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Who likes chemistry?  Did your hand shoot up?  Mine didn't.  Except when people throw away lots of money on manufacturing because no one bothered to explain to them that when it comes to your materials and tooling, generally speaking, there's no going back!  You've got to nail down your product's materials before you tool for injection molding.  (Check out this Wikipedia article for a great description of injection molding and tooling)  You might be able to haggle with your manufacturer, but there's no haggling with mother nature.  The size of the cavities in your molds, where the molten plastic is injected into to form the shape of your product parts, depends on the cooling rate of the material.  As the material cools, it expands into the cavity.  The mold is built to account for that.  Trying to change to a material with a different cooling rate just isn't going to work.

On certain projects, we like to ask a lot of questions in regards to materials.  Usually, we're trying to reduce costs for clients by throwing out suitable alternatives.  We want to understand what qualities they like about the materials they want.  If there's a cheaper option that accomplishes the same goals--your company Christmas party might be a little bit nicer this year (we're accepting invitations). 

Occasionally, we'll get design packages from U.S. designers that call for very expensive materials to be used in products that are meant to retail at a competitive low price.  The designer was undoubtedly trying to design the best product for their client--materials included.  But this can be expensive when you go to mass production--yes, even overseas!  If you're going to have parts that are injection molded (which a vast amount of products taken to market do), you have to be certain about the materials you want before you build the tooling.

My high school chem. teacher would be proud of me for this post.