What to look for while hiring a plastic injection molding company?

To have a good reputation among the buyers of your plastic items and to amp up the sales, you need the right fabrication of plastic parts. So, selecting the right plastic injection molding company is crucial.

The process of manufacturing is complex and involves various stages like material selection, mold fabrication, finishing and assembly of the products.

The company you choose directly affects the quality of your product, efficiency of manufacturing and overall cost of the product. To have this partnership, customers must evaluate potential suppliers for

1. Experience and Expertise

The company must have a long experience in the industry to know the nitty gritty of creating high quality parts and ensuring maximum customization according to client needs

The company should be familiar with producing plastic parts for various industries like energy, automotive, consumer goods and electronics. Those who are familiar will understand your requirements better.

2. Technical Expertise

The company should have technical knowledge in areas like

• Intricate part designs and fabrication of molds.
• Selecting the right material, additives to ensure consistency of the parts and premium quality
• The company should have a massive experience in thermoplastics/thermosetting.
• They should be able to execute overmolding, multicavity molding and insert molding with ease.
• The company should have a good expertise and skill sets to execute the molding process at varying temperatures, pressures and should have facilities for doing so.

3. Technologies at hand

The company should have all the technological prowess to deliver the best quality within deadline. They should have

• High quality plastic injection molding machines
• Automated mold changing systems
• Conveyor systems for part transfers
• Robotic capabilities for monitoring and precise manufacturing
• High precision components in injection units
• proper drying systems
• Feeders and Loaders
• Cooling systems
• Predictive maintenance capabilities
• Modular designs for easy customization
• Servo driven machines
• Real time error detection, monitoring and machine protection

And more…

4. Ability to scale

The manufacturing unit should have enough capabilities to scale up or scale down production as per demands. This would ensure timely manufacturing and delivery of your products

5. Should have worked on good number of molds

The company should have worked on a large number of molds in the industry so that they can know the costing, efficiencies and quality produced by the molds. It allows frequent prototyping and testing promoting innovation in product design and material usage. It is essential for scaling operations for a diverse spectrum of industry needs

6. Well equipped secondary services

The company should have well equipped secondary services like assembly and packaging, warehousing, mold modification and machine repair units and labs, part decoration facilities like printing and coating

7. DFM ( Design for manufacturability) as part of the service

The company should provide DFM analysis as a part of its service. This would ensure that the part design is highly optimised for injection molding, taking into account factors like

• Thickness of the wall
• Draft angles
• The cooling time and flow of materials
• The allowed pressure
• Locations of ejector pins

Expertise of mold design

The client needs to enquire about the experience of company with runner systems and multi-cavity mold. The client should enquire about the prototyping or testings done till date and the tools used for deriving accurate mold designs.

Automation in the company

Automation drives accuracy and repeatability of the manufactured parts. hence the client needs to check the level of automation afforded in the organisation. Mold design is critical for part quality and production efficiency. Ensure the company has experienced mold designers who can create durable and efficient molds.

Material knowledge of the company- The client needs to ensure that the company has the experience of working on a large number of materials including, but not limited to

• Commodity plastics (e.g., polypropylene, polyethylene)
• Engineering plastics (e.g., ABS, polycarbonate, nylon)
• High-performance polymers (e.g., PEEK, PPS, medical-grade plastics)

Quality control process of the organisation

The client/customer needs to enquire about the quality parameters the organization employs during

• In-process inspections
• For Dimensional verification using tools like CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machines).
• For Full traceability of processes and materials.

Certifications and accreditations

Enquire whether the company adheres to the Bureau of India standards for manufacturing and parts alongwith ISO certifications