Moldmaker touts benefits of MIM

Feb. 14, 2011—Since opening its doors in 1997, Indo-MIM has grown to become a leading global supplier of metal-injection-molded products. The company is headquartered in Bangalore, India, and has satellite offices in Princeton, N.J., and Stuttgart, Germany.

Indo-MIM’s 25,000-sq.-meter facility in Bangalore offers “advanced MIM manufacturing and finishing capability [and is] equipped to manage the entire MIM process from beginning to end.” The plant’s other capabilities include:

• vertical integration of finishing technologies, like electroless Ni and Trivalent Cr plating;
• vacuum and sealed-quench heat-treating;
• precision grinding;
• CNC machining to micron tolerances;
• plastic injection and insert molding; and
• a full range of product assembly and integration services.

A demonstration of the MIM process:

According to Indo-MIM’s Web site, the MIM process is a cost-effective alternative to traditional metalforming techniques, such as machining, investment casting and powder metallurgy. “MIM excels at applications that require shape complexity and material properties—high strength, magnetic permeability and corrosion-resistance—that cannot be fulfilled by plastic and light metal alloys,” the company reports. “It offers tremendous single-step parts consolidation potential that makes it a competitive alternative to stamped/machined-parts assemblies. Many design and economic limitations of traditional metalworking technologies can be readily overcome by MIM.”

Today, MIM is serving critical performance applications in a wide range of industries and products, including automotive, aerospace and defense, cellular telephones, dental instruments, electronic heat sinks and hermetic packages, electrical connector hardware, industrial tools, fiber-optic connectors, fluid-spray systems, hard disk drives, pharmaceutical devices, power hand-tools, surgical instruments and sporting equipment.