How to get a product manufactured?

A19B1C12

Hey guys I was wondering do any of you have an idea of companies that can manufacture small products to specification - want to make a small plastic kicking tee with certain conditions.

I am looking around but cannot decide on a company to talk to and am wondering are any of you aware of companies that specifically create products to specification in Ireland?

Thanks

Peterdalkey

You are looking for plastic injection moulding companies of which there are still a number operating in Ireland. Assuming you have Cad?cam drawings and a material specification for the polymer which is suitable for the purpose, your big expense is going to be the tooling (a steel mould) Think in thousands or even tens of thousands for tooling depending on the product size and the number of units to be made per cycle.
Google " injection moulding Ireland" and all the main players will be listed in the results.

The Dagda

A19B1C12 wrote: »

Hey guys I was wondering do any of you have an idea of companies that can manufacture small products to specification - want to make a small plastic kicking tee with certain conditions.

I am looking around but cannot decide on a company to talk to and am wondering are any of you aware of companies that specifically create products to specification in Ireland?

Thanks

Talk to Thormac Engineering in Shannon.

www.thormac.ie

lucky john

A19B1C12 wrote: »

Hey guys I was wondering do any of you have an idea of companies that can manufacture small products to specification - want to make a small plastic kicking tee with certain conditions.

I am looking around but cannot decide on a company to talk to and am wondering are any of you aware of companies that specifically create products to specification in Ireland?

Thanks

There is no straightforward answer to this. Alot depends on how much home work you have done or still need to do. As Perer says the first thing you need is a detailed cad file with the specification for you product. Some plastic companies offer this as part of their package. However, if you go down that road your options are then limited, in that, you need the files to get a tooling and unit of product price so you will be a bit at their mercy when they come to the pricing. And be careful of ball park figures at the begining, they are rarely cheaper by the time the actual end price is given.

I would advise(if you haven't already) to get a product designer to do the design work and cad work for you. That gives you more options. If you use injection/extrusion moulding then your tooling will be expensive and the end product cheaper. If you are projecting a lot of sales then this is a good option. For a small product it will depend on the different number of parts but €10, 000.. €20,000 for tooling. You could try Athlone Extrusions as an option.

If the volume of sales is not expected to be that big then consider rotational moulding. You get cheaper tooling but the price per finished product will be a couple of cent more expencive. However you will get smaller batch runs so less capital tied up in stock. Tooling here should be €5,000 ... €7, 000. Rotofab ltd, also in Athlone are excellent for this option.

I don't know if you have a unique take on this type of tee but if you have and it has export potential then you may be able to get an enterprise ireland innovation voucher for €5000 that could be used to develop you product and prototype it. You need to form a company to draw this down though.

Peterdalkey

Thormac are injection moulders but Athlone Extrusion as only sheet producers, you will get a bigger list on Google. It is not clear from you post as to whether your product is already production ready or is at idea/sketch stage, but using an experienced designer is sound advice if you are not at this stage.
You should also look at protecting your design/IP if it is a unique product/concept.