6 top tips to reduce mold costs

First of all, one of the most basic questions, what is the cost of the mold, some friends can answer me without thinking: mold cost is the mold material cost + processing cost + tax. Of course, there are labor costs, we can think of labor costs are included in the processing costs, of course, there are design costs.

First, the reasonable design of the product

I believe there are many people who will not agree with me. The design of the product is reasonable or not, how can it be the biggest factor affecting the cost of the mold.

Everyone looks, on the first foot, the ball kicked to our car factory, but think carefully, if the product design is unreasonable, for mold companies, how a situation, that is a disaster. I have been engaged in the mold for more than 40 years, such things have experienced a lot, sometimes in order to achieve a product on the buckle, and product engineers and mold designers do not have good communication, the cost of the mold will increase exponentially.

I had the opportunity to participate in the design of small car interior parts for the disabled of a Shanghai automobile company. One of the parts is called the middle partition, according to the original design, this part is very big and the mold production cost is about 4 million RMB. The injection molding machine was over 4000 tons. Later I suggested splitting it into two pieces, and the cost of the two sets of molds did not exceed 2 million. The cost of the two sets of molds together was not more than 2 million, and the matching injection molding machine was a 1500-ton model. In the end, everyone was happy.

There are too many examples like this. Therefore, a product designer should try to learn more about molds, so that the designed products can be suitable for mold engineering as much as possible, and not increase the difficulty and cost of mold making for no reason.

Under the premise of meeting the whole vehicle assembly, and mold department to maintain good communication, is the most effective and direct measure to reduce mold costs. There is also a philosophical issue of productivity and production relations here. Some product engineers think that the tooling cost is your tooling company's business, not mine. But what if the production relationship is regrouped and the injection molding company and the mold company are one and the same?

In fact, this is a social trend, nowadays, the better companies are combined with injection molding companies and mold companies as one, and companies that exist solely by making molds can hardly survive. Therefore, the unreasonable product design will directly increase the mold cost.

Second, the design change of products

Mold companies often encounter such a situation, in a certain project, the mold just designed, mold frame just ordered back, the customer's set to change notice came, if it is a small change, does not affect the total structure of the mold, it does not matter, sometimes the situation is more serious, because the shape of the product change, the mold to increase the mechanism, even the mold frame have to re-order. This cost will increase a lot.

So we need to minimize the design changes as much as possible. Now there are a lot of rapid prototyping means, before making the mold according to 3D will be made out of the hand board, for the whole car assembly, timely correction of the product 3D, can minimize the cost increase caused by product design changes.

Third, whether the mold design is perfect

Here we have to analyze two kinds of cases.

① Reasonableness and processability of mold design

General mold enterprises, the design team must have old, experienced designers, but also young engineers just out of school, we can not ask young engineers just come to the enterprise can independently design a high level of mold, is a rich experience in mold engineers, if the mold structure behind closed doors, it is impossible to be perfect, there will certainly be some poorly considered details.

One of the most important and effective methods is the collective review. Now there are a lot of simulation means, such as mold flow analysis, mold structure dynamic analysis, 3D comparison analysis of the product and the design of the product, etc., that can minimize the cost increase due to the unreasonable mold design.

② Design waste

If the mold user clearly as long as the mold production 500 pieces of samples, is used to develop the market, but if we according to the life of 300,000 die to design the mold, the cost is big, belongs to the design waste.

Fourth, try to reduce the number of mold trials

Many mold enterprises, the calculation of mold processing costs, is to mold received orders to the mold after the days of the qualified factory to calculate the processing costs, if the mold after several trial mold still can not be delivered, in addition to the contract to be fined, the more days the mold in the factory, the more processing costs.

Of course, the cost of trial molds is also very significant. Therefore, multiple or uncontrollable numbers of mold trials are a big blind spot for mold cost control.

Let's analyze the reasons for the high number of mold trials.

①: The mold design is not fully reviewed collectively, and the mold structure is unreasonable, which makes the mold to be improved several times after the mold trial, making the mold cost exceed the budget.

If after several improvements, it can be fixed, it is more fortunate, there are many cases that are not as good as expected, even the mold has to be scrapped and redone, this cost can not be controlled. There are also cases where the mold design is good, but the processing of the mold is not in place, making the number of mold trials increase for no reason, directly increasing the cost of the mold. This problem is not objectionable, so many mold companies have increased their investment in measuring equipment.

②: The best molding process and injection molding machine model are not selected during the mold trial, obviously the mold is well made, but the injection molded product is not ideal. The number of mold trials is increased for no reason, which directly increases the mold cost. This is the common problem of some small mold factories.

③: There is no sufficient understanding of the physical properties of plastics, and even the shrinkage rate is not accurate, which happens from time to time. Therefore, the design of the mold must be clear before the physical properties of plastic, in order to effectively reduce the number of test molds.

Five, mold materials and standard parts procurement

Choose a stable and reputable supplier. If due to greedy cheap, and rash procurement, make mold problems, it is very unfortunate. Such a situation is in fact a lot. Although the supplier can be held responsible, the biggest loss or molding enterprises and mold users.

Sixth, the product qualified

Say, we used 100,000 yuan, asked to do a set of car miscellaneous box mold, the plastic used is PA + 30% GF, injection molding cycle of 30 seconds, mold life of 300,000 die. As a result, the mold was made and the size and physical properties of the sample were achieved, but the injection cycle took 60 seconds because of the difficulty of taking the parts during injection, and the mold could not be used after 100,000 pieces were produced, so in order to catch up with the whole car package, the mold must be invested again. According to the original mold situation, 3 sets of molds had to be invested at once. Again, spending so much money, my opinion is that the cost of this set of molds is 3 times or 6 times the original budget.