Have you ever tried to get into production a high-precision injection mold cheap? How can an expensive high-precision mold, turn your manufacturing process less expensive and your product available to the customer on-time and on-budget always?
How can in the long run a cheap high-precision injection mold not be expensive, in terms of maintenance, high speed cycles, optimal steels, optimal cooling system, optimal injection system, optimal venting, optimal part aesthetic aspect, and the list can go on…
In manufacturing you have to consider 4 major players: man, press the quality of the raw material and support equipments and mold, if you have poor quality on anyone of those your bottom line will be affected, sometimes dramatically.
It’s easier to control the quality of three of those components, the press, the raw material and the mold, why not plays the game by the safe side. You have to see the big picture in the long run and not only the cost of the mold.
It all comes down to the cost of Quality. In the past 10 to 15 years, management types have degraded and demonized the price of mold tooling and tool making profession (yes it is more than just a machine trade). When you shop price for tooling, whether it be China or outside China, you get the price of the quality you want to pay for. There have been so many good points brought up as to why tooling cost are what they are, but the bottom line is quality. Anyone that has had to quote tooling price has walked that fine line with those that don’t understand the investment in tooling can not be treated like a commodity.
A cheap precision injection mold can make you lost a project first and a customer afterwards. That’s how the real world works.
Why not try this question:
A CFO asks to a CEO:
“What happens if we invest in a cheap high-precision injection mold instead an expensive one?”
CEO: “What happens if we don’t invest in an expensive one?”
If you just think like a CFO, you may get in troubles in molding business.
