
Keys to Successful Part Design
Describe Application
Describe the environment, intended use, regulatory compliance, and important mechanical properties. Consider chemical, liquid, and temperature exposure. Determine aesthetics like color and surface appearance.
Material Selection
Materials have different shrinkage factors so it’s critical to define it at the outset. We’re experienced with engineering resins and can handle both thermoplastic and thermoset polymers.
Tool Design
This critical piece has a substantial impact on your tooling cost and piece cost. We’ll look at every option to take cost out by eliminating unnecessary complexity and reduce secondary finishing steps.
Production Process
This is where we select molding processes, automation, and any secondary services to efficiently produce and finish your part. We offer complete value-added services like machining, kitting, and assembly.

Early Design Involvement
We encourage early design consultation to optimize your design, save you money, and find ways to gain a competitive advantage for your product.
- Weight reduction opportunities
- Identify equivalent alternatives to branded materials
- Eliminating fabrication and assembly steps
- Improving strength and structure by tool design and additives
- Properly located and sized gates (impacts quality and cycle time)
- Reduce cycle time by design
- Optimize tool for uniform cooling throughout mold cavity
Mold Flow Analysis
Mold flow software can be used to evaluate the design to make sure it will produce the most consistent and highest quality parts from each cavity of the tool. A virtual model of the mold is created and, using the known data and characteristics of the chosen material, the software can predict how the material will flow into the mold and its cavities. Different data points can be assessed, including pressure, fill time and melt temperature. Doing so allows for optimization of the process before tool production ever begins.
- Help identify potential problems
- Help identify ideal injection molding gate designs
- Shows the last areas of the part to fill
- Shows how the material will orient with the mold,
- Exposes potential warp and stress points.
Material Selection
Advances in polymer science have made tens of thousands available for injection molding processes. You can rely on our experience to identify the best choices for your application – and give you options at different price points. We keep a substantial inventory of engineering and commodity materials on-hand in order to quickly meet our clients’ customized and deadline-driven orders.
Important considerations for material selection includes:
- Does the part need to withstand pressure, weight, temperature variations or elements / chemicals?
- Do any regulatory requirements apply?
- High-performance and specialty resins come with a higher cost.
- Ask about alternatives to branded materials
- Certain resins may increase the maintenance intervals of your mold.
When you need more from your plastics, we have the thermoplastic and engineering resins to make that happen.
Customer Success Stories
- Add value by increasing efficiency
- Implement automation with fast payoff
- Simplify multi-part tool programs
Nicolet Plastics University
Proprietary Education Course
- Exclusive customer training
- Brings disciplines together for accuracy
- Injection molding technology, materials, tooling, & RFQ process
- Ensures tools are specified correctly
Ready to begin the quote process? Let's discuss your application.
Get a Quote NowOr Call Us At: 715-276-4200