As we conduct a MIM part manufacturing project, the small price change in one single process might lead to huge difference due to the massive quantity.
Metal Injection Molding processes include granulation, compounding, injection, de-binding, sintering, and finishing. If we could know which several processes cost much, we could optimize these processes purposefully so we can improve our efficiency and save a lot of costs.
Below analysis all based on practical cases by ZCMIM, there are slight differences between different manufacturers. When you got different detailed classifications of inquiry from a factory, you need to delve into those prices and ratio, then decide to cooperate with which factory.
The third most cost: Feedstock
Compared to traditional powder metallurgy using powders, MIM has higher requirements about the quality of powders, in addition, the supply of binder, feedstocks is an important outlay.
Optimization:
Improving the proportion of qualified products, and maximum using of feeding.
The second most cost: Sintering
It’s about the long duration of this process(normally considered 24 hours or more).
Optimization:
You can’t roughly shorten time to end up with sintering, I’m assuming that will work by improving technology in nearly future.
The most cost: Finishing
It depends, some MIM parts cost very little on finishing, but most of them spend more on finishing than other processes, the finishing includes plating, coating, manually testing, shaping, blasting, etc. And nowadays these processes are not suitable for automaticity.
Optimization:
Strengthen training and develop an experienced and skilled workforce to reduce the number of employees and labor payment.
Beyond that, tooling is also a huge cost when beginning, especially you are not sure if it could be better, you should discuss with engineers to get the best solution for your project. And roughly 2000 dollars seems not cheap when the quantity is small.
