Benefits of In-House tool making in Injection Molding

Benefits of In-House tool making in Injection Molding makenica.com/injection-molding-in-house-tool-making

Tooling is a critical aspect of plastic injection molding service. It is a big initial investment and needs to be designed and built properly in order to meet the part specifications during production. Additionally, if the tooling is not correct, modifications are costly and time-consuming! For these reasons, one must carefully select their tooling supplier!

People have the choice between partnering with a single vendor, or multiple vendors, to accomplish their tool building and parts production. When partnering with a singlesource provider, in-house tooling becomes an extension of the production process, providing customers with a complete manufacturing solution, and providing value by minimizing the number of vendors involved and enhancing speed-to-market. Singlesource providers streamline manufacturing - resulting in a more cost-efficient process that saves you time and money!

Below are the key benefits of a single-source provider with in-house tooling capabilities – and all of these benefits result in cost reductions, and often time savings, for you!

Improved Speed-to-Market A single-source partner guides you through the design, engineering, product development and production stages smoothly and quickly. In-house tooling capabilities decrease lead times for proto-types as well as production builds – avoiding the shipment of tooling all

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over the world, thus, increasing the speed-to-market! In addition, in-house tooling allows your organization and molders to be more nimble and able to easily adapt to design modifications.

Higher Quality When you partner with a single-source provider and questions or concerns arise, in-house toolmakers, inspectors, and engineers are able to work in-person and on location to ensure tooling is built to specification and quality issues are avoided. Additionally, it is crucial for you to partner with an injection molder, who has Design for Manufacturability (DFM) expertise; this means the tool design and manufacturing teams are integrated to allow manufacturability and quality issues to be identified and addressed during the design process instead of after the tool is fabricated – saving you significant product development time and cost!

Enhanced Flexibility Partnering with a single-source provider also increases flexibility. If there are ideas or changes, you do not need to coordinate between multiple vendors to communicate and try to determine if the change is feasible – they simply inform their single-source provider and the provider works out the rest internally. This simple exchange provides you with greater design and production flexibility.

Lower Risk The more vendors that are involved in a process, the higher potential for miscommunications and errors – it is that simple. Partnering with a molder that has inhouse tooling reduces the number of interfaces and hand-offs, limiting the likelihood for mis-alignments and mistakes. A single-source partner provides streamlined communication, reducing the risk of issues that cause delays and cost money!

On-site Repairs & Maintenance Regular inspections, maintenance and cleaning are the best way to protect your tooling investment and maintain the ability to produce quality parts. Partners with in-house tooling allow for quick, on-site repairs and maintenance – avoiding the transport time to and from an off-site location for these services. Additionally, different types of tooling age at different rates so maintenance needs to be carefully planned. By partnering with a supplier with in-house tooling capabilities, you can leverage their knowledge and experience to ensure the mold maintenance schedule is tailored to the specific needs of each injection mold.

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In a nutshell: By building approximately 95% of tooling in-house, one can firmly control and fine-tune the process, creating significant advantages for the customers.

Reduce cost per part With active tool sets, one can repurpose or modify the tooling to keep the tooling costs low.

Decrease lead time Improve part quality Support small lot runs – no minimum tooling purchase required Technical support for cold heading team Enhance continuous improvement activities Real-time feedback from the heading group to improve tooling as needed Maintain technical talent and knowledge in-house Increase production up-time by making tooling adjustments quickly in-house Improve first-time quality for new parts; tooling modification can be made in real time Develop cost-saving ideas to reduce tooling cost, increase machine productivity and reduce per-piece price

Some Myths about In-house tooling of Injection Molding Service When it comes to production, it's smart to learn the best practices for the method you want to use to produce a part—whether it's plastic injection molding service, 3D printing, CNC machining, or beyond.

Best practices apply to any process and have been created for a reason:

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they can help ensure the product's consistency; they can make the process of manufacturing more efficient; Ultimately, they can save you considerable time and resources during your growth and continuous production processes.

Best practices can sometimes overlap with what is often referred to as "conventional wisdom." Though, "conventional wisdom" often ends up being the real explanation for a shop to warn you that a particular method or application cannot or may not be carried out.

In each of these scenarios, it's not because anything isn't possible. Because the shop doesn't have the ability or the imagination to provide what you need in a mutually advantageous manner.

Keep reading on to learn more about some of the myths of in-house tooling in plastic injection molding service: Myth: In-house tooling is only suitable for long production runs.

In particular, in-house tooling can be a cost-effective solution for manufacturing a component of almost any size, from a few-piece prototype to large-scale, six-or sevenfigure runs. Also, for practical prototypes created from a single step, an in-house tooling may provide a solution.

Myth: Manufacturing a mold is very costly.

That doesn't have to be the case. Because tool steel molds take a long period to have unmatched strength for complete manufacturing processes—and thus cost a reasonable amount of money to produce—other materials may be used to make molds for shorter running applications.

The molds may be 3D printed or even CNC machined from other materials, both at a lower cost than the conventional steel mold tool.

Myth: Non-steel molds can only yield minimal volumes.

Many shops would warn you that even a low-cost mold made of different materials is a bad investment since it is only suitable for a few injection cycles, making a low number of sample components. In reality, many non-steel molds can generate thousands of parts with no loss of quality, some hitting as many as 10,000 pieces.

In such amounts, depending on the manufacturing and delivery schedule, you will be able to use a non-steel mold with an injection molding service to manufacture the parts you are selling.

Myth: Short-run molds are quickly destroyed.

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As the above, the "conventional wisdom" of non-steel molds is that after a few manufacturing cycles, the cavities will begin to be damaged, resulting in the improper quality of the parts. The fact is, though, that the consistency of the parts made should be constant over hundreds or thousands of cycles—again, producing parts numbered in thousands.

Myth: In-house tooling is not ideal for prototyping.

For several reasons mentioned above, In-house tooling has a reputation for not being a good prototyping technique.

It may be deemed "not cost-effective" or "too time-consuming." Far too frequently, another technique is used to make a prototype that may not have the same resemblance to the final product as injection molding service should have done. Injection molding service, where the right methods are used, will provide cost-effective samples in as few days as possible; let the entrepreneur or other product creator get a sense of how the final finished product looks, feels, and functions.

Myth: Lead times of many months should be incorporated into in-house tooling programs.

This is true of tool steel molds. For lengthy manufacturing cycles of injection molding companies, molds of 10,000 or more parts require the length of time to manufacture.

However, where other materials or methods are used to make the mold, the mold may be made in only a few days, with shipping possible within a week. This time frame will alter the whole timeline of the product production process of the injection molding companies while also providing high-quality prototypes and components with in-house tooling.

Myth: In-house tooling can't be both complex and fast.

When fast, cost-effective molding is debated, it is all too frequently written off for basic geometries only. However, this is not the case: 3D printing molds can also be used to create prototyping and short-run molds with the same compound and complicated constructions as tool steel molds can have.

These procedures shall include: Over molding Double-shot molding Insert molding Two-shot molding…. and more Myth: Only some materials are appropriate for in-house tooling in injection molding service.

Due to the way the injection molding companies operate, a common misunderstanding is that only clear, specially designed materials are suitable. Heating time, cavity filling, cooling time, and injection are also dynamic procedures. The base resin must be 5/7

adequately measured and controlled to ensure that the whole cycle happens as it should be.

The reality is, though, that plastic injection molding service is incredibly flexible.

Furthermore, a wide variety of fabrics with various properties and features such as ABS, PET, PVC, polypropylene, and many more can be used.

Food and medical-grade materials can also be ideally adapted by the injection molding companies.

Myth: Injection molded pieces with in-house tooling must be customized, painted, or otherwise finished post-production.

A widespread misunderstanding is that injection molded components by the injection molding companies cannot be aesthetically appealing except to maintain the (usually unattractive) base color. Some shops will warn you that all graphic features or embellishments must be applied to the finishing phase after the molding has been finished.

In reality, injection molds can be constructed so that all of these features of the component are used as part of the mold. These provide custom textures or finishes and Pantone matching to produce resins of nearly any color.

With these capacities of injection molding companies, final appearance prototyping (essential for consumer goods and other applications) is much simpler.

Myth: The RFQ process for in-house tooling is complicated and timeconsuming.

Due to the extensive time and complexity that many stores can claim is intrinsic to the injection molding service, they will also end up in an unnecessarily complicated RFQ process. Especially when making prototypes and short-run molds—the process can be as simple as uploading a technical drawing. So, it helps you get on the way to a prototype, and finally to a completed product, that much easier.

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Makenica Our customer service is what separates us from other injection molding companies. Not only upfront but also when a part modification is required. With everything under one roof, the changes can happen fast, and the customer receives their parts with minimal downtime.

All of the Design Engineers at Makenica have a wealth of experience designing molds and building them. This background gives our in-house team the ability to find creative solutions to even the most challenging design manufacturing problems of injection molding companies.

If you need high-volume, custom, plastic injection molded parts, please contact us.

Read More : Key factors that affect quality in 3D Printing

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