What is the usual MOQ for plastic box OEM manufacturing?

Answer: 300 pieces, or 25 pallets. Tooling is separate at 8.7 CNY a piece over a 30,000-piece first order. Above 1,000 pieces the price drops about 6 percent.

Can an 800-tonne press run a 600×400 mm box?

Answer: It can be loaded, but clamp is 40 tonnes short, so the long side flashes. Staying on 800 tonnes means roughly 550×370 mm.

How is ΔE 1.5 verified?

Answer: Five parts per batch against the plaque under D65 light; 1.5 passes, 2.5 between batches. Reorders are judged against the sealed reference.

Is tooling charged again on a repeat order?

Answer: No. Amortise over the first order and stop, leave the tool in the plant and charge moulding only. A buyer-owned tool needs a transfer clause.

Can 70 days be compressed to 45?

Answer: Only in parallel: tooling overlaps 10 days of material preparation and sign-off drops to 3 days on video first-off.

Plastic Box OEM Manufacturing: Quotes, MOQ and Lead Time

Quick answer: For large moulded boxes the quote follows press tonnage and cycle time, the minimum is counted in pallets, and lead time splits into tooling, trial and production. A 600×400×320 mm box of 2.75 kg runs one cavity on a 1,000-tonne press at 95 seconds, lands near 52 CNY a piece, starts at 300 pieces and takes 70 days first time, 25 on a repeat.

Machine Tonnage and Mould Size in Plastic Box OEM Manufacturing
Cycle Time and Part Weight Into Daily Capacity
Batch Consistency and Colour Difference Acceptance
Pallet-Based MOQ and Pallet Specification
Quotation Breakdown and Lead Time Milestones
FAQ

1. Machine Tonnage and Mould Size in Plastic Box OEM Manufacturing

In plastic box OEM manufacturing, fix the press before arguing price. A 600×400×320 mm box presents 2,400 cm²; at 350 kg/cm² it needs 840 tonnes of clamp, so a 1,000-tonne machine keeps a 16 percent margin while an 800-tonne press flashes within 200 shots.

Mould size follows the tie-bar gap: an 850×650 mm base in a 900×900 mm opening leaves 25 mm of land, and 620 mm of thickness must sit inside the 400 to 900 mm window. Part weight sets the shot, 2.75 kg plus a 0.35 kg runner needing a 4.5 kg barrel.

Matching item	This part	Buyer checks
Projected area	2,400 cm²	Largest face only
Clamp needed	840 tonnes	At 350 kg/cm²
Mould base	850×650 mm, 620 mm	Tie-bar gap and window

2. Cycle Time and Part Weight Into Daily Capacity

The 95 seconds split into 6 seconds of injection, 18 of packing, 55 of cooling and 16 for opening and ejection. Cooling owns over half, so only water and wall thickness shorten it; 2.5 mm walls reach 86 seconds and sag two high.

Plastic box OEM manufacturing: white case standing on its side, folding top handle raised, thickened corner guards and vertical ribs along both flanks

At 86 percent efficiency, 86,400 over 95 gives 909 shots, or 780 pieces a day and just past 20,000 a month, a contract figure rather than a sales line. Ramp-up runs 30 percent on trial day, 70 by day three, 86 on day seven, with a 4.5-hour change worth 160 pieces.

3. Batch Consistency and Colour Difference Acceptance

The risk in plastic box OEM manufacturing is not one part but the gap between part one and part one thousand. PP shrinks 1.6 to 1.9 percent and drifts another 0.3 percent over 48 hours, so recheck the 721 mm rim diagonal at 24 hours, where 1.2 mm of drift stops the lid sealing.

Thickness of 2.8 mm plus or minus 0.35 mm is checked at four spots: base corners, long-side middles, handle root and latch seat. Colour follows ΔE, 1.5 within a batch and 2.5 between, against three plaques; one part every two hours beats sorting a shipment.

4. Pallet-Based MOQ and Pallet Specification

In plastic box OEM manufacturing the pallet is the ordering unit: 1,200×1,000 mm, four boxes a layer, three layers for twelve pieces, 33 kg of product and an 18 kg pallet at 1,110 mm.

Plastic box OEM manufacturing: black case angled on a pale grey background, two front latches pressing the lid rim, folding handle stowed, four corner guards

The minimum is 300 pieces, or 25 pallets, because a mould change takes 4.5 hours and start-up scrap runs 30 pieces. A 40-foot high cube holds 20 pallets, 240 pieces and 6.6 tonnes; volume fills its 76 m³ first.

5. Quotation Breakdown and Lead Time Milestones

A plastic box OEM manufacturing quote compares only when split six ways: material, moulding, tooling, secondary work, packing and freight. Material is 2.75 kg at 9,200 CNY a tonne, 25.3 CNY and 48 percent; moulding is 320 CNY an hour times 95 seconds over 3,600, or 8.4; tooling of 260,000 CNY adds 8.7 over 30,000 pieces but 0.87 over a 300,000-shot life.

Secondary work, packing and freight add 4.2, 2.6 and 3.4 for 52.6, so a 45 CNY quote hides tooling or thins the wall. Lead time chains five steps: drawings 3 days, tooling 35, trial 5, sign-off 7, production 20.

Milestone	Days	Deliverable
Drawing approval	3	3D file, wall chart
Tooling	35	Mould, trial notice
First trial	5	First-off parts
Sample sign-off	7	Signed sample, plaque
Production	20	Palletised shipment

Conclusion

What a buyer negotiates is never the unit price but whether tonnage, cycle and tolerance line up. A press sized by projected area, a pallet-based minimum and a milestone-based lead time make quotes comparable. Put 1,000 tonnes, 95 seconds, 2.8 mm and 300 pieces into the contract annex, and plastic box OEM manufacturing becomes a clause anyone can enforce.

This article discusses only the container (case body) side of specifications and design intent, and does not cover any handling, loading or use of the contents.