I get this question all the time, especially from new or potential customers. People get quotes for molds to run in China that are a fraction of the cost of molds that are intended for export and wonder why they can&#;t just use those same tools overseas. How can molds that are intended to run in China be so much cheaper than those that will run in North America or Europe?
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First off, this is not a blanket statement or a comprehensive list. China has many excellent injection mold makers and molders. Probably more than anywhere else in the world due to the scale of things there. I&#;ve been in several Chinese mold-making facilities that were absolutely world-class, making mostly high-volume medical, closure or automotive molds, and their pricing reflected that. I&#;ve been quoted molds that were the same price or more than what we would quote to build it here in the U.S. The quality would have likely been similar. But there are a lot more options on the less expensive side and that is the section of the market I&#;m looking to address.
There&#;s no simple response to this question, but the answer is usually a combination of the below:
1) Quoting very low to get the work
2) Labor costs
3) Different scale
4) Different standards
5) Cheaper materials/processes
6) Ultra-short-term planning
Deliberately Low Quotes: You aren&#;t going to get the work if you don&#;t get past the first round of quotes. Many shops will quote using a standard that they know is unacceptable and spring a price increase on you further down the road when it's brought up. Or ship something sub-standard if someone doesn&#;t catch it or if they&#;re dealing with a customer who doesn&#;t have the technical knowledge of exactly what is necessary to run the mold overseas.
Labor Costs: It probably won&#;t surprise anyone to discover that labor costs less in China than it does in the U.S. But labor costs in more developed parts of China are not all that different from much of Eastern and Southern Europe. So it&#;s not the sole reason, but it influences almost every other factor.
Scale: Everything is bigger in China, especially in manufacturing. If you told me that there are mold makers in Suzhou alone, I would believe you. When there&#;s that much business moving through an area lead times are reduced, options are increased and prices come down. No one has the scale in manufacturing that China does. The reality is that you just don&#;t need to be as concerned about repairs in China as you do anywhere else: Someone will be available to fix it quickly.
Standards: A single cavity mold made for manually unloading is a lot cheaper than a multi-cavity mold with automatic ejection. With the option of cheaper injection machines, cheaper raw materials, cheaper ancillary equipment and cheaper labor, they&#;re shooting at very different pricing targets than companies outside China. Maybe they even skip the mold-base and cooling lines and just clamp onto the cavity and core. Rather than building against the risk of failure, they may build to the minimum standard they can get away with.
Make It Cheaper: Everything can be the lowest standard because, on the face of it, it&#;s cheaper to fix than putting in the cash up-front. As the thinking usually goes &#;I&#;m already paying for this guy to work repairing stuff. So it&#;s more important for me to reduce cost of the tooling so I can get the work/put more in my pocket.&#; Why use hardened steel tooling which will cost more, when you can just continuously repair? There&#;s many good reasons why (all of them affecting mold longevity and part quality), but that transitions us nicely to our next point&#;
Ultra-Short-Term Planning: This is anecdotal, but informative. I spoke with a Quality Manager at another substantially sized molder nearby. He contacted me one day with a question about a 32-cavity mold that just wouldn&#;t fill properly. I think they had 2-3 people just sorting these parts and of course bad parts were still getting through to the end customer. He sent me a picture of the whole shot (runner and parts) and asked what I thought. Even from a photo it was immediately obvious that the runner wasn&#;t designed properly and they needed to improve it. To do something like this in-house would probably cost around $300. That&#;s what he had thought too, but when he brought it up with his boss, they told him that they wouldn&#;t be spending the money to fix it, they would just keep sorting. He was frustrated because they were pushing him to improve the sorting rather than fix the root cause of the problem. Paying for the operators to sort was already accounted for, but that $300 would need to come out of a different budget. Unfortunately, I see decisions like this all the time: Root cause improvements with a ROI measured in days if not hours, but no will to actually spend the nominal amount of money necessary to fix them.
So what does all this &#;cost saving&#; mean to a customer? In short, quality and reliability. Not just of the mold itself, but also of the parts it will make. An improperly made mold will NEVER produce parts reliably or consistently. I frequently see requirements for &#;20 approved samples&#; or something similar before a mold can be shipped. But unless you watch the mold get sampled, you won&#;t know how many samples they had to make in order to get those 20 acceptable parts. If their defect rate was 90% to get the samples, a mold was just approved that will never run to any sort of reasonable standard and will cost far more in scrap, downtime and man-hours than could ever be saved by cutting the cost of the mold itself, even if they gave it to you for free.
When buying a mold to run outside of China, make sure you confirm exactly what you will need with your molder. Tooling needs will be different depending on your needed appearance, tolerances, EAU and part pricing. Most molders outside of China will want hardened steel cavities and cores and enough cavitation to ensure the price point you&#;re trying to hit. If the material is expensive or the project has sufficient volume they will likely also suggest hot runners to keep running costs down. Don&#;t forget cooling lines: They&#;re an expensive part of the mold and they&#;re absolutely critical to keeping processing times (and therefore part pricing) reasonable. If you want good parts and you want your tooling investment to last, you have to ensure you know exactly what you need before you place an order.
If you are looking for a China plastic injection molding manufacturer to make your plastic molding parts, your first question was likely How much does the China injection molding cost to make my product? Is there any way to lower the mould cost in China?
1. Why should buy Plastic Injection Molding from China
China plastic injection molding cost is much cheaper than from the USA or Europe. Sometimes, for the same quality, the cost generally will be only 50%. Usually, the injection mold is the most expensive part of the project, and can dramatically increase costs for small part runs. With such a competitive price from China, it can totally enhance your product market competitiveness.
2. What Affects Injection Molding Cost?
The plastic mold and injection molding parts costs will directly influence whether your project going smoothly and success or failure. When you start to design a plastic part for injection molding, many factors you should consider, such as part complexity, part size, part surface, part material, mold cavity number, and production volume, will affect the price tremendously.
Part Complexity
The more complex part will require a more complex mold structure, which then leads to more mold costs. Reduce needless surfaces and corners or features as much as possible, will save huge mold costs.
Part Size
The larger the part size is, the larger the mold size is and needs more mold steel, mold cost will increase significantly.
Part Surface
An attractive surface finish will add more processing cost and time, if the part surface is not very critical or the plastic part is invisible in the assembly product, you can choose a lower-level finish, such as SPI Finish B-3 or lower C grade.
Part Material
The material cost will vary according to the type and quality of plastic you use. For example, if you choose high-cost fiberglass filler material, the mold material needs hardened steel, which also will increase the cost.
A number of Cavities and Production Volume
One cavity mold needs less time and process than multiple cavities mold (also called family mold), which will reduce mold cost, but rise the part unit price. If your production volume is small, then one cavity mold is enough; if the volume is large, you could consider multiple cavities mold.
3. How to Reduce the Plastic Injection Molding Cost in China
The best way to reduce the plastic injection molding cost in China is to find a professional plastic injection molding manufacturer. With their help, you don&#;t need to know so many skills to reduce the cost, they will do it for you.
However, finding a reliable plastic part supplier is not an easy thing, you can consider the following tips to reduce your plastic injection molding.
1) Save Cost From the Design
A professional plastic injection mold manufacturer knows well how to control the cost from the design stage. It is a very important skill because the design concept can determine the cost of the whole project.
Are you interested in learning more about injection mold for bmc supplier china? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!
The plastic injection mold manufacturer usually needs to hold a meeting in the early stage, it should consider the injection molding production, product assembly, and then find the best reasonable design. Engineers will design the mold according to this scheme, which can reduce a lot of costs.
2) One-stop Injection Molding Service
One-stop injection molding service includes mold design and manufacturing, product injection molding processing, plastic shell surface treatment (spray, screen printing, etc.), and other one-stop outsourcing services.
Why so many plastic injection molding factories are emphasize one-stop injection molding service? Because it can not only reduce the plastic injection molding cost but also save a lot of time.
One-stop injection molding service can improve production efficiency greatly. The factory with one-stop service is also very professional and has enough strength to provide you a better service.
3) Sample Test
A sample test is a must before you start your plastic parts mass production. You should require the injection molding factory to provide the proofing services. This process can tell you whether the molding factory production quality is good or not.
If the sample quality is poor, the next mass production goods are even worse. To avoid unnecessary loss, a sample test is the first thing you should do before you start your project.
4. Cost Estimating methods for plastic injection molding
Of course, we couldn&#;t totally rely on the plastic injection molding factory to give us the price. We can use some methods to estimate the plastic injection molding cost. Here are some common methods to estimate the plastic mold parts cost.
1) Feature-based cost estimate
This feature-based cost estimation tool is suitable for plastic molding in production quantities (more than 10,000 pieces). Since it has a smaller impact on the cost of each component, more durable and expensive tools can be used. The material costs are estimated based on the geometry of the part, and current material prices are used.
In order to reduce production costs, a compatible injection molding machine was selected from a database of more than 50 machines, and the cycle time was estimated based on the part geometry, material properties, and machine specifications.
For the mold cost, use the standard mold size and mold category to select the appropriate mold base, and estimate the required mold processing based on the geometry of the part and other user specifications. These three costs (materials, production, and molds) are calculated for 4 different cavity arrangements (1, 2, 4, and 8 cavities) and provide the most cost-effective option.
2) Low volume injection molding cost estimate
This feature-based cost estimation tool is suitable for injection molding in small batches (less than 10,000 units). Because of the great impact on the cost of each part, the rapid tool method (high-speed processing of 104 molds) is used to create molds. Material costs are estimated based on the geometry of the part, and current material prices are used. In order to reduce production costs, a compatible injection molding machine was selected from a database of more than 50 machines, and the cycle time was estimated based on the part geometry, material properties, and machine specifications.
For the cost of plastic molds, use the standard mold size to select the appropriate mold base, and estimate the required mold processing based on the geometry of the part and other user specifications. These three costs (materials, production, and molds) are calculated for 4 different cavity arrangements (1, 2, 4, and 8 cavities) and provide the most cost-effective option.
3) Standard estimate
This standard injection molding cost estimator does not require any part geometry but requires more input of process parameters to calculate a more accurate estimate. Material costs are estimated based on the number of parts and runners, and up-to-date material database containing pricing, and customizable process parameters. For production costs, cycle time, as well as machine rate and labor rate must be specified. After adding mold cost, a detailed cost breakdown of material, production and mold costs is provided.
4) Plastic mold cost estimate
This feature-based cost estimator calculates the mold cost for plastic molding. According to the geometric shape of the part and the requirements of the mold, such as the number of cavities, use the standard mold size to select the appropriate mold base. The required mold processing is for the selected SPI mold type and the rapid plastic mold method can be selected for 104 types of molds or low-volume products.
5. China Plastic Injection Molding Cost FAQ
Here are some problems that our injection mold buyers faced:
1) Is 3d printing cheaper than injection molding?
If mass production is required, traditional molding methods such as injection molding are inseparable. Just need a separate product or sample, try 3D printing.
2) Is a small injection mould cheaper than a large injection mold?
The injection mold price is not only determined by the size of the product, but also according to the complexity of the structure of the product. Small injection mold requires higher accuracy, so the cost of production may be not cheap.
3) How do you know if you have got a good price for your plastic injection molding?
Plastic injection molding is a very competitive industry, there is no standard price at present. To win the customers, some plastic injection molding factories even don&#;t add any profits in the price, only add some processing charges.
Holly plastic has a client who needs a plastic mold for E-cigarette, before contacting us, they worked with a plastic injection molding supplier in Dongguan. Because using poor material, their mold suction holes are easy to burst.
The price was nearly double that of the first supplier, and it really scared the customer. Because we need to use food-grade material to make this mold, this material will not deform at a temperature of 80 degrees, and it is a special non-toxic material. The client finally agreed to our offer, we finish this project together successfully. So you see, the price is not the only thing we need to consider!
4) Can I choose a small plastic injection molding factory in China as my partner?
In China, especially in Guangdong and Zhejiang, there are many small plastic injection molding factories, some of them can not only give you a great price but also guarantee quality. However, small may not mean cheap, it also means poor quality. Scientific team management can help small plastic mold factories low the cost and improve the quality, if you find a professional engineer team, a small factory will help you save a lot of money and time.
6. Conclusion
Although the initial cost of injection molds is very high, with a certain volume, injection molded parts are indeed cheaper than processed parts. This crossover can occur from as few as 100 parts to about parts, depending on the part. Having a good understanding of the plastic injection molding cost will help your project runs smoothly. Hope all of this information can help you to get an idea about the plastic injection molding cost idea for your project.
Holly Plastic focus in plastic injection molding field, offer strict program management from design to production, to provide our customers with quality plastic injection molding parts.
Thank you for reading!
I really hope this article has been useful for you! Please reach out to me if you have any questions about your new plastic products.
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