A product must make economic sense. The price of a product must be attractive to customers, and it must return a sustainable profit to the company. To minimize product costs, materials engineers should consider three factors: component design, material selection, and manufacturing technique. Also, there could be other significant costs including labour and fringe benefits, insurance, profit, and costs associated with regulatory compliance. As the world has become more populated and that population is increasing its usage of the earth’s natural resources, engineers are increasingly being asked to consider sustainable practices when developing new products.
Material Costs
Material costs for a part include factors such as net material cost, material per unit of volume, waste or scrap, and so on.
Die casting is generally performed using non-ferrous materials, usually metals such as zinc, magnesium, and, most commonly, aluminum. As for most raw materials, the cost of these materials is gradually increasing. The cost climb is erratic, with up and down periods that may last years, but the overall trend is undeniably upward.
Processing Costs
The second primary cost driving factor for die casting is processing costs. These costs follow a standard inflationary trend, slowly increasing over the long term with periodic interruptions brought about most commonly by technological advances.
Processing costs for die casting are composed of three different factors: tooling, die casting, and secondary processing costs. Die casting cannot be performed without a die, so tooling one as well as replacements, since the dies will eventually wear down is an obvious necessity. The actual die casting process adds to the processing costs, and performing secondary operations such as flash trimming rounds it out.
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