Case Study: Detail Technologies minimizes Ford Mustang assembly-line downtime by rapidly rebuilding stamping dies with 3D Systems

Geomagic Reverse-Engineering Technology Keeps Ford Mustang Assembly Lines Rolling

Detail Technologies, a builder of injection molds and stamping dies, was hired by Ford to reverse‑engineer two Mustang stamping dies that were nearing the end of their life. Because stamping-die failure halts assembly lines and retooling the model would have cost hundreds of millions, Ford needed a quick, precise rebuild to extend tool life and avoid production interruption.

Detail scanned 42 individual steels with a Laser Design RPS450 and used Geomagic Wrap to convert 3–4 million‑point clouds into cleaned, surfaced IGES models; CMM sphere data aligned the datasets and files were passed to Mastercam for CAM. Replacement steels were machined, heat‑treated and installed in about five weeks (tools out of production only 10 days), allowing Ford to avoid costly retooling and prompting a recommendation to archive digital scans to shorten future rebuilds.

Detail Technologies

John Amos

Reverse-Engineering Specialist