Season’s FAQ Site

General

How can an OEM help me concentrate on my core competencies?
By aiding in the design and development of our OEM product, an OEM can help you focus your efforts and resources on things other than production and manufacturing. Time, money, and expertise are better spent developing and marketing your products.

How can I save money on production costs?
By outsourcing your production processes to an OEM, capital that would have been spent on machines and equipment not primary to strategic production processes, can be saved. The OEM will already have the tools required to manufacture your high quality product. The OEM can accomplish this in less time, saving you effort, personnel, and resources. All of which add up to strong savings.

What can I benefit from outsourcing my secondary production processes?
As well as cost savings, other benefits of outsourcing are: expertise in a given field, giving a technologically advanced product; added value or quality focus; reliability; and local market knowledge. Through outsourcing your secondary production processes you can focus on your strategic processes. Additionally, outsourcing will minimize the cost of inventory. In your facilities less space will be allocated for material warehousing and production lines. By no longer performing certain jobs yourself and outsourcing them to your OEM, you will be able to concentrate on your core competencies thus improving your company’s efficiency and focus.

How much control do I have over the production of my product?
Season has a varied supply of materials and tools due to the diversity of contracts in the OEM field. You can set up your own flexible manufacturing arrangements with variable run sizes. OEMs are accustomed to rapid changes in the market and can adapt to changing demand.

Mold and Injection Molding

What do I need to quote?
Detail part drawings in electronic data are preferred. Otherwise, blue prints are required. Samples are helpful but not necessary as measurements and other information to complete the quote is derived from the drawings. Detailed information includes; material of the mold and the plastic parts, number of cavities or volume per production, surface finishing and specification of the molding machine. A checklist can be downloaded here.

The cost of the plastic parts will be affected by the investment in the tools and your marketing concept, i.e. the number of pieces required. The more one invests in tooling, the lower the cost per piece.
A single cavity mold is less expensive than a two-cavity mold but the productivity of two cavities be twice that of a single cavity mold.
The cost of a family mold of four different parts in a set is less expensive than four single cavity molds, but the unit price will be affected by the scrap rate during production. The family mold must utilize the same material and color per shot. If one part of the set is running short, then the other three parts are “tossed.” The unit cost takes into account the sorting of the different parts in one shot. This should be considered when determining the number of cavities required in the mold.

What are Season's Tooling payment terms?
Tooling payment terms are 40% deposit with the purchase order, 30% on the first test shot sample submission, and the balance of 30% is paid upon approval of final sample.

What are Mold Design Drawings?
When designing a mold, a detailed part drawing is required. Season Components will provide the mold drawings to the customers for approval within 5 working days (except on complex parts) after receipt of the order. This mold drawing is complementary to all Season customers for their engineering and documentary records. The test shot date is stated on the quotation and is based on the approval date of the mold drawing. Season Components ISO registration requires customer approval of mold drawings prior to cutting the steel in order to avoid any misunderstanding with its customer.

What type of steel should be used in the mold?
The quality of steel is one of the most important factors when building a mold. Harder steels have longer tooling life. As with all benefits, one must consider the cost, as harder steels are more expensive. The degree of hardness of steel is defined as HB or HRC. The pre-hardened steel ranges from 170HB to 370HB or 20HRC to 38HRC. Besides the hardness degree, the most common terms used in the industry is AISI (international standard) P20, 420, and H13 for the insert of Cores and Cavities.

P20 - Season Components typically uses GS 638, GS 318 and ASSAB 618 steel. On occasion we use ASSAB718 if requested by the customer, which has more reliability and cost twice the normal price. The steel hardness in P20 is approximately 28 – 32 HRC.

420 - This steel has finer molecules, anti-corrosion stainless steel and can be heat-treated from 30 HRC to 50 HRC for an additional cost. This is normally used for clear Lens and Season Components uses ASSAB S136.

H-13 - This is also heat-treated steel and the one Season Components uses is ASSB 8407. It will be hardened to 48- 52 HRC.

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Mold Base and Components - We use standard mold base made from Carbon Steels if not specified by the drawing. Carbon Steel standard is JIS S50C or AISI 1050, hardened to 200 HB. We use DME or equivalent standards for components unless otherwise specified.

How many cavities should be quoted per mold?
The tooling quotation should include the number of cavities you are requesting in order to accurately compare the tooling quotes. Obviously, it is not “fair” to compare a two-cavity quote against a one-cavity quote. If you are unsure as to the number of cavities, Season Components will be glad to assist you in your decision based on annual quantities and the size of the parts.

What kind of runner system do you require?
There is sub gate, side gate, direct gate, three plates, and hot runner gates. The decision as to which gating to use could affect the produce appearance, productivity and cost. If you have no specific instruction in this region, Season Components will make suggestions to you during quotation. For hot runner systems, we use DME or Incoe heating elements unless otherwise specified.

What kind of plastic will be molded?
The shrinkage of the material will impact the tooling design. Also, the effect of the material’s acidity to the mold is considered. The material and color must be specified. We can build a mold for use with any specific plastic.

What do Test Shots mean?
Season will provide ten shots of samples in generic material without color at no charge. We need a quick reply from the customer for conditional approval and/or changes before the final test shot. Any delay in responding will delay the mold schedule. It is a common practice to polish, texture or fine-tune the mold for a final test shot in about one or two weeks after receipt of comments from the customer from the first test shot sample.

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Special material or color - On occasion the customer may require a special rare material or rare color. In these instances the customer should supply the material to Season Components before the test shot date and it will quote based on this exception. Most colors and material are available in China, but there is always the rare exception.

What kind of finishing is used on the product surface?
The external part of plastic products usually requires surface polishing or texturing. We provide texture samples similar to Mold-Tech textures for your selection. Level of polish finish to SPI standard must be specified. Mirror or optical finish is the most expensive as it is time consuming to produce. We need your finishing specification when completing our quotation.

How do I keep informed on tooling progress?
Season Components provides a bi-weekly Tooling Progress Report with digital pictures. While it is not necessary, you are welcome to communicate by email or telephone with our tooling engineers. You are also invited to visit our tool shop and attend our test shot runs.

How do you know when to do injection molding, when to do thick gauge thermoforming?
Thick gauge thermoforming is best for non-complicated, low volume products. The tool will be cheaper but the unit price will be higher. For detailed plastic parts with high volume, plastic injection molding is more suitable.

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