Home Appliance Shell Injection Molding

Project Background

This client specializes in injection molding production for home appliance enclosures. Previously, due to unreasonable mold design by their former partner, the mold failed to meet standards even after five trial runs. Each trial consumed approximately 20kg of plastic raw material (priced at 28 yuan/kg), resulting in raw material waste alone totaling 2,800 yuan. Moreover, rework and adjustments after each trial took 3 to 4 days, causing a cumulative delay of 16 days in the product launch cycle. This directly affected the client’s order delivery and led to indirect losses of about 12,000 yuan. After the client sought cooperation with us, our team provided full-process refined services: we conducted in-depth communication with the client on product parameters in the early stage, used Moldflow simulation technology to predict filling defects in advance, optimized the mold runner design, and adopted a modular structure to improve component reusability. This completely eliminated rework caused by design defects. In the mold trial phase alone, we saved 2,800 yuan in material costs and reduced rework time by 12 to 16 days. In terms of material selection, considering the client’s mass production requirements, we recommended P20 mold steel (85 yuan/kg), a more cost-effective alternative to the original high-priced H13 mold steel (120 yuan/kg). Each mold requires approximately 120kg of steel, saving 4,200 yuan in steel costs for this single item alone. Additionally, leveraging our bulk purchasing advantages with suppliers, we further reduced the unit raw material price by 5 yuan/kg, achieving an extra procurement cost saving of 600 yuan. In total, raw material-related costs were reduced by 5,400 yuan, representing a decrease of 18%.

During production, we optimized the CNC machining process and introduced high-speed milling technology, which improved machining efficiency by 40%. The machining time for a single mold set was shortened from 10 days to 6 days, saving 96 working hours and 7,680 yuan in processing costs. Meanwhile, we assigned dedicated personnel to synchronize progress, reducing internal communication overhead and saving approximately 2 days of waiting time. In the end, the mold passed trial testing on the first attempt. The delivery cycle was shortened from 28 days to 18 days, helping the client launch the product 10 days earlier and secure an additional 300,000 yuan in orders. The overall cost per mold set decreased from 30,000 yuan to 24,600 yuan, a reduction of 18%. In subsequent mass production, mold cooling time was shortened by 30%, saving 2 hours per batch. This allowed an extra 3 production batches per day, cutting daily electricity costs by 120 yuan and monthly operator labor costs by 6,000 yuan, achieving time savings, cost reduction and quality improvement.