This is a very complicated question and no more details can’t be answered. My background is industrial design, I have done a lot of injection molding development, so I have a certain understanding of the entire development process, but a mold engineer will have a more detailed answer to the details.

Based on your question, I will try a general answer:

First there are a few very important issues that you need to process before developing, mold and mold your product:

Has the product been designed and engineered? If you have not fully developed the product, you may be wasting time and money unless the mold shop has engineering support to help you develop the product. (A considerable number of companies have this feature) This can be expensive.

Are you sure that your product needs injection molding? For example, is thermoforming a better choice?

How many parts do you need to produce each year? (This is very important for the discussion and design development of the final production parts.)

What plastic resin do you plan to use to make the part? The injection mold will need to be designed to work with a specific resin.

How big is the part you need to make?

How complex are the parts? Are you making a single part or an assembly?

Do you need a mechanical interface between the parts?

I don’t know more details,

If you need injection molding, first make sure you work with an engineering/design team who has expertise in designing injection molded parts. This is very important, a good company can help you simplify the design, so part design is the most cost-effective. (Mold details such as slides, movements in the mold, etc. can quickly make your parts very expensive) Very careful company, like those who say they can do whatever you want at a low price! Injection is not a cheap offer .

Another option for development is to work with a full service tool shop with mechanical engineering capabilities (outside of mold design). This is a good choice if you are developing fairly simple parts, such as plastic containers that do not require complicated assembly or mechanical movement/interfaces. In the past, the project was completed by a team and the mold design/mold engineering was done by another team. Many stores now offer this full range of services. If you follow this path, make sure you have confidence in their mechanical engineering parts design.

Ideally, you’ll want to build a prototype mold before building the final production mold, and eventually the mold can quickly become very expensive. A 3D rapid prototyping machine using stereolithography or similar engineering will help you and your engineering/design partner before you start prototype mold development. Depending on how big or complex your parts are, design/engineering companies use a lot of 3D rapid prototyping, and now they are relatively cheap and fast.

For prototype molds, there are now some protoyping companies that can quickly build prototype molds at relatively low cost in one to two months. These prototype molds will allow you to make a certain number of parts, but you need to ask how many parts the prototype supplier can make.

After your part design and engineering development is complete, your prototype is completed, looking for the tool manufacturer’s expertise and doing similar products that you have designed. For example, if the part you are developing is a complex medical device, I highly recommend finding a store with this expertise.

Then, the best mold factory will produce your prototype and scale. Some good stores have both tool manufacturing capabilities and machine capabilities to run production parts.

It is important to get quotes from various mold shops based on how many parts you think you need to make. If the cost of a mold is low, they may sell you a low-quality mold. The number of parts that the mold can run may be low, or the quality of the finished part may be poor. (Many companies will build cheap molds to start the business, but in the long run, this method will be bad for you. Either give me money now, or give me money later!

A good mold factory is worth the price. Once you find one you are confident, they can help you build the final production mold and help you with the final part of the mold, or they have partner injection molds, who can create finished production parts.