A common strategy which has in many cases become a necessity in product developing companies is to apply platform thinking to some extent. Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are firms that need to invest in a significant amount engineering time in each product ordered by customers. These companies have in the past been known to not be fully able to apply platform strategies. An area of concern to product development is the design and manufacture of machine tools aimed for part manufacturing which is a large investment and a critical bottle neck. As a response to these challenges the design platform (DP) concept was developed which is founded on the re-use of company assets. This paper aims to investigate the application of the DP in a company designing and producing unique high-pressure die casting tools for different applications and customers. To enable companies of this character to utilize platform thinking to a higher degree and thus increase the efficiency in product development, a focus is set on modelling and managing relations within the DP. In addition, a PDM system setup is proposed together with an integrated support application for the realisation in industry.

High performance die castings are urgently expected to be used as structural components subjected to dynamic loading. Therefore, tensile properties, fatigue, and corrosion-fatigue behavior of automotive die cast AlMg5Si2Mn alloy are studied in the current work. The results indicate that the tensile strength and yield strength of the as-cast specimens are obviously lower than those of the age-treated specimens, while the elongation decreases with increasing aging time. Neutral corrosive environment (3.5% NaCl solution) dramatically decreases the fatigue limits from 75 to 50 MPa. Fatigue lives of the directly corroded and precorroded specimens are close to each other. The values of material constants m and C are in the range of 5.756–5.874 and 2.421 × 10−10 to 4.285 × 10−9, respectively. Obscure fatigue striations and featureless facets are observed in crack propagation regions. Anodic dissolution is dominantly responsible for the premature crack initiation and stress corrosion cracking leading to the formation of fractured α-Al matrix.

The influence on alloy 413.0 of the refinement and modification of its microstructure was analyzed by means of several microscopy techniques, as well as the effect of the application of high pressure during solidification. For each treatment and solidification pressure condition employed, the most suitable microscopy techniques for identifying and characterizing the phases present were investigated. Color metallography and electron microscopy techniques were applied to the qualitative microstructural analysis. Volume fraction and grain size of the primary α-Al were characterized by quantitative metallographic techniques. The results show that the effect caused by applying high pressure during solidification of the alloy is more pronounced than that caused by modification and refinement of the microstructure when it solidifies at atmospheric pressure. Furthermore, it has been shown that, for Al–Si alloy characterization, when aiming to characterize the primary α-Al phase, optical color metallography observed under crossed polarized light plus a sensitive tint filter is the most suitable technique. When the goal is to characterize the eutectic Si, the use of optical color metallography or electron microscopy is equally valid. The characterization of iron-rich intermetallic compounds should preferably be performed by means of backscattered electron imaging.