When you are choosing a casting company for your business, it’s critical to find the right one. The right casting company can be the difference between success and failure.
Casting parts that work reliably and are delivered according to your time frame and within your budget can make your operations run much more smoothly and efficiently. Considerations when choosing a casting company may include the range of materials they are able to work with and die cast on a routine basis, their pricing structure and how committed they are to communication with your company.
Time Considerations
If your business is like most, speed is an issue. Faster production means you can deliver more goods or services at a higher rate and generate more profits. While it is not always the case, you often will want a casting company that can deliver your parts such as few tin ingots in a reasonably fast time frame without a drop in quality.
Typically, your casting company should be able to produce and deliver high-quality casting parts in less than four weeks.
Capabilities
You may prefer a company that can handle a wide range of volume in production cycles, from about 500 parts to 25,000 or more. You also want a company that can add value to your parts, such as powder coating, quality machining, plating, painting and/or assembly.
Materials
You may only be interested in one type of metal for your die cast parts, but a company that is able to work with centrifugal casting equipments and variety of metals can give you more options.
Certainly, at the very least, you want a casting company with a lot of experience with the type of metal you need for your parts. A company that is well-versed with many metals is worth considering as well.
Cost
Naturally, a good price point is important. But it’s also important to balance the need for quality parts with the need to save money. Casting is not a place to cut corners or try to shave money from the budget.
A poorly-designed part can cost you much more in the long run. You should have a sense of what good prices are for die cast part manufacturing and get the best deal you can, but you must make sure you are not sacrificing quality by doing so.
Many part prints or models do not fully reflect the requirements or expectations of the customer. Items like porosity testing, leak testing, sanding of parting lines, cosmetic needs must be defined or else most die casters will quote without these operations only to find out that you need these and then raise the unit price after you are tooled up with them. Upfront honest discussions with your casting company will save you money in the long run.
Communication
Casting can be an expensive process. It’s skilled metalworking that is not easy to achieve at a high-level. It will be important to have good communication with your casting professional.
You need to be able to tell them exactly what your requirements are with respect to the parts you need and the cost. You need to work with a casting company you can trust who can tell you where you can take steps to save money on your parts production and where you can’t.
A die caster who is reluctant to talk about their process, their prices or what your options may be unless pressed may be a sign you should consider looking elsewhere.
Experience
The simple fact is that most of the time, the longer a casting company has been in business, the better off you are going with their services.
Companies that cannot produce die cast tools effectively at high quality and reasonable cost fall by the wayside very quickly.
