Owning and running a business is a great thing and creating new products for your market and customers is always an exciting endeavor. A key to the success of launching any successful product line is making unique products that are appealing to the market. That’s why it is very important to test out your products first by building prototypes to make sure you get the finished product right. The key to making your product right and fast always boils down to finding the right prototype manufacturer.
Small Minimum Orders
The first thing that you want to look for when finding a prototype manufacturing company to create your product is small minimum orders. Any custom manufacturing services provider or plastic products manufacturer will have a minimum order quantity (MOQ) which you must place if you want them to do anything. MOQs can range anywhere from 100 to 10,000. For a small and growing business you have to stay within your budget. Therefore, it is important to find a prototype contract manufacturing company that has small minimum orders so you can go to market more easily.
Tooling and Molding
The next thing to keep in mind is that if you are making something that has never been made before then you will need to find a custom contract manufacturing company to make your prototype, and this requires tooling and molding to be made in order to create your product. Tooling and creating molds can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $250,000 or more. A good custom manufacturing service will reduce your investment costs so that you can invest more money into the actual development and marketing of your product.
Lead Times
Another thing to look out for when choosing a manufacturers is short lead times. A plastic products manufacturer, whether it’s for a prototype or the final product, needs to be able to provide very quick turnaround times. If you can’t get your product in time to deliver products you pre-sold or restock your inventory you can be guaranteed to see a spike in refunds and returns. Finding a prototype manufacturing company that can provide a constant and consistent supply of goods can make or break your business.
Bill of Materials
You also want to find a contract manufacturing company that will assist in the breakdown of material costs. Whether you are using paper, cardboard, plastic, or metals, or a combination of any of them it is very crucial to know how much each thing will cost, a good custom contract manufacturing company will do this breakdown for you and provide complete transparency of the materials used.
Quality
Last, but certainly not least, you should ask the manufacturer to explain their quality assurance processes for the finished product and transportation of your products. One thing that greatly helps increase quality is the utilization of computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturing. Companies that use this process sometimes go categorize themselves as CNC manufacturing companies. This means that the company you choose will be far more consistent and reliable due to their production line being automated instead of being operated by humans.