Injection molding is a process of mass-producing a product or item. This process helps reduce production costs and produce items in large quantities. However, the injection molding process is not as easy as it seems. There are factors to consider when using the injection molding process.
So is injection molding best for your project?
Before using the injection molding process for the production of your items or products, here are a few things you must put into consideration:
1. Financial Considerations
Firstly, you must consider the number of parts you want to produce that makes you think injection molding is the best and most affordable manufacturing method.
Figuring this out will help you discover the number of parts you want to produce that will not exceed your investment or cost you much. Also, speaking of costs, you’ll need to cover the costs of design, testing, production, assembly, marketing, and distribution – and note that this cost should not be more than the expected price point for sales.
As you can imagine, you need to carefully consider the financial aspect of using the injection molding process, so you don’t run at a loss.
Also, don’t forget to include entry costs in your budget. Preparing a product for the injection molded process and designing and creating an injection molding machine requires huge funds and large initial investments. Make sure you understand all these essential factors upfront.
2. Design Considerations
When making designs for the parts, you’ll want to design the parts knowing that you’ll be using the injection molding machine for production. Simplifying the structure and shape of your product and reducing the number of parts will make the designing process easier.
When designing the mold tool, you must be extra careful to prevent even the slightest error during production. A minor error when creating molding tools leads to massive consequences when producing the items/products.
Getting Production Right for Injection Molding
Cycle time is essential in getting the production right for injection molding. You need to reduce cycle time as much as possible. Another hack for getting production right includes using machines with hot runner technology and well-thought-out tooling. These little changes in details can make a significant difference, and minimizing cycle time for a few seconds can reduce costs when mass-producing your items.
Also another way to get production right is the assembly process. You should consider designing your part so that you can minimize assembly. One of the reasons most companies opt for injection molding is the cost of assembling parts during an injection molding process. Minimizing parts helps to facilitate the assembly process and save money on the cost of labor.
Conclusion
Injection molding is a new technology that has helped most manufacturing companies manufacture their products on a large scale.
The injection molding process is an intricate and complicated one, and there are many factors to consider before using it for manufacturing your products. However, putting the elements above into consideration will help to facilitate the process and make it a seamless one.
