Chinese Molds vs. U.S. Injection Molds

Oct. 21, 2024

Chinese Molds vs. U.S. Injection Molds

Many companies utilize offshore manufacturing to save on labor costs and raw materials. When it comes to fabricating plastic injection molds, those savings may seem significant; however, offshore manufacturing often comes with many drawbacks such as shipping delays and low product quality. These issues quickly eliminate any cost benefits associated with Chinese injection molds as they often result in the need for reworked parts.

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At The Rodon Group, our injection molds are made in the U.S. using methods that are designed to help beat Chinese prices. This allows you to reap the benefits of lower costs while eliminating the risks associated with offshore manufacturing.

Chinese Molds vs. U.S. Molds

Chinese manufacturers may offer low-cost injection molds and fast construction times, but these so-called benefits are soon outweighed by other factors, especially if your business needs more complex parts.

Drawbacks of Using an Offshore Chinese Supplier

Disadvantages of working with an offshore Chinese supplier include:

Hidden Costs. Chinese manufacturing quotes often leave out costs associated with warehousing, international insurance, translators, and shipping.
Lower Quality. Chinese manufacturers often lack sufficient quality control and use lower-quality materials in an attempt to increase their profit margins. This results in low-quality finished products that could result in safety recalls that could affect your brand&#;s reputation.
Mismatched Design Expectations. Chinese manufacturers often include design features that do not align with your expectations. For example, since labor rates are lower in China, they may find hand de-molding acceptable. However, North American molders often require automatic de-molding since labor costs are higher.
Longer Design Time. Mold designs often need many rounds of revisions, which can be hard to do when working with a manufacturer overseas.
Mold Reworking. Upon arrival and inspection, North American companies often find that Chinese molds need to be reworked to bring them up to spec.

Benefits of Using a North American Moldmaker

While the upfront costs may initially appear higher, comparing the true cost of manufacturing in the U.S. versus China reveals some benefits of using an onshore supplier. These benefits include:

Cheaper Life-Cycle Cost. Manufacturing your molds in the U.S. decreases life-cycle costs by significantly reducing or eliminating costs associated with product reworks, repairs due to inferior materials, and downtime.
Greater # of Job Opportunities and Higher Ethical Standards- Bringing manufacturing operations back to the United States creates job opportunities for Americans, which bolsters both the local and national economies. Additionally, as the safety practices in other countries may not match those of their home country, investing in onshore operations allows them to protect their employees better
Better Environmental Friendliness- Shipping operations generate a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Domestic manufacturing and shipping operations enable companies to cut down on their carbon footprints by reducing the distance between their products and their customers.
Superior Customer Service- Domestic customer service centers prevent customers from perceiving a disconnect between themselves and the customer service representatives. Additionally, they minimize the risk of miscommunication occurring due to language barriers.
Meets Design Expectations. With better manufacturing processes and an understanding of North American design demands, U.S. suppliers deliver molds with automatic de-molding capabilities without the need for design revisions and reworking.
Higher Quality. U.S. mold manufacturers have access to high-quality materials and can meet your safety and quality control standards. This results in higher-quality molds with a significantly decreased risk of recalls.

How Rodon Beats China Pricing

When you're navigating U.S. manufacturing versus China manufacturing, The Rodon Group can compete globally while keeping all manufacturing onshore. Rodon's high volume, U.S. manufacturing is backed by our Cheaper than China® pricing program, which is designed to provide your company with certainty surrounding pricing, delivery, and quality.

Our zero-defect manufacturing model reduces product quality risks, and all of our materials come from certified resin sources. Injection molds are manufactured in our OSHA-certified state-of-the-art facility and come with a lifetime tooling guarantee. When you partner with The Rodon Group for high-volume mold manufacturing, you can avoid international shipping delays and take advantage of revisions and changes without worrying about time zone or language barriers.

You will get efficient and thoughtful service from Wingtat.

Working with us also eliminates the need for currency exchanges, ensures adherence to non-disclosure agreements and Patent protection, and gives you access to tool financing programs for improved cash flow.

Injection Molds from The Rodon Group

When considering Chinese injection mold manufacturing, the hidden costs of offshore sourcing are simply too risky. With Rodon's globally competitive manufacturing model, your final delivered costs will beat China pricing and generate net savings over your entire life-cycle. Stay competitive with Rodon's U.S.-made injection molds. For more information or to get started on your onshore mold solution, contact us today.

Analysis of the 6 strong mold countries

In the past two decades, Chinese mold manufacturing technology has made a qualitative leap and grown from small to large rapidly. With the development of auto industry, independent brands have entered the middle and high-end, meanwhile, new energy vehicles have emerged. China has entered the world ranking, The 6 strong mold countries are: China, Germany, the United States, Italy, Singapore,Japan. today we are going to analyze the mold advantages of each country.

1. Superb mold technology of Germany

Germany has always been known for its exquisite processing skills and production of precision machinery and tools, For the complex industrial field of mold, after many years of practical exploration, German mold manufacturers have formed a consensus that the entire industry must be coordinated, work together, tap the development potential, jointly carry forward the spirit of innovation, common technological progress, learn from each other's strengths, and play well the overall advantage is the success of the industry. In addition, in order to meet the needs of the rapid development of new products today, not only large companies have established new development centers in Germany, but many small and medium-sized enterprises have also done so, actively doing R&D for customers. In terms of research, Germany has always been very active and has become an important basis for its undefeated international market. In the fierce competition, the German mold industry has maintained a strong position in the international market for many years, and the export rate has been stable at about 33%. According to the statistics of the German Machinery and Mould Industry Organization-the German Machinery Manufacturers Association (VDMA) Tool and Mould Association, there are about mold companies in Germany. In , the German mold output value reached 4.8 billion euros. Among them, there are 90 (VDMA) member mold companies, and the output value of these 90 key mold companies accounts for 90% of the German mold output value.

2. The quality and efficiency mold of Italy

The production technology level of Italian mold enterprises is first-class in the world. the application of high technology to mold design and manufacturing has become a powerful guarantee for the rapid manufacture of high-quality molds in Italy. In Italian mold companies, CAD/CAE/CAM, high-speed cutting processing technology, rapid prototyping technology and rapid mold making technology have become widely used technologies.

The Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery and mold manufacturing industry is one of the 10 special machinery manufacturing industries of the Italian Machinery Manufacturing Alliance, and the Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery and mold manufacturing industry has more than 500 European patents. , While providing customers with various value-added services. Italian mold companies have annual sales of more than US$100,000 per capita. At present, the output value of the Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery and mold manufacturing industry accounts for 16.5% of the total output value of the 10 industries of the Machinery Manufacturing Alliance. At the same time, the export destination of Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery and mold products is still mainly in the EU, with the export value accounting for 47% of the total export share.

Italian mold enterprises have advanced technology and advanced management, so that the large, precise, and complex molds they produce have played an extremely important role in promoting the development of industries such as automobiles, electronics, communications, and home appliances.

3. American mold is facing change

There are about 7,000 mold companies in the United States, and more than 90% are small companies with less than 50 employees. Due to the high degree of industrialization, the US mold industry has long become a mature high-tech industry and is at the forefront of the world. American mold steel has achieved standardized production and supply. CAD/CAE/CAM technology is commonly used in mold design and manufacturing. Advanced technology is equipped with processing technology, inspection and testing. The development of large, complex, precise, long-life and high-performance molds has reached a leading level. But since the s, the US economy has faced major adjustments and changes in the post-industrial era, as well as strong international competition&#;from cost pressures, time pressures, and competitive pressures.

4. Japan masters the core technology

Japanese mold industry has maintained the status of the world's first mold power and mold power. At the peak of , its domestic mold output value reached 1, billion yen. However, in the ten years since then, although the annual output value has been rising or falling, the overall situation has stagnated and has not recovered or exceeded the level of , and the number of mold production enterprises has also decreased year by year. year. In addition to controlling core technologies in many areas, Japan also controls the most profitable link in the industrial chain, allowing most joint ventures in other markets in the world to profit only from the assembly link. This "industrial construction country" economic model is also worth learning by Chinese companies.

5. Singapore focuses on developing IT molds

Singapore is a small country with a population of only 3 million. In the s and s, the government attached importance to and supported the development of precision molds, and issued many policies to enable the mold industry to grow rapidly and promote the rapid development of Singapore's economy. Singapore has more than 1,000 enterprises of various types of molds and precision machining, and the annual output value of molds exceeds 4.5 billion yuan. It has a very important influence and role in the Asian mold industry. There are more than 10 listed companies in the mold industry. More than 65% of the molds produced by companies in Singapore are for the IT electronics related industries. The molds produced are not large, but they are all high-precision and high-level molds. Singapore mold companies mainly focus on semiconductor frame/package molds, metal stamping molds, plastic molds, silicone rubber molds, etc.

6. The rising star of Chinese automotive mold

In recent years, the structure of my country's mold industry, whether it is enterprise organizational structure, product structure, technical structure and import and export structure, has been developing in the direction of rationalization. In order to update and improve the level of equipment, mold processing companies need to import billions of equipment every year. The investment in innovation and development is still insufficient. The improvement of comprehensive R&D capabilities in the mold industry has seriously lags behind the improvement of production capacity. The main problems are reflected in the weak innovation capacity; the overall efficiency is low; the degree of specialization, standardization and commercialization, Poor collaboration; mold materials and mold-related technologies are backward; the organizational structure, product structure, technical structure and import and export structure of the enterprise are not reasonable; Compared with the international advanced level, the management of mold enterprises is more backward than technology. the development trend of China's mold industry in the next ten years is: mold products are developing in the direction of large-scale, precise, complex, economic and rapid; the technical content of molds continues to increase, The mold manufacturing cycle is continuously shortened; mold production is developing in the direction of informationization, graphlessness, refinement and automation; mold companies are developing in the direction of technology integration, sophisticated equipment, product branding, management informationization, and international management.

If you need quote and support, let us show you what are we capable for.

Kemal Precision Manufacturing Ltd. | www.kemalmfg.com

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