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Q: I cannot manufacture my invention myself. Have you any tips on how to approach
manufacturers who make similar products, to find out if they can do the
job. My invention is made of polystyrene so I thought I would approach manufacturers
of polystyrene cups and plates etc. What do I need to know? Like
many people out there, I CANNOT afford to patent my invention so,
I have decided to mass produce and put my product on the market anyway... HELP!!!!!!!! Any tips would be very much appreciated.
A: A novice inventor should first do some background checking to determine
what others have been advised to do under similar situations. Look through
the Archives section of the United Inventors Association website www.uiausa.org which has answers by a panel of experts to over 450 questions listed under
"miscellaneous". Those relating to prototyping,
manufacturing and the use of non disclosure forms will be helpful.
Also keep in mind that people rarely steal unproven ideas
- they aren't committed to doing the work . But they might possibly
consider hot selling items.
An ongoing series of articles on prototyping has been offered in past
issues of Inventors' Digest magazine from 1998 to the present. Go
to http://inventorsdigest.com/magazine/reprints.html which
takes you to the titles of reprint articles on prototyping
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An experienced mold maker indicates that cost will depend on the following
variables:
1.The size of the part will determine size of mold.
2. The quantity of parts that will be produced from mold - this determines
type of material to build mold from. How long must it last?
3. The shape of part and how complex it is dictates how the mold should
be made, and amount of time to build mold.
4. The type of polystyrene (grade, colour) as well as inclusion of other
additives determines cycle time to run mold and cost of material.
5. Most manufacturing companies are set up for mass production, each
product has it's own dedicated work station. These take time to get up
to speed. For a manufacturing company to disrupt the flow of a mass
production line is costly. Sometimes it takes a whole shift just to start
getting consistent parts. This is why they don't want to interrupt
the system once its running. This is also why it costs so much to
get a simple test done.
6 Finally, if you have a good mold but take it to a bad manufacturer,
you end up with poor quality parts. So check them out carefully.
Machine time is determined by size of mold. If you build a mold that produces
only one part, you will pay for the size of the machine plus the material..
(Additional cost for packaging or printing, assembly, etc.) Also machine
cycle time determines how many parts can be produced per hour.
If you make a mold that produces more than one part ( 2, 4, 8,or more
in the same size machine) then you will pay the same amount for the machine
time. This is what will reduce the cost per part but it adds
to the cost of the initial mold because of the extra cavity needed.
Without knowing what the part is or the volume that will be produced it's
a little hard to know if you can use a blow mold, vacuum, or injection
mold, or 3D modeling. Medium sized and smaller custom molders
will be able to set up the mold for short runs.
Best regards,
Inventor Mentor
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