Jan. 06, 2025
A successful injection molding project starts with the design of a product, and then the design of precision plastic injection molds. With the need for shorter lead times and better quality today nobody has time to get it wrong, so heres how you can get it right.
Plastic injection molds can be complicated to get 100% right off the bat, especially if youre trying to get it done from the other side of the world. Youve heard all the rumors about bad quality and cost cutting when it comes to China, and youre probably scared you will get substandard products if you do place an order with a mold maker in China.
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But how hard is it to get it right?
If an injection mold is correctly designed with expert drawings explicitly specifying all the tolerances, including the materials, steel grades, hardness and surface finish requirements, then a plastic injection mold can be built anywhere in the world.
True some companies have had problems in the past
Cost, it all comes down to the bottom line! Companies focus on cutting cost so much that they stare themselves blind at the actual good quality molds you can produce in China.
So why all the hype, are the Chinese dishonest?
In any business, you need to dot your Is and cross your Ts, and you cant generalize and call an entire country dishonest. As unlikely as it may sound it all comes down to communication, more precisely the breakdown of communication.
China prides themselves on producing excellent quality at the best pricing in the world, but if you dont specify exactly what you require out of a mold, what materials to be used and merely accept cheap pricing for what it is, youre going to burn your fingers. As the old adage goes buying cheap is buying expensive.
Firstly, you must understand that top quality molds are produced daily in China. But you need to follow a few ground rules to make sure you get top quality at the right price.
You must CLEARLY specify your requirements and only work with mold makers in China that youve vetted properly.
The drawings of your mold design need to be on point and drawn up by a professional, and there can be no margin for error. If you start your Chinese mold making communication and process with a well-defined drawing youve already won 90% of the battle.
Cost is key and its all about the bottom line, but business is business!
For a plastic mold making company to quote 50% less than that of its nearest competitor for the SAME plastic injection mold, they have to cut their costs to below 50% of their competitors. This is typically reflected (or not reflected at all) in material selection, surface finishes, material hardness, lack of precision grinding of mating surfaces, and lack of close tolerances in wall thickness on thin wall products.
All of these problems can be avoided by the clear statement of specifications at the RFQ stage. The problem with obtaining quotes from mold makers in China is that when rigorous specifications are required, the price differential between quality mold makers (irrespective of global location) becomes minimal. The total cost of ownership when outsourcing plastic injection molds should reflect all of the costs associated with testing and ultimately accepting a mold produced in a foreign country, and the additional precautions required to ensure that no technical errors are made because of language barriers.
There are a large variety of standard mold makers in China, and the most difficult thing is to choose the best fitting mold maker for a company from the onset. This can be a tedious process, and sometimes the results can be somewhat underwhelming.
Dont despair!
Even though its relatively easy to find a trusted, well-known mold maker in Germany, UK, Japan or the US, finding a mold maker in China worth their salt (with reasonable pricing) is not as difficult as you might think.
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In a previous blog, we looked at debunking the Bad Quality Made in China Myths, outlining why the stigma around this is often misconstrued.
But for now lets move on to what you can do to ensure world-class molds, and keep them safe.
If youre shipping the mold overseas, you will take possession of the mold, but still there are areas you need to be very clear on with your Chinese mold makers, like complete ownership, IP, etc. However, if youre producing with a factory in China it is critical you make sure that the mold makers understand that YOU own the physical mold.
Firstly you need to make it clear to the manufacturer/factory in China can only use the molds for producing your products and that they cant produce any products for a third party using your mold or mold designs.
Secondly you need to make sure that if you want to move your mold at any point in time to a different factory, that the receiving facility will have the right to take possession of the molds and that you can freely move them to a new location.
Why would they try to keep your mold?
Chinese manufacturers have a strong incentive to keep your molds and prevent foreign buyers from moving to a new location or factory. In a lot of cases, the mold embodies most or all of the IP in the product.
With some products, the interior mechanism is based entirely on open source hardware. The exterior enclosure around the mechanism is, therefore, the primary protectable IP for the product. The intellectual property lies entirely in the molds used to manufacture the product case. The outside appearance of the enclosure then becomes the ID of the product, and if that appearance isnt protected, you will own NOTHING at all in the IP of the product.
Without that IP in the mold protected, the Chinese factories can copy the product as they see fit.
On the other hand, in some products, the form embodies in the mold holds the entire value of the product. One example could be that of a single part used in an extremely complex engine, like that of a jet engine. After all the designing, engineering and testing is complete what will you be left with? A single part produced by casting into single or multiple molds.
In this instance, the molds embody the entire intellectual property for that part. In short, whoever owns or controls the IP in the molds is essentially in complete control of the product, so you can see why this is a crucial aspect of mold making in China.
What happens if the IP isnt defined?
If NOBODY owns any of the IP in the molds, they are then effectively classified as an open source, which means nobody owns any of the IP in the molds or for the product, which is a scary place to be. And the Chinese factories have figured this out which can make protecting your molds quite hard.
This means when youre drawing up an agreement with the mold maker you cant focus solely on ownership but have to consider the IP in the mold as well.
What Can You Do to Prevent Trouble Further On?
For one, speak to the experts to advise you dont need to reinvent the wheel. For more info on the legal aspects and your understanding thereof you can read this short article from the China Law Blog Product Molds And Tooling In China: Three Things You Must Do to Hang on to Yours.
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