Mold Inserts from Chinese source???

[miner00]

About a year ago, we had a complex mold base made to work with a number of inserts from an existing mold. We don't want to keep switching the inserts back and forth between them and are looking for a cost effective option for creating new inserts.

Management has heard that chinese mold makers could make the inserts for about 1/2 the cost that I can get it done in the states. These are complicated snap fit inserts that cost about $50K the first time.

Has anyone tried anything like this? Getting inserts made in China for a mold that already exists in the US? Might there be material conflicts, dimensioning problems, etc...

Trying to find reasons either way.

miner

 

[TheAnswerGuy]

miner00,

As long as you have an exisisting component. You can usually find someone in China to do a good job. They are very good at copying.

Savings that can be seen can go as far as 1/8 the cost of a domestically manufactured component.

 

[AG62]

Yes1 They are very good to do a mold from scratch but making only inserts highly precise and make them fit in your existing mold is a very risky adventure.
We have tryed to do asimilar job and fixing was more expensive than making new inserts here.
The key word is you get what you pay!!!!!

 

[smokehouse]

This is why so many American moldmakers are out of work.
It's called cutting our own throats!

 

[TheAnswerGuy]

AG62 and smokehouse,

Don't be offended by the cost, it is a reflection of their economy.

Point-in-case:
I met a group of business people that were getting together in Kuala-Lampur, Malaysia. This group would meet in different places around the world and would always seek out the finest restaurant in the city they were staying. Well, they found what most people agreed to be the finest restaurant and deceided to splurge and order the best items that they could find on the menu. They had Lobster, escargot, prime steaks, the best of the wines and decadent deserts. They were going to put the meal on their expense accounts but felt a little guilty about doing so. Instead they deceided to split the check evenly amongst the group of 9. The total cost was four dollars each (US).

They also told me that all of the food, was excellent!

 

[MandeepGrewal]

We do this kind of a thing all the time.However proper information/drawings and dimensions are required especially for old moulds.
It is also possible to have complete subassemblies instead of some parts.
If you need any help I would be glad to provide it.
Mandeep Grewal
kametplastic@now-india.net.in

 

[vahanyan]

Are you still looking for solution?

 

[miner00]

Thanks all for your input...The "chinese" company that we were looking at was actually a multinational corporation and their pricing came in 3rd out of 4 quotes. Obviously we went with the local company both for cost reasons and to avoid the headache of sending the mold all over the world.

Out of curiosity and for future reference...What is the state of Chinese/Asian mold making. I have heard that the technology is starting to catch up to the US and the quality of the steel is getting better...

Any thoughts?

miner

 

[cruise001]

hi, miner00.
I am glad to know you via eng-tips forum.
First, let me introduce myself.
I am a chinese and mechanical engineer.
I have been a mold designer in plastic for three years .
Now I am a purchase engineer. I master mold market of China.
plastic mold and casting mold and others mold .
If your parts isn't high precision, Chinese is a good place.
We catch up to the US in some molds.
Our materials was made from issub of Sweden and making used in Helvetic machine.
you can contact me , if you have free time.
we can communicate about mold .

 

[Phuong]

Hi Cruise001,
Does your company produce the mold base? Contact me at email: vinhphatco@vol.vnn.vn

 

[chaving]

When dealing with Asian tooling my experience is you have to look at the knowledge base.

Here in Thailand a very high percentage of moulds are produced using Japanese design principals, these very often produce a cost efficient mould but also a highly in-efficient process. Normally everything will be made in solid (not inserted) and the cooling will be minimal and added as an after thought.

Other local tool makers may have a European or Ameriacn influence and can be excellent. Some are self tought or experienced and are very good.

I have also had the same experience with China, Singapore and Malaysia. The key to sucess is to walk every step of the project, making sure that there are no un-schudualed changes along the way.

I recently comisioned 29 chinese made tools for IBM product, on the whole they were very good, any problems were fixed internally.

However I will still recoment and buy European molds for certain applications.