As we know, lower manufacturing cost gains more profit and enables your business more competitive in the market. Many investors, business runner, or product owner have no idea how to save manufacturing cost. That’s true, as they are not manufacturing expert, but they can learn some basic tips to save manufacturing cost.
Inno manufacturing, a professional contract manufacturer in Shenzhen China, we know how to save your product manufacturing cost. Here below we would like to share some useful tips on how to achieve it.
Choose proper scale of manufacturer
Prior to find a contract manufacturer for your project, you should always evaluate your manufacturing volume and quality requirement clearly. For example, if your project has a large scale of manufacturing volume(1,000,000 pcs per month), and your product is a higher precision product that requires large scale of manufacturers(like Foxconn, Flextronics, Jabil, Celestica, etc), of course, the large scale of manufacturers would definitely offer much higher cost, because they have more administration cost, local tax, worker salary, and facility cost. If so, you should always find a similar level of contract manufacturers
On the other hand, if your project just has a medium manufacturing volume (around 100,000 pcs per month), you should find medium size of contract manufacturers that employees about 1000~2000 people, and site ground covers about 50,000 square meters or less. Relatively to say, it will be much cheaper at cost compared to large scale of manufacturers.
Finally, if you are startups or small business, and not sure how your manufacturing volume could be(10,000 pcs or less). It’s strongly suggested to find a small or startup manufacturer, as they are much cheaper and flexible.
In one words, smaller manufacturing factory would definitely has lower manufacturing cost. If you want to save your manufacturing cost. You must find proper scale of manufacturer.
Design your products as simple as possible
Any products are designed to perform a certain kind of function, as long as the product function is achieved, try to design your product as simple as possible. Just think about a “phone holder” for car, any simple design that can hold phone and make a good customer feeling. Fewer and simple components will definitely have less cost
Avoid sliders for injection molded parts
If you have any knowledge on injection mold tooling, you might note that less sliders of injection molded parts will definitely have less cost on mold tooling and injection molding process. Therefore, try to design your plastic parts without slider or few sliders as possible, as it will at least save 15%~50% of total manufacturing cost.
Thinner and lighter parts
A thinner parts is certainly a lighter part, which requires less raw material on manufacturing process. However most of business runner do know much on how to check out the part thickness. It’s something they have to check with their contract manufacturers during DFM process. Making sure each parts thickness is properly designed.
Use and standard and interchangeable components
A standard interchangeable can be purchased from market easily, quickly, and cost-effectively. When we design a product, it’s a basic concern to use interchangeable components as possible, which will save lots of cost and boost project progress. For example, screws, spring, rings, wedges, washes, or shafts.