A first customer provides a CAD file defining the surface profile for a
part to be molded to the system, and a second customer does the same for
a second part. The system determines whether the materials match and the
run dates overlap, thereby qualifying the parts for use in a
multi-customer mold block. The system assesses the part surface profile
(which could have any of a virtually infinite number of shapes) of the
parts submitted and lays out the parts from multiple customers on one or
more multi-customer mold blocks. Savings are generated, such as by
reducing redundancies in press clean-up, in set-up, in tooling, and in
surface finishing. Due to these savings, the system provides a quotation
of the part to at least one of the customers which differs from the
quotation that would be provided if each part was run independent of
parts of other customers.