What Are the Pros and Cons of Injection Moulding?

Posted by plastic38 on August 12th, 2014

Injection moulding, one of the most popular methods used in the manufacturing industry has been in use for a long time. From creating attractive products to the ones with finer details, injection moulding method is suitable for all of them. Most of us would not be aware of but almost 3/4^th plastic products found all around us or used in our homes are created using this method. It is the best suitable manufacturing method where mass production is concerned. However with advantages, this method also has certain disadvantages as well. Let us consider both the pros and cons of this method to understand about it a little better.

The pros are:

• Quick production: taking not more than 15-30 seconds in each cycle, one can create a large number of products per hour. It also depends on the number of mould parts available in the machine. If you have around 5 mould parts in the machine, you can create 2 products on an average per minute, which is much higher than the other techniques.
• Flexibility of appearance: in general it is not easy to change the color of the product or add variation to it a lot. However with injection moulding technique, you can use a single tool to create various products with different colors and patterns by mixing molten plastic for vivid patterns.
• Low production cost: the production cost will be fairly low since, one does not require much labor to handle the equipments or machinery. Everything is done automatically hence the cost is lowered down significantly.
• Variation: since the injection mold parts can be switched and modified, there is a huge variation in the look of the product created. You can create finer details, add dual color look or create intricate patterns as well to enhance the look of the product.

Where there are so many positive points associated with the injection moulding, there are several negative aspects as well. Some of the cons of the injection moulding manufacturing technique are:

• Installation charges: the installation charges are quite high, and can vary with the size of the machine you are buying. However there are several companies which can provide affordable injection moulding tool machines.
• Training: initially it is not easy to use this manufacturing tool properly. One needs proper training to work out the machine well and later experiment with the different molten plastics to create unique designs.

Make sure to buy the injection moulding machine from the best manufacturer. It should be easy to use, install and come at an affordable price.