• Do you design latch and snap features into your products? Is tooling for these products substantially higher? Costs for specialty features need not balloon tooling prices. Sometimes small changes in size shape or location can ease construction complications, lowering tool prices, shorten lead times and decrease maintenance costs.

• Are you frequently told that your part is drafted the wrong way or that draft is needed? Does your tooling source do this for you only to find later that the molded part does not look or function the way you intended? Drafting products correctly before tooling begins can save you from these type of issues. Also, correct placement of draft in advance can simplify tool parting lines, hence lowering production costs and maintenance.

• Have you had filling issues, splay, sinks or flow marks across esthetic visual surfaces? Do you know how your part was going to fill when you specified gate location to your tooling source or are you letting them choose the location? Gate location, Cooling, ribbing, wall thicknesses all matter. Before you send that part out know what your going to get back.

• Do your parts have "living hinges?" Does the hinge last? Do you have filling issues across the hinge? Are you having molding issues with the rest of the part because of the hinge? Issues such as these can be easily resolve during the part development stage.

• Designing a round part or square cover that ends up oval or obtuse? Warping issues plague many parts. Proper mold cooling, wall thickness, ribs or features can dramatically change how parts are produced. Achieving round or square parts is not just a tooling issue.

• Do your parts fit together the way you intended first time around? If not, are you confronted with outrageous tooling cost for product changes? There are many factors that can effect the quality of a plastic part. Many times slips, fits and functioning features need adjusting. Planning ahead and specifying tooling to accommodate these features adjustments can be beneficial to any successful projects completion.

• Making great functional parts economically that just don't seem to capture sales? Maybe those parts are just ugly. Esthetics matter, stylish parts sell. In this age of CAD/CAM there is no reason you can't have beautiful, visually appealing products without soaring tooling costs. There are lots of things that can be done to products to make them more ergonomic or pleasing to the eye without greatly inflating production costs.