Please Compare Apples with Apples (0)
Posted 7 June, 2007 in Uncategorized
I had a customer solicit a quote from us last fall. After following up a few times and hearing nothing, we received a call. It went something like this: “Ben, I am totally confused. I have received 6 quotes. Tools range in price from $1800 to $9000 and the part price is anywhere from $.50 to $2.50. How can this be?” (By the way, we were $5K and $.80). After talking to the customer, I walked him through all of the reasons there was such a spread. Some tools were quoted in aluminum (which was sufficient and more cost effective for the project). Some were quoted in steel (more expensive and overkill in this case). In the lowest tooling price, the customer would never retain ownership of the tool. Ironically, the cheapest tool had the most expensive part price…..So, what appeared as the cheapest tooling investment was actually a tool held hostage subject to increased part prices every time it is ran (unless, of course, customer wanted to build it again elsewhere). In the age of the internet it is very easy to obtain multiple bids from multiple companies. Please be sure to get “Apples to Apples” quotes to avoid the confusion.
Long story short, we signed up the customer. Built a single cavity tool with room to expand to the second cavity when production takes off. All of our customers retain ownership of their tooling. If we have a customer who is unhappy with our services, why should they be held hostage? Needless to say, a tool rarely travels the wrong way out of our place.
One Common Myth (0)
Posted 7 June, 2007 in Uncategorized
One of the most common comments we receive from potential customers is that their estimated usage of a part cannot justify building a tool. “We do not make thousands and thousands of these widgets, so building a tool will never payoff.” This statement often times proves to be wrong.
We literally have 100’s of parts that run less than 1,000 cycles per year. We are able to do this for several reasons. First, we offer the necessary design support that will enable us to directly CNC cut most of our tooling (eliminating the need for EDM). Secondly, most low volume jobs are built into aluminum tooling.. Aluminum tools build faster and cycle faster in production. Both necessary to achieving a price structure that justifies building a tool. Lastly, we build a lot of family tools. A family tool gangs multiple parts into one mold base. If parts can be molded out of the same material and ran together in a family tool, it reduces tooling and production costs.
Please make sure to contact us if you think you have a project that you have been told cannot be injection molded because the volumes are not there. We may be able to help.