Slightly more than half of Design News readers buy molds from China, despite significant quality, communications, and delivery problems.
In a survey conducted last month by the UBM Electronics Group, 51 percent of the respondents said they buy molds from China to make plastic parts. The big reason is price. More than a third of the respondents said the savings amount to more than 40 percent of what they would have paid for a mold made in the United States. The initial purchase price for a mold is often above $100,000 and can reach $750,000 and beyond.
Of the design engineers who purchased molds from China, 71 percent said they have experienced quality problems with those molds. More than half said they have had delivery problems with Chinese mold suppliers.
An engineer for a manufacturing company in North Carolina says: "Engineering is pushed to do our plastic parts in China because of mold prices… The quality of Chinese molds in general is poor compared to US molds and they do not last nearly as long. We work on gate location, shrinkage, draft, etc. with the Chinese vendors, but language is a great and frustrating barrier. Often we have tolerance problems and they want us to change the drawing to fit the part."
Engineers rate plastic part quality as the No. 1 consideration when selecting a supplier of injection molds. Initial mold cost is No. 4, according to the survey. But many corporate executive suites are pushing their procurement departments to reduce costs by sourcing from Asia.
Excessive focus on initial purchase cost is a widespread problem in outsourcing, according to a report titled "Outsourcing to China: A Case Study Revisited Seven Years Later" and delivered this summer at the 2011 International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA).
"Seven years after our original report on the hidden costs of offshoring product manufacture, it is clear that the practice that companies have of not properly accounting for costs continues to be a problem," said David G. Meeker and Jay P. Mortensen, the consultants who wrote the report. "Aside from unexpected events, hidden costs exist because complete costs are rarely allocated to the product and reside instead in corporate overhead budgets."
In the meantime, defenders of mold outsourcing say that Chinese mold makers are becoming more sophisticated. They often operate large shops with new equipment, for example.
In an interesting development, the Society of Plastics Engineers' Mold Making and Mold Design Division recently named a Chinese moldmaker as the winner of its annual Moldmaker of the Year competition. This year's top moldmaker, in the SPE's opinion, is S.Y. Chu, the chairman of Pacific Master Precision Injection Ltd. in Zhongshan, China.
Scott Peters, the chair-elect of the SPE division, said in a presentation speech that Chu was the first foreign winner in the award's history because of his market planning, high standards, and commitment to training. Peters also said Chu's company established a team that helped it become the first Chinese company to meet the Society of Plastics Industry class 101 mold standard, which represents the highest-priced molds and requires the use of the highest-quality materials. Class 101 molds are designed to operate for more than a million cycles.
My company is in the process of negotiating a mold tool for a large plastic enclosure for an acoustic device. It is expensive and we hope we get what we pay for. Unfortunately, in my experience, getting a decent tool means working with a contractor partner in China and not bringing the tool back to the U.S. Usually a qualified CM does not want to have a high reject rate so they work with their tool supplier (or molding partner) to get it right the first time.
The tool prices mentioned in this article must be for large tools. For a small molded ABS part (say it's slender and 2 inches long) can be as much as $8k for a good tool with slides.
At some point companies do have to start looking at the total cost of the tool, not just the upfront cost that looks to be less. There are so many costs that are not included. Shipping the tool. Quality, life, hardness, finish. My experience with foreign molds has never been pleasant. Often the part numbers have been backwards, date codes have been incorrect and those are the simpler things we have had to fix.
I have had the same experience. And I agree that the KEY is excellent communication. If you have to send pictures with circles and arrows back and forth to convey your intentions this can become exhausting, and time consuming. On the other hand, when you find a supplier that understands your needs, and willing to work hard to satisfy their customers, the result can be very good. (On the other-other hand, I always feel uneasy having paid for a mold knowing that I will never get to see it, or take possession of it. Maybe its just me.)
I have dealt with several shops in China, mostly resulting in long delays, repairs, and rework to get the molds producing acceptable parts. However, there was one shop I dealt with that was fantastic. The engineers spoke English quite well and provided excellent service. They made 2 molds, and there was only 1 dimension out of spec, total. It was out by only .002" and was on a non-critical feature. On top of that, they hit their promised delivery date, with 3 days to spare..
Mold purchasing in China can be difficult. If you receive a extremely low price quote, you will most likely receive an extremely low quality mold. Just like there are good mold shops in the US, there are good shops in China, but they are few and far between.
The most common sound in tool shops in China is the sound of an air powered grinding wheel. I can only imagine the "precision" fitting that is being accomplished with these high tech grinders.
Also, if you do not have specific requirements for mold construction, you will end up with non-hardened Chinese steel and Chinese hydraulic cylinders for core movement.
It is the same in the states as it is in China "You get what you pay for".
It's often the case that engineers buy components from China, initially because of the price, and then find that the quality improves over the years, as you indicate here, Doug.
I only hope more engineering organizations, procurement organizations, and overall general management will take note of these kind of findings and rethink some of the rationale around outsourcing to China and other locales. For American manufacturing to survive, companies need to consider the total cost of their outsourcing decisions across the entire lifecycle of the product and account for costs related to quality glitches, delayed deliveries, etc. I'm sure mold design is not the only area that experiences issues with overseas suppliers.
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