Hi,
I am interested to hear how other manufacturers go about the process of developing trimming and bonding jigs for large thermoformed parts. In my company (where I am new) the production teams have always developed jigs and fixtures once they have the first good part part off tool. Meaning they will create the tooling from CAD, which is not an issue, but then they will manually trim the part, then digitise the trimmed part to create the trimming program, which I do not agree with. They also believe that the trimming jigs and any bonding jigs that we need are developed from the parts rather than my philosophy that they should be developed in parallel using the CAD as master for all tooling, jigs and fixtures. This methodology is time consuming and presents quality risks imo.

Is there anyone who has similar experience and can advise what is the normal practice in the thermoforming industry for trimming program (CNC) and jigs and fixtures development.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.