How much is a molded fiberglass or thermoformed part going to cost me?

Arrowhead primarily sells to industrial clients or other manufacturers who purchase our thermoformed plastic parts or molded fiberglass parts only to resell them later as a stand alone item or part of a larger assembly.  Our customers are typically manufacturers of some type of specialty vehicle, piece of equipment or product that gets sold to another company or an end user.  Fan shrouds, seats, interior cladding, and consoles are just a few examples of the many types of the custom molded parts we provide to our customers.  Rarely does Arrowhead sell directly to the end user.  However, just as an end user is concerned about what a particular product will cost them, Arrowhead’s customers and prospects have these same concerns with what their plastic or fiberglass components they are looking to source will cost.

Many times one of the first questions I am asked is “how much will this thermoformed part cost me” or “what can I expect to pay for this fiberglass part”?  That is a loaded question that is much easier asked than answered.  Perhaps the first question should be an internal one?

How do I measure cost?

If you are measuring cost by going off piece price only, you may be selling yourself short.  Let’s dig a little deeper.

Perhaps we need to look at what the costs are that are associated with upset customers?  Let’s say you get a really great deal on a plastic part from XYZ Specialty Vehicle Company. It looks great and appears to be exactly what you need.  But 10 days after you ship your customer their product of which this XYZ plastic part was a component, the plastic part breaks rendering the product useless.  Someone isn’t going to be happy about this.  If its an end user that is an individual, chances are they are going to complain to you and all of their friends.  How much does that cost you in terms of future business with other potential customers that are friends (or friends of friends) with this person?

Bad news travels quickly and the more severe the news, the quicker and more viral it can spread thanks to the internet…its just the information age we live in.  And what if the component you purchased ended up breaking and causing line down time at your facility?  Maybe the component is part of an assembly required to keep a line up and going?  Now you potentially risk affecting MANY customers in terms of product not being delivered on time.  Also, of course, employees standing around due to line downtime can get very costly very quickly.

We can imagine a world where these two scenarios are highly plausible and in all actuality, probably happen quite a bit.

So why did I ask about how you measure cost of the molded fiberglass or thermoformed part you purchase?  Because price is reflective of who or what went into making the part.   Buying the cheapest part around often times means your part is being made from a material that isn’t durable or consistent in quality.  It can also mean buying from a supplier who doesn’t stand behind their product.  If you want the cheapest part possible, which requires a thermoformer or fiberglass molder look at cheap, low quality materials, do you think that company will stand behind the product and material?

At Arrowhead, we want to be your partner.  Our future sales are based on your success and how well your product fares in the market.  We could make you something really cheap to get you the cheapest price possible on your parts, but are you going to be okay with early product failure?

Our goals are to keep our employees safe, meet and exceed our customer’s expectations and of course, make money.  We want the thermoformed or molded fiberglass product you purchase from us to be made in a safe manner, last for its intended life and meet your quality expectations…and all done so in a way that allows us margin to grow our business.  If your business is going to grow because you are selling more product, we want to grow with it.  Growth requires investment in infrastructure and employees.

Bottom line is, many times you get what you pay for.  At Arrowhead, we work hard to offer ways to save our customers money and allow them to get the best price possible without sacrificing quality or the goals mentioned above.  We know that if we do this, our customers can be more competitive, capture more market and thus buy more molded fiberglass or thermoformed products from us.

If there is a quality issue which ends up causing a part to be defective, we don’t ever want the material to be the culprit because you opted to choose the cheapest material out there.  Fixing a material issue is usually out of our control.

What we can do is offer: engineering guidance, suggestions for geometry improvements, innovations in processing, innovations in tooling orientation and working closely with you to come up with buy and stocking agreements that help you meet your price constraints.

So you are probably asking yourself “that’s great Mark, I get it….I understand what you are saying about not wanting to use cheap material, but what else goes into the pricing of thermoformed parts aside from just the grade of material and some of the things you touched on above?”

And to address that question, you’ll just have to wait for the follow up blog post!

Interested in having your part made from thermoformed plastic or molded fiberglass?  Feel free to give me a call and let’s chat.