Small Volume Production

In general, small volume means hundreds to a few thousand quantity production. Based on the production purpose, there are 2 kinds of small volume production.

Test the Feasibility of Massive Production

One aims to test the feasibility of massive production methods without massive producing. If that is what you need, then obviously, massive production methods have to be applied so does the quality control methods. And then an evaluation procedure will follow. The production natures will be addressed in our article: Massive Production.

Real Small Volume Production

The other is real small volume production. Process choices include ‘simple mold’, CNC machining, silicone molding etc. Time consuming process like EDM, wire-electrode cutting should be avoided as much as possible. Therefore, part features like very small radius and inside straight angle should be avoided for small volume production.

Easy-to-use inspection tools such as pin gauge should be used rather than Caliper or Spiral micrometer. Standard quality control procedure includes first parts checking before production, regular checking during production and all parts inspection before delivery.

Production process that cost too much time to calibrate should not be applied, for example too tight tolerance of an injection plastic parts, let us say 0.05mm. For massive production, with good effort of calibrating, this tolerance may be achievable. But for only a few hundred or even 1-2 thousand pieces, this calibrating just cost too much. Not like in massive production, for small volume production scraping small percentage of bad made parts would be sometime cheaper than spending time and efforts on improving production process to reduce the scrap rate.