of the company’s founders, attributes the company’s success to a clear focus on its chosen niche. “Multi-cavity moulds are our specialization,” he emphasized. “For example, we have recently completed a 96-cavity mould for medical components and we could go up to128 cavities.”

Avenue has invested heavily in new technology, including a Röders high-speed machining center, with an integrated Fanuc robot, and two seats of Delcam’s PowerMILL machining software. “The need for PowerMILL was prompted by the decision to invest in high-speed machining,” recalled Mr. McNeela. “To be perfectly honest, at that time, we were not too familiar with the technology so the decision was a bit of a leap in the dark. We were mainly guided by Röders, which has had a long relationship with Delcam, but we gained additional confidence from knowing that Delcam was the industry leader for tool making software.”

Injection mould with numerous sliding cores made by Avenue Moulds

One seat was purchased initially but a second was needed to generate enough data during one standard day shift to keep the machine running as near as possible to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Avenue is the only toolmaker in the country to use robots to allow production to continue without staff overnight and during the weekends. The second seat also gives some capacity for training of additional operators.

Despite their initial lack of knowledge, Avenue’s staff quickly mastered the new software. “All the toolpaths generated have been more than satisfactory,” commented Mr. McNeela. “The cutter paths are always efficient and the surface finish has been improved. As a result, we have cut our delivery times from an average of twelve weeks down to eight weeks. This has made our customers very happy.”

“The equipment we use is available to anyone,” concluded Mr. McNeela. “It is how we use it that gives us the edge. The better we can make the mould, the faster and more efficient it will be for the client and the less maintenance will be required. Similarly, the faster we can deliver, the sooner our customer can begin producing and selling his parts.”

20 cavity medical mould from Avenue Moulds