We made 2 sets of injection molds for a US company before. At the beginning, customer meant to make the tool and then sending it to US for plastic molding. The annual volumes may be around 1000 to start. According to more than 10 years experience of ACO Mold injection molding manufacturer in plastic processing industry, we have below comments on export molds and production molds:
If the production volume is high, exceed 50K to 100K, the best way would be just purchasing molds from us and do molding in US. If the production volume less than 20K, we propose to do molding in our factory. Of course, these are just our proposal, all decisions up to the customer. After careful consideration, customer decided make injection molds for injection molding in China.

Basic part information:

• Plastic material: PA66+GF18
• Finish: SAND BLAST
• Color: Black
• Production volume: 250 pcs

Basic mold information:

• Mold type: 2-Plate
• Gate type: Side Gate
• Cavity number: 1+1+1
• Material: PA66+GF18
• Shrinkage: 1.008

Before making injection molds, we did DFM for manufacturability, and confirmed important information and details with customer, such as gate type, parting line, ejection etc.

We proposed to modify the part design a little (Removing the rounds and fixing the interference) according to our proposals. Our proposals were adopted by customer. DFM was approved by customer, so we go ahead with mold design. We send the 3D mold design and the 3D part we cut the R for mold releasing to customer for verifying.

After confirming and approving, we ordered steel and started cutting mold steel for mold making. Injection mold making took 4 weeks. We regularly report mold making process and send pictures, such as mold rough machining, heat treatment, mold fitting etc.

After mold making is done, we did sampling. The T1 samples were shipped to customer for verifying. Customer wanted to make some changes in part design. After discussing between mold engineers of ACO Mold injection molding company, we did ppt notes about mold modification according to the changed part design. We marked there what we need to do for each modification point. Customer commented “The modifications look very nice-great work! The modifications to the base worked perfectly and are good to go.” But he was not happy with the strength of the latch on the end cap as he designed it. So after he discussed it with his work partner, he wanted to thicken up the 4 arms of the latch on the end cap. Besides, there is a demolding problem. 7 days for the modification of end cap + handle. We would add an ejector blade for the handle parts, this would solve the demolding problem. T2 samples were shipped to customer for comments. 8 working days is for third modification. In order to allow it snap in perfectly and make sure right assembly, we need to cut the material a little bit. At last, T3 samples were approved by customer.

Customer wanted to order 1000 pcs, but he wanted to make sure that the fit between the base and anchor was consistent in the 250 run first. So we produced 250 sets of plastic parts for customer.

Injection molds for export VS Injection molds for production
We have shipped many injection molds to US before, but for all of these molds, customer would let us know in advance the mold will be shipped to US for production, so the mold was designed in DME standard, not LKM standard in China. We assume the production will be in house so the mold was designed and made to adapt to our machine. If customer wants to run the mold in US, we have to make sure the mold can adopt the molder’s machine in US.

Mold shipped to European must be in HASCO standard, mold shipped to US must be DME standard, mold in Asia usually LKM standard.

In addition, the price could be 2-3 times differences. For the production mold, we try to make the mold as cheap as possible but parts comes out the mold must be good enough, this is the bottom line.  Sometimes, we use hand load core, or slightly smaller size steel/plate, or cheap steel, aluminum, and we can customized all the mold components or use the easiest alternative solution. For export mold, for example, mold made to run in US, we need to make it DME standard, we need to buy mold base from LKM–the biggest and best mold base supplier in Asia, we need to use the ejector pins, slider limitation part…etc…in INCH standard so that customers can easily get replacement at local when the mold run in US, even the packing /processing process/documentation are different.