The centre, being established at a cost of Rs 450 million, will have facilities for designing, development and manufacturing of production tools, dies, moulds, jigs, fixtures, cutting and forming and rapid prototyping, with an ultimate aim of promoting domestic production of dies and moulds.
According to "Need survey for plastic injection mould industry in Pakistan" recently conducted by Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica), the increase in demand in plastic materials had resulted in enhancement of domestic production and import of moulds. The per capita plastic consumption in Pakistan has lately risen to 2.7 kilograms, but is still very low as compared to international average consumption of 20 kilograms per person.
During the year 2004-05, Pakistan imported 1300 moulds from China and other countries at a total cost of $10 million. Besides, a sizeable number of moulds were being produced domestically, the report added.
The establishment of TDM centre in Karachi is all set to help industry catering to rising demand of plastic materials in Pakistan, experiencing annual growth of 12 percent per annum in terms of volume and 14 percent in value over the last four years. Besides plastic, other industries and sectors likely to benefit from the services of TDM centre including OEMs in automobile industry, vendor industries, including manufacturers of components for automobile industry, manufacturers of rubber and glass products, telecom and electronics industry.
TDM centre will also offer training courses in basic and advanced mould design, CAD/CAM/CAE, cutting and forming tool design, sheet metal press tool design, heat treatment, inspection and measuring techniques and CNC machining.