What is a mold?
It is a mechanical plane made of durable steel prepared for mass production of products that are used daily: such as pens, mobile phones, televisions, automobiles or industrially: packaging, apparatus, machine parts containing metal or plastic materials.

The mold and molding industry, which most people are not aware of, forms the basis of technology and economy in their countries all over the world.

Considering that all plastic and metal parts of the products we use every day such as mobile phones, televisions, air conditioners and automobiles are mass produced with the help of separate molds, it becomes easier for us to understand the place of mold production in technology and economy.

How many different plastic products do you think are used in an ordinary car? Shortly what we remembered: front and rear bumpers, front and rear lights, plastic mechanism on and under the seat, door handles, cigarette ashtrays, front and rear panels, a large part of the ventilation systems ... a lot of plastic products and parts that go on. We can consider this example for all products such as televisions, mobile phones, air conditioners, computers, refrigerators…. Each of these products and parts are transformed into mass production by means of a mold, and a large part of a complex product such as an automotive is produced. Each plastic material produced is separately evaluated in the spare parts market such as headlights and bumpers. When all these are evaluated in terms of the resulting product, we find the importance of the molding industry in terms of technology and production, or if we evaluate it in monetary terms, we find the importance of mold manufacturing in terms of economy.

About Molding Terms:
It is molding to produce molds for mass production of plastic and metal materials. Mold makers who work as skilled in mold production, mold producers for companies that produce molds, education, service, production and all of the employees are generally called the molding sector.

Mold Production:
The process from the idea stage of the plastic or metal material to be produced to the realization of its mass production is mold production. With its direct impact on the final product, mold manufacturing is the production process that requires highly precise and technical workmanship, modeling, drawing and processing in computer environment with advanced technology software, CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines that shape steel at a rate of 0.005 of 1 mm.

Product design is the first stage of mold production. There is no concrete product at this stage. The finished product of the desired features and dimensions is designed in a computer environment with 3D CAD engineering applications. Margins of error and 3-dimensional technical drawings of the finished product are created.

With the prepared 3D Cad data, the base sample / prototype is prepared and presented to the manufacturer company before the mold production begins concretely. The manufacturer company determines the missing points and gives the necessary additional requests and confirms that it is ready for mass production.

With the approval received from the manufacturer company, necessary corrections are made and Cad / Cam transactions are completed. The core part or the central part forming the main body of the mold is processed by operators with molding knowledge in machines such as CNC, Milling, Lathe, Erosion. While the core parts and parts are being processed, the technical staff supervises the mold production process and prepares the mechanism such as cores, pushers, column pins, which will fulfill the mechanical functioning of the mold, in parallel. At the end of all these processes, the mold; It is subjected to processes such as polishing, heat treatment, etc.

Ultimately, the mold gains a mechanical structure that can be opened and closed by combining all these industrial parts. After the production process is completed, the mold is made ready for delivery and delivered to the manufacturer.

Plastic Injection:
It is the machine where plastic injection molds are operated. It melts the plastic raw material placed in the plastic injection machine with its resistances and makes it fluid. The raw material, which becomes fluid, is filled into the mold produced by pressure. The mold containing the raw material in fluid form is kept for a certain period of time in the cooling system that is constantly in circulation, making the raw material solid (non-fluid). When the mold is opened, the plastic product is taken according to the shape given inside.

Metal Injection:
Basically, the working principle is the same as that of the plastic injection machine. Since the product obtained is metal, the mold, raw material, working system and cooling system are different.

World Market of Mold Production:
Since the production process is highly detailed, precise, technically laborious, requires the use of heavy industrial machines and is multi-functional, the molding sector and mold manufacturing is a high cost service in every country of the world.

According to the data obtained from anonymous sources, providing molding service from China has been more costly than just importing large numbers. The most important reason for this is that Turkey is quite low and stable compared to the cost of steel in China. Go to our country 

compared with the cost of energy use in China, the cost of iron and steel products, the worker is low at least through more automation and more organized work in Turkey cost per unit. But freight / shipping, the unit cost of qualified labor costs in making Turkey the mold and cause rising fixed costs stay the same as the price Turkey stands out in the market when it is distributed to the units or on the mold. The exceptional situation occurs only with large numbers of imports. Since the unit cost decreases as the unchanged cost elements are divided into a large number of imported molds, the cost per mold also decreases.

To sum up the advantages of the production pattern between China and Turkey are variable with many mold in order only in terms of opportunity cost. When the mold production and mold making sector in both countries are compared in their own domestic markets, it cannot be said that there is much difference between them.

If the same comparison is to be made in western countries: the advantages of western countries over our country are the low cost of steel and raw materials and low energy costs. Since the cost of qualified labor used in mold manufacturing is much higher in western countries compared to our country, the unit cost per mold is higher than in our country.

The only reasons are translated into Western countries to demand patterns in Turkey; quality of mold production. As a matter of fact, it has been observed that the large production companies in our country received their industrial services such as mold production and molding from European countries for quality reasons.

Today, production molding industry in Turkey and the absence of an organized structure for reasons such as failure to identify the needs and objectives of the sector as a whole is consequently lower than expected potential.