Many companies are searching for ways to move new product development projects forward without breaking the bank on initial investments. Research and development, prototypes, and pilot run quantities have to be completed with very minimal investment and without compromising flexibility of quantity and design.

Smart companies have employed strategies to enhance their new product development. A good example lies in companies manufacturing products that contain plastic parts. If projects have plastic components, then the cost of tooling can be a huge obstacle. Tooling and molds can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The solution: have the plastic parts machined. Prototypes as well as the first few years of production quantities can be produced for a fraction of the cost.

Machined plastic parts include little or no tooling charges, and can be delivered in two weeks. While molding requires full commitment to a part’s design, design changes to machined parts cost absolutely nothing. Request a Quote from a quality plastic machining vendor for a fast, cost-effective solution for new product development and launches.

Contact EPP Corporation now to see how plastic machining can help your new product hit the market and put your company ahead of the game!

The two major factors needed to reach your conclusion are quantity of parts and level of dimensional tolerance. As a general rule, you should consider plastic machining when lower volumes are needed or tighter tolerances on the dimensions are needed – or both.

Quantity of parts is significant because of the tool cost of a molded part. If you are injection molding your part, the molding tool will typically cost several thousand dollars and tooling for complex parts can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tool costs can make injection molding unfeasible for a low volume run.

Quantities between 100 and 1,000 – on some parts even up to 5,000 – are usually good candidates for conventional or milled plastic machining. Screw machining of plastics can be practical and cost effective from 500 pieces all the way up to 100,000 pieces or more.

Tolerance is a factor because machined parts can typically be produced at a tighter tolerance than molded parts. Each plastic material behaves differently, but you can generally achieve tolerances +/- .005” for molded parts. Plastic machined parts can be produced +/- .001” or better depending on the material and design. This is why critically precise industries – like medical devices, aerospace, fluid power, telecommunications, and many others – have turned to machined plastic.

One last advantage to machining is flexibility of design. Once an injection mold has been produced, it can create only that design and any modification to the design requires expensive changes in the mold. Design changes to a plastic machined part are immediate and have virtually no impact on tooling costs.