Transition to the Molded Part

Führungsringe aus POM | Einsatz: Zylinderbau

Does your product ultimately need a plastic part produced in high volumes? Then you need an injection-molded component. The path to that molded part matters just as much as the part itself — and Hänssler is your development partner along the way.

What Services Does Hänssler Offer for Molded Parts?

We manufacture exclusively by machining (turning, milling, and mill-turning) and additively (3D printing). We don’t run our own injection molding. Instead, we develop and build your prototype or small series as a turned, milled, or printed part, designed from the outset to be injection-molding-ready, and once development is complete, we connect you with our partner injection-molding companies for series production. This creates a seamless path from the first sample to the series molded part, without you having to develop twice. Materials and processes have advanced so much in recent years that additively or subtractively manufactured components and prototypes now come very close to the property profile of injection-molded parts.

What Does “Transition to the Molded Part” Mean at Hänssler?

We guide your component from the initial idea through a proven prototype to the threshold of series production, then hand it over to a suitable injection-molding partner. Our role is that of the development partner: we clarify material, geometry, and function, then manufacture the part as a turned, milled, or printed component. You can then put that part to the test.

Why Can’t I Just Go Straight to Injection Molding?

Injection molding requires a mold, and that only pays off at high volumes. For development, functional samples, prototypes, and small series, milled, turned, or printed parts are the better choice. They’re made without tooling, available quickly, and comparatively inexpensive.

This lets you test the geometry and validate the material before you put money into an injection mold. If testing reveals that a wall thickness, a radius, or a function still needs adjusting, we adjust a few parameters and deliver the next version of the prototype without delay. Once the injection mold is built, there’s no going back. We make sure everything is right before that point.

Various Vacuum-Cast PU Parts | Application: First Series in Plant Engineering

We Factor in the Molded Part from the Start

Designing the prototype to be injection-molding-ready saves time and tooling costs when series production starts. That’s exactly what we pay attention to even at the turned, milled, or printed stage.

In concrete terms, we help you shape the component so that it can later be injection-molded cleanly — for example, with wall thicknesses that are as uniform as possible, sensible radii and transitions, and a geometry that doesn’t make demolding unnecessarily difficult. Our goal is always for the jump from prototype or small series to injection-molded series production to be as smooth a handover as possible, with no need for redevelopment or re-testing.

What Hänssler Produces – and What the Partners Handle

At Hänssler	At the Injection-Molding Partners
3D-printed, turned, milled, and mill-turned parts	Injection-molded parts in series
Development, prototype, small series, special parts	High volumes
Injection-molding-ready design	Series production with tooling

This gives you the development proximity and flexibility of a specialized machining shop, and still the path into economical series production.

When Is the Transition to the Molded Part Worth It?

Whenever a plastic part will later be needed in higher volumes as an injection-molded part, but development and ramp-up should first run flexibly and without tooling. This is typical for new developments or when replacing a metal part with plastic. If it’s only a matter of individual parts, spare parts, or small to medium volumes, machining or 3D printing is the right manufacturing method.

What We Need to Get Started

Helpful inputs are a drawing, a sample, a sketch, and ideally CAD data already, along with the intended function, the operating conditions (medium, temperature, load, installation space), and, especially important for this path, the planned target quantity. From these, we determine whether and when the step into injection molding pays off, and how the part should be designed for it.