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If you have a prototype product and you're in the development cycle to bring it to the marketplace, you have a lot of options to consider for manufacturing. When that product has metal parts that need to be made in precise detail, finding the right manufacturing process is very important. The right process minimizes scrap and makes your use of raw materials more efficient, including labor materials. Using a less efficient process increases cycle times and slows down the whole product manufacturing process. When considering options for your metal parts, it's worth asking whether metal injection molding (MIM) could help you bring a better product to market.

What Is Metal Injection Molding?
Metal injection molding is the process of heating and injecting molten stock material into a pressurized mold to create precision products with an efficiency and level of detail that is difficult to obtain through die casting or machining. It's being more and more widely embraced, even for products that traditionally used other manufacturing methods, like golf clubs. Sometimes it is more expensive than processes like die casting, so it's not a universal boon for all products. For the right ones, though, it can make the difference between manufacturing to specifications and missing an opportunity. For companies that move traditionally successful processes to MIM, the opportunity is more precision, allowing for subtler design changes and better quality control specifications.

Discovering the MIM Advantages for Your Products
If you have a product you have manufactured using another process, it's worth considering whether you’re likely to realize efficiency gains or other cost reductions from changing over to metal injection molding. To learn more about the process and the kinds of products that benefit from it, you need to talk to people who make metal parts using this technique. A short consultation that reviews your current cycle times, scrap rates, and labor commitments will tell you whether you could get more out of your manufacturing by going with a MIM supplier.