If you are a businessman from tooling and injection molding industry, you should not ignore the Chinese market. With the rapid economic growth, it has become the center of the world’s plastic mould manufacturers and injection molding factories. But if you decide to outsource some plastic mould making or injection molding business in China, how to find China plastic mould toolmakers’ list will be your first challenge. Search and evaluate the plastic mould toolmakers is a hard job as to investigation work. You need find a list of potential plastic mould manufacturers firstly, you start to decide an initial list based on your demands, and then evaluate these initial lists to find one suitable with you mostly, and this article will try to provide some advises on the how to evaluate:

Initial list

This step is a survey process. Generally through the initial screening, we will get a list of 20 plastic moulders ltds as potential supplier. Our aim here is to get the information of the potential suppliers’ name and ability. This result of the investigation should be recorded in an assessment checklist. The screening will determine the final range of the check list. A complete checklist includes:

Product background- the kind of product that those China plastic mould toolmakers have been serving；
Operational coverage – operation range, such as the experience of the international operation and the adequate of the facilities；
Service experience – the answer type of the suppliers’ phone calls, such as customer service, service desk, order processing；
Service and quality – service and quality performance and monitoring methods；
Existing technology – technology support for open systems, such as multimedia or CRM applications；
Commitment to staff training -the commitment and investment in training employees；
Financial stability – the dynamics finance and supplier’s strengths。

With this simple checklist, you can begin to understand whether the supplier meets your requirements for the initial list. This work is clearly a subjective judgment, because there are no enough resources to rank the supplier’s ability.

6 Ways to find plastic mould manufacturers on initial list:

(1) From the customer’s supply channels. If the customer’s supplier is more than your company, you may be able to find out new suppliers along with them.
(2) Seek from your relationships network. Ask around from friends, classmates, colleagues engaged in the work of the relevant industry.
(3) Search for from the corresponding professional journal for plastic mould business. In the professional magazine, there have generally suppliers’ ads, or suppliers’ articles.
(4) Looking for the trade association. The supplier industry association is a place gathering many good suppliers. To join the association or to participate in the association activities, there is a chance to know a lot of potential suppliers.
(5) Searching for the internet. Network resources are very rich; you can search the suppliers from the industry forum, industry website, or directly from the search engine. The best way to perform an initial investigation is to search from the Internet. The engine can help us to start the investigation. Other similar information can be found in other sources.
(6) Recommended by experts and consultants. Consultants usually charge a fee, but if you can quickly obtain an initial list, these costs are worth it. In some cases, the supplier will also leave some information to introduce their services.

Final list

Your initial screening should be able to select a list of 20 names from a few hundred. Now the challenge to obtain an initial list for your business model is finished. To those who enter the potential initial list of suppliers, you can send them RFP (invite tenders) and ask them to make a statement.

At this stage the suppliers listed in the initial sheet should be reevaluated. More and complete investigation should focus on the specific requirements. Once again you should use the checklist as a basis evaluation. Each supplier’s assessment should be conducted at a more specific level. And the source of information is similar to the method of initial investigation, but the content should be more extensive. This investigation usually lists the following questions:

Does the supplier know my business and products?
does the supplier business operation cover our demand?
does the supplier have specific service experience?
does the supplier have a good service and quality plan?
does the supplier provide the technology that I need?
does the supplier have enough staff training plan?
Does the supplier have adequate fund?

To complete the answer to the above questions, the survey should expand the scope of the investigation, including the calls to potential suppliers for background investigation, and inquire the existing customers if needed.

In some cases, it may be helpful to use a ranking table. Use the checklist and give each question a score, according to the results of the judgment, the suppliers can be ranked for an order and you could find out the most suitable suppliers for the demands.

The final result of these efforts is to find some final suppliers, like 5 or less, and sent out the invitation to bid. Once quotation received, the result will be the final choice, and now it comes to the result who is the best potential supplier.

Conclusion:

Looking for a plastic mould manufacturer in China is an ABSOLUTELY hard work. It uses a survey process to make a choice, so that it is most consistent with the business model. This method assumes that all the needs and goals have been understood. Without clear requirements, those works may be in vain.

The best resources for the potential suppliers are the Internet and industry publications. And the corresponding information should be in accordance with the logic comparison and sorting. A screening checklist should be prepared before the investigation.

This process should avoid vague and should be specific and clear. The aim is to find out the supplier’s compliance with the RFP requirements. And the last 5 plastic mould manufacturers should be able to meet these requirements. Then the final choice could be decided among them.