Minimize Tooling Costs to Reduce Capital Investment | Case Study

Opportunity: 

The customer, a privately funded startup medical device manufacturer, had limited resources to get their product from the design stage into production.  The product was a set of home use healthcare products that had to be produced in an FDA Registered factory, have an attractive ergonomic look and feel, be durably manufactured, and also cost effective.  Sanbor Medical was sought out for our close to market front end service and support tied to our company owned Asia factory.  The tooling investment for the 24 individual plastic components was limited to $100,000.

Solution: 

1. A factory based Sanbor Medical tooling engineer was assigned the task of combining as many components into family molds to reduce the number of molds that would be needed to meet the customer cost limitation.  24 plastic components were reduced to 14 plastic molds.
2. Having set up our initial manufacturing facility in 1993 in Asia, Sanbor Medical has had a significant history with the local mold tooling suppliers we maintain on our Approved Vendor List.  Being well known to them, and having had many successful projects run through their companies, we were able to negotiate reduced tooling costs on behalf of our customer.
3. As is normal practice with Sanbor Medical, contracts were cut for hardened steel tooling at the outset of the program, eliminating the need for additional capital outlay for soft tooling.

Result: 

The total tooling outlay was reduced to just over $98,000, allowing the customer to meet their capital investment target.  Additionally, Sanbor Medical's engineering review of the supplied documentation resulted in the proposal, and subsequent approval, of significant changes in the design that resulted in both reduced raw material costs and increased manufacturability.  This  netted the customer a lower acquisition price for their products.