August – Injection molding has become ubiquitous in all aspects of life, making the selection of the right supplier a crucial decision. Factors such as quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness should all be taken into consideration while choosing an injection molding supplier. Given the multitude of manufacturers available today, the process of selecting a supplier can be overwhelming. Moving forward, we will outline seven key steps to keep in mind when choosing an injection molding supplier.
Choose a manufacturer with production equipment.
Prioritize manufacturers over trading companies. The advantages of the factory are the ability to provide technical support, shorter lead times and reasonable prices. Trading companies, as middlemen, can provide good services, but they cannot provide the convenience of production. If the right manufacturer is found, it can not only provide a full range of technical support, but even avoid some technical problems according to the manufacturer’s experience.
Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
Before sending the design to the manufacturer, you need to protect your design and must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to ensure that the patent ownership of the new product belongs to you and the manufacturer cannot produce and sell it alone. This step cannot be omitted to prevent your idea from being stolen and to make it clear that the design is to be used for quotation purposes only and not for any other purpose.
Video conference with the manufacturer.
Choose a manufacturer with production capacity, especially look at the production facilities, if the manufacturer has very little equipment, it is no different from a trading company, there are enough production facilities to ensure sufficient production capacity. A video inspection of the supplier’s facilities is an important step in evaluating production capacity (including mold making and volume production capacity). Prior to the video inspection, a list of equipment should be requested to assess the supplier’s technical expertise and plant conditions.
Verify that the manufacturer has a design team.
Good manufacturers have their own design teams, and communication and collaboration with the design team can minimize production issues and ensure that the product meets the desired specifications. The best way to see if the company has a design team is to ask the manufacturer to quickly modify the product to your specifications, and to see if the team can provide 3D printing services or vacuum casting. You can also ask the manufacturer to provide customer cases as reference to see if they can meet your needs.
Suppliers need to have rich import and export experience.
Determine whether the supplier has sufficient export experience and whether the sales force is professional and efficient enough. Professional and dedicated sales staff are better able to understand your needs. Professional assistance with production requirements, follow-up services, cargo transportation, payment assistance, import and export customs clearance, etc., can save time and costs. In the quotation can ask the supplier to provide door to door price.
Check the manufacturer’s understanding of plastic raw materials.
It is necessary to see whether the manufacturer has enough understanding of plastic materials. There are many kinds of injection molding materials, such as PP, ABS, PC, PE, PLA, PVC, nylon and so on. Different materials have different injection molding machine requirements. For example, TPE injection molding, which is very common in industrial products, can be produced and used alone because of its soft material, or it can be combined with plastics such as PP to produce over molding products; The PVC injection molding, due to the corrosiveness of PVC material, has very high requirements on the screw of the injection molding machine, and needs to use alloy screw production so as not to damage the injection molding machine. Without technical experience, it is difficult to produce qualified products.
Check whether the manufacturer has the ability to provide one-stop service.
The requirements for suppliers, not only to have the ability of product design, mold making, product production, but also need to provide a complete one-stop service such as pad printing, laser printing, UV printing, installation inspection, packaging and transportation, only with one-stop customized production services, in order to reduce the damage of products in the transportation process, better control product quality. It also saves money and time.
Name: Harry Hu
Company Name: FOWMOULD
Email: harry@fowmould.com
Website: https:// www.immould.com
Address: No.328 Xiaoliqiao Village, Beiyang Town, Huangyan,
Taizhou, Zhejiang, 318024, China
