Mold Building: Design and Cost Considerations

A mold is required to produce a product with high manufacturability – it means a high-quality, simple and efficient process that’s also easy to operate and maintain. Also, it should meet customer specifications at the lowest cost possible. Meeting all the expectations of customers depends how the tooling option has been designed. It must be designed to meet each customer’s needs.

To make this happen, tooling decisions should remain at the top of design stages, whether it’s for plastic caps tooling or complex bottle closure tooling. Involving tool maker at the early stages ensures realistic machining perspectives on the product design, desired tolerances, tool design, material selection, and cost, of course. Considering this step upfront is essential to eliminate wasted efforts in rework, which could also cause the cost to go a little higher.

For obvious reasons, customers are highly concerned about the cost. And why not, tool making is a highly cost-intensive process in production. Therefore, a highly skilled team of engineers and technicians with the most sophisticated design and manufacturing technology is essential for proper designing and tooling. Working closely with such an experience tooling team that helps in making wise decisions can help optimize the labor costs. Additionally, they can also help keep the costs low with their expert advice on material selection and design tradeoffs easy in the design process.

In order to cut costs, some companies also go for tooling with the lowest bid. But to their shock, it can come out to be most costly decision of their life. Lowest bids can cost more with poor quality, inferior tooling, low operational skills, improper material, more wastes and rework.  

Whether the production requires a complex mold design or a simple standard one for closure tooling, not going in a hurry is the key. Working with an experienced tooling and design expert like Nicety-Mould can help get the most out of investment.