At World Class Plastics, we specialize in manufacturing custom molded products for a variety of industries. Custom plastic injection molding has several benefits for OEMs of all types, accommodating high-volume production, driving down per-unit costs, and maintaining quality and precision across part batches. Today, we’re going to dive into our injection molding process from start to finish, design to delivery, so that no matter how familiar you may be with injection molding, you’ll have a better understanding of the decisions to make throughout the process to ensure success.
1. Quoting and Design Phase
The process of making custom molded products begins at the quoting and design stages. As soon as we receive your RFQ, and a quote has been agreed on, our engineering team will get with you to begin the process and start the conversation about your project. That includes perfecting the product design for injection molding, determining the best mold design, and completing any material sourcing necessary for both. Material selection is an important step, as the type of plastic that you want for your product will determine a large portion of the tooling design. We also customize the quality control process for your parts at this point, creating a detailed plan to ensure that you receive the level of quality you need from your project.
2. Tooling Design and Building
Once we have made the product design the best it can be, we’ll then move on to the mold itself. World Class Plastics has a full division dedicated to designing, building, and maintaining injection molding tools for our customers. We understand the importance of good tooling design, especially when it comes to custom molded products, for end-use product performance, long-term production, preventing part defects and manufacturing issues, and optimizing the overall process.
3. Injection Molding
With the design of the product settled and the mold built, we then move on to the actual injection molding process. We add the mold tooling to our production lines, and begin the cycle of inserting material to be molded into the tool, compressing it and allowing it to cool, ejecting the finished part, and then repeating the process. As simple as this sounds, injection molding also involves a significant amount of oversight and automated control to maintain proper temperatures throughout the process and alert operators to any potential issues or needs for maintenance.
4. Additional Processing and Finishing
Often, custom molded parts require additional processing, machining, insert molding, or decorating, all of which we do here at World Class Plastics, in-house or through a trusted third party if we don’t have the exact service you need. Completing these additional services saves our customers both time and money, and helps to maintain consistent quality throughout the entire project. Our engineers will help you determine what, if any, additional services will be needed to get your parts up to the standards you require of them.
5. Assembly and Delivery
Another important and additional step that we offer here at World Class Plastics is product assembly. We’ll take any parts that we mold for you as well as any additional hardware that you require, and complete a variety of assembly operations so that you receive finished, turnkey products. This can be partial or full small assemblies, mechanical, welding, or other needs, depending on what your project calls for.
About World Class Plastics
World Class Plastics (WCPI) is a manufacturer of custom molded products for a wide variety of industries and applications, known for our commitment to quality and to our customers. To request a quote, or to learn more about our services, please contact us today!