Interested in learning more about custom injection molding?
Among other industries, the automotive industry relies on custom plastic injection molding for all of the plastic features of a vehicle.
In this informative article, we’ll take a look under the hood of plastic injection molding and explore how plastic injection molding companies manufacture parts.
Keep reading to learn more!
Custom Injection Molding History
Historically, within the automotive industry vehicles were almost entirely manufactured from metal. That made them heavy and expensive to make. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s revolutions within the automotive industry led to manufacturers incorporating plastic injection molded parts into their designs.
In the 1970s car companies began to make a lot more plastic parts including headlights and bumpers. Since the early 2000s, even more, parts have been manufactured from plastic instead of metal, including interior parts and casings for electronic parts that can include sophisticated AI and driver assistance systems.
Why Choose Injection Molding?
Injection molding companies like ours have grown and developed in tandem with the automotive industry so we use the very best techniques and design strategies to make excellent parts. Custom plastic injection molding is a reliable method for mass-producing large volumes of flawlessly accurate parts for cars.
Plastic injection molding companies have also pioneered processes and created manufacturing efficiencies that are hard for automotive companies to replicate in-house.
Here are some key factors that make injection molding so special.
Consistent Mass Production
Sometimes referred to as repeatability, the ability to produce consistent and identical parts is essential for excellent vehicles with a high-quality finish. Injection molding is considered a highly ‘repeatable’ process and using robust metal molds leads to excellent resulting parts.
Scalable and Cost-Efficient
Because of the aforementioned repeatability, it’s easy to scale injection molded part production and also create meaningful cost efficiencies. There’s often also much less waste than some other manufacturing methods.
Great Availability of Materials
Manufacturers like us can use a huge variety of materials including but not limited to acrylic, nylon, polycarbonate, and the ever-popular and recyclable material polypropylene.
A Range of Surface Finishes Is Easy
Design flexibility and versatility are excellent when it comes to injection molded car parts. We can effortlessly produce a range of textures and surface finishes that add value to design and desirability including matte, patterned, high gloss, and other finishes.
Excellent Color Options Are Available
A key quality of injection molding is that because the material is flexible, the range of color options is limitless. Unlike other processes and materials the color of injection molded parts is only limited by the designers’ imagination.
Prototyping, Tooling, and Redesigning is a Breeze
Because of the versatility of plastics, it’s easy to design in the material and also to tool, prototype, and iterate when designing. Molded plastic car parts prototype and turn around a lot faster than alternatives such as steel parts.
We’re a Top Tier Supplier
We’re a tier-one supplier to automotive OEMs for custom plastic injection molding.
Do you still have questions about custom injection molding? Nova Stevensville can help. We operate a 100,000 sq ft. plastic injection molding facility located in South West Michigan. Contact us with any questions you may have. We’d love to take your call. Contact us now.
