When you design a new product, you want to test them in the market before you invest lots of money to make big production. Now the problem comes out, the big factory or famous company have the big amount for MOQ, but you worry about the quality with small shop, now MBA Mold focuses on providing this service of Low Volume injection molding after optimize our management system and marketing.
Nowadays, it is important for a company to get new models into the market quickly, in most of the cases, it could be just a market-testing product with 10,000 units’ volume or even less. But the plastic parts still need to be customized by plastic injection mold to achieve the specified tolerance, finish, function. Traditionally, a hardened steel mold would requires a big amount investment before you get a simple piece, and it usually take 8-12 weeks to finish the mold, it will lose the precious time to occupy the market.
Most important is the cost, Low volume mold will be much cheaper than harden up mold. Spending the same money, you can launch more projects, it will help you enhance the chance to succeed. If one project failed, you still have money to develop next project.
Low volume injection molding requires a mold first, start with mold design, and then CNC, EDM, wire cut, polish etc. All processing used by making a hardened steel mold are adopted to make a mold for low volume production. Low volume mold sometimes refer to rapid tooling or prototype tooling. To achieve cost advantage, the mold use lower grade steel(mostly local steel) or aluminum, which don’t have to be withstand hundreds of thousands times of injection press as production mold. Molds made by pre-hardened steel or aluminum are capable of 10,000 to 300,000 molding cycles, this is enough for the needs of most project which didn’t make big success in the market. The lead time of building mold is shortened massively because the steel don’t have to be hardened up after rough CNC machining, the workability of soft steel is also better than hardened steel, which make the processing is easier and faster. but the finish and quality is the same level as harden up steel mold
The advantage of low volume mold:
Save lots of money but never compromise with quality
Short lead-time
Easy to modify the tooling
Reduce the risk of new project
The article comes from China injection mold manufacturer - Mold Best Assurance Company Limited, website is www.mbamoldanddesign.com
