Finding a Chinese Injection Mold Provider Consideration List

Searching for a China injection mold provider can be incredibly difficult and time consuming. There are plenty of blogs and articles that cover different aspects of what you need to consider, but you"ll need a list. This ensures that you look at all of your potential China injection mold source options and the range of questions you need to ask.

Remember, the cost is not your only consideration. Things like shipping time, communication, and QA process play very important roles in determining if a particular China injection mold provider is cost effective.

Your Sourcing Options

You have three options for finding a provider in China:

• Direct Chinese source
• Broker who recommend and negotiates with a Chinese source on your behalf
• Domestic provider with a Chinese partner

Initially, this list appears to reflect the cost in ascending order. A direct source will often appear to be the most cost effective source and a domestic partner will appear to be the least cost effective.

However, when you take the following considerations into account, you will see the initial cost for the domestic provider has some distinct advantages, including easier negotiations, design time, and predictable delivery times.

Considerations and Questions

When you talk to each of your potential sourcing options, the following considerations and questions will help you determine if the source is likely to meet your needs.

Communication

This is one of the biggest potential issues, particularly during the design phase. You need to be able to talk to the people who are responsible for the designs. There are several potential communication issues to consider:

• Time zones can pose a problem if you work directly with someone in China
• Designs can be more difficult to finalize when you cannot speak directly to one of the professionals working on the design
• Shipping times may be off because of holidays, so you need to know the production schedule for the entire time your product is being processed

Planning

Planning is one of the most important aspects as it sets the tone for the entire project. Here are the things to consider for the planning phase:

• Materials
• Design time
• Production time frame

Quality Assurance and Shipping

Make sure that you discuss your QA needs and shipping expectations. If you are working on a tight deadline, you need to make sure that the product is high quality and can be turned around quickly.