About Harboro Rubber Engineering in Rubber      Contents      Introduction      Uses of Rubber      Processing Rubber      Designing With Rubber          Designing For Minimum Costs          Producing A Specification          Prototyping          Designing Components          Tooling Design          Cost          Colour          Surface Finish          Materials          Tolerances          Quality      Selecting / Specifying Rubber      Quality In Rubber      Rubber Directory      Health & Safety      Measuring Properties      Glossary of Terms      Request A Copy Contact Information

Cost   The key determinants of cost are cycle time, the number of cavities in the mould, material cost and the need for manual operations before or after moulding. Cycle times for rubber generally range from two to ten minutes, although the cure time for heavy parts may be much longer than this. Reducing the mass of a component not only reduces the material cost, but may also reduce the cycle time. This is especially true for parts with thick sections. Where zero defects are required, due recognition of process capability is required in order to prevent unnecessary quality inspections after moulding. Checks that are not built into the process will inevitably add to the cost (shortcut to Quality in Rubber).