For Mass Production, Plastic Tooling is the Better Way to Manufacture Plastic

       Injecting tooling is complicated and expensive to make. Custom injection molding and plastic tooling is designed and built by skilled workers. When designing the tooling, elements such as the part’s material thickness, part tolerance, number of parts expected to be produced, and the injecting molding machine requirements are considered.

       Mold or die are the common terms used to describe the plastic tooling used to produce plastic parts in molding. Since molds have been expensive to manufacture, they were usually only used in mass production where thousands of parts were being produced. Typical molds are constructed from hardened steel, pre-hardened steel, aluminum, and/or beryllium-copper alloy. The choice of material to build a mold from is primarily one of economics; in general, steel molds cost more to construct, but their longer lifespan will offset the higher initial cost over a higher number of parts made before wearing out. Pre-hardened steel molds are less wear-resistant and are used for lower volume requirements or larger components.

       Injection mould tooling became the most common method for manufacturing plastic parts, and it is considered ideal for mass production. It has a high rate of production and is able to use a variety of materials. Injection molding also has a low labor cost because it can generally produce finished products. The primary disadvantages of this process include the requirement to design the mold and the high start-up cost.