Custom injection molding tools and tips blog

In any manufacturing process, there is bound to be built-in variance from cycle to cycle. Even in automated, carefully controlled processes, variance is a natural occurrence. Fortunately, manufacturers have several tools at their disposal to understand the level of variance present, to determine whether it will fit within acceptable tolerance requirements and to make adjustments as necessary.

Plastic Injection Molding Material Selection: How To Pick The Best For Your Medical Device Production

Plastic injection molding is an extremely versatile production process, capable of simple or complex designs in a range of volumes with fast turnarounds. To begin, plastic material is melted and injected under pressure through runners into the mold cavities. Here, the melted plastic takes the form of the mold and cools into a solid, at which point it is ejected from the casing.

The concept behind plastic injection molding is relatively simple — to inject heated liquid plastic substrate into a mold, allow the liquid to cool to a solid, eject and repeat. This simplicity lends itself to the versatility, efficiency and availability of injection molding, but it can also lead OEMs in need of plastic injection molded components to attempt to bring those processes in-house.

Almost always, these OEMs will find that in-house injection molding leads to unforeseen cost and logistics concerns, and quickly becomes a liability to the bottom line and even the product’s quality. Instead of bringing these processes in-house, the more productive step here is outsourcing plastic injection molding to an expert in the field.

Advantages of Outsourcing Injection Molding

When you hire another company for plastic injection molding, you gain access to several advantages. These include:

• Outsourced infrastructure: The upfront investment for injection molding machinery is sizable. Injection molding machinery is typically built to undergo millions of cycles and near-constant operation, and the cost reflects this. If an OEM only needs to operate injection molding machinery intermittently, to produce smaller quantities, the length of time to recoup that investment stretches far more than is reasonable. When you outsource injection molding, you are able to make use of someone else’s investment, freeing your capital for core competencies, innovation and other areas.
• Guaranteed expertise: With in-house injection molding, if it isn’t a core competency, you’re likely to be learning (and training) on the job — and thus paying for both of these processes. Part rejects and production errors come directly out of your bottom line, to say nothing of the time lost. With a molding partner, you are guaranteed to be working with an expert — while also freeing yourself of a training or hiring burden.

While plastic injection molding is one of the most cost-effective manufacturing processes available, it is all too easy for unexpected and unnecessary cost additions to drive up the overall price of a project. If this is a situation you have encountered, or if you simply wish to know ways to reduce injection molding costs, the below tips may help.

If you’re designing a plastic part, there are a lot of considerations to think about from a manufacturability standpoint. Having Mold Flow simulation software watching your back ensures your original design has the best practices in mind. From simple flow simulations to complex quality predicting, warp analysis, fill analysis, weld lines, pressure, temperature and gate location, utilizing some type of mold flow simulation will save you a lot of time in your product development process.