Quality Plastic Part Design and Plastic Injection Mold Design
More emphasis needs to be placed on quality design. Get a second opinion before spending thousands on tooling. Often spending more on design will mean less costs in the long run.
Whether the mold for plastic parts is to be built in the USA or in cheaper countries over seas, the design of both the plastic injection mold and the plastic parts should be done high quality with good communication.
The ideal process is to go direct to a mold designer to get the plastic parts designed properly. Either have the mold designer design the parts directly, or have a part designer design the parts, then have a mold designer redesign those parts for mold ability, and have the part designer verify that all is ok.
Quality comes from good communication. If you have a chain of middle men in between the part designer and the plastic mold designer, the product quality will suffer. If you connect those two, product quality will be the best.
If you plan to send the mold overseas to be built, the biggest loss in quality will come from plastic part designs which are not ready to be molded. If this link between the plastic part designer and the plastic mold designer is combined with a language barrier, you can expect a garbage product.
There is a huge difference between someone who speaks English as a second language and someone who speaks it as a native language. Misunderstandings are very common and both you and they always think the other is at fault.
The design stage is only a small portion of the cost, and it is not the stage to save money on. It must be done correctly. Don't expect a part designer to do it right. Don't expect someone who spends their time designing for function, to design for mold ability. They are two separate areas. It takes someone with extensive experience in designing plastic injection molds, to get the part designed right for a low cost and high quality mold.