The manufacturing process can be complicated, and there are various factors to consider when choosing a plastic injection machine that can suit your industry, product requirements, and unique products. The best place that you must start is to acquire basic knowledge of the plastic molding process.
This is a process that uses polymers or plastic resins when melted, heated, or injected under high pressure into a custom mold. This can help produce plastic parts to be used in product manufacturing, and though the process seems straightforward, manufacturers require an injection molder partner that can create highly complex parts catering to unique industry needs. Read the blog below to learn more about factors to consider when choosing a plastic injection molder.
Factors to Consider While Choosing a Plastic Injection Molding Machine Manufacturer
Some of the important factors you must consider are while choosing a plastic injection molding machine manufacturer are as follows:
- Volume specialization and capacity
With more than 16,000 injection molders in the U.S., it is not easy to select the best molder for your part. The best way to start is to narrow down the options based on your size and volume requirements. The low to moderate-volume molders specialize in the production of parts that are under 10,000 units.
When you select a low to moderate-volume molder, it will be an ideal choice if you must quickly produce a prototype to test a part. Other than that, low to moderate-volume molders are perfect for applications that do not need hundreds of thousands of parts or bridge tooling. The high-volume plastic injection machine molders are experts in jobs that need 750,000 parts and usually produce small-sized molds.
● Compliance with specifications
It is not easy to compromise as it puts the product manufacturers in quite a challenging situation. Despite all the details involved, a company can produce your part without any specification sacrifices. The best injection molder partners must be able to make strong recommendations based on the specifications you need without having to make big compromises.
Recommendations can easily stem from the experience, expertise, and knowledge of the latest techs of the injection molder. Some specification changes can include small design tweaks and alternative resin suggestions; all these can help you save time and money during the design development and production process.
● Expanded services and technology
It is not true that all plastic injection machine molders offer expanded services or the technology that is required to help design parts for manufacturability. Working with a molder, who can offer you prototyping, quick response manufacturing, and much more, can help you create valuable cost and timing efficiencies based on getting your product to market.
Another essential factor you must note is that the best efficiencies with overall project time and budget happen early in the development cycle, especially the design process. This is why you must choose a plastic injection molder that will become involved early in the design process, understand your objectives, and predict production problems before they occur.
● Quality and efficiency
Other than complying with the specifications, your injection molder partner must be established and committed to providing you with the best service. You must ask them some questions, and answering them can provide important insight for you and your team to select an injection molder that will best suit your company’s needs.
The questions are as follows:
1. Do they have high-quality and efficient machines that work well?
2. Have they been recognized in the industry as a manufacturer of status, or has the company won any awards for performance?
3. Do they offer clients a robust mold maintenance program?
4. Is project management software used to ensure the best and highest level of communication and efficiency throughout each step of the development process and part design?
5. Is your injection molder ISO certified?
● Product application
The main or intended use for your product application or part is important as it must be on top of your mind throughout each step of your design, production, and development process. Plastics are considered to be amazon materials that can be used for many applications. There are various circumstances where metal parts can actually be converted to plastic to minimize weight and cost.
● Time
Building a mold for a plastic injection molded part can easily range from four to twelve weeks. The representatives involved in the process must factor in design revisions, part complexity, and communication between designers, engineers, and other individuals involved in the process. They also need to account for unexpected events like shipping delays, etc. Communicating your time constraints with an injection molder partner as early as possible is always ideal.
Contact Threeplast Machinery
If you need the best plastic injection machine for your company, you can contact Threeplast machinery. They are experts in plastic injection molding machine manufacture, research, and development. They have years of experience and have the most professional employees in their company.