Injection Molding Onboarding
Are you curious how to register to become apart of Xometry's Partner Network? Check out these helpful articles below for step by step process including test part walkthroughs and more!
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Xometry is currently searching for Injection Molding Partners with the capabilities below based on customer demand. Tell us whether your business is able to meet these order requirements by submitting this form.
- Quick Turn Molds
- Tooling is made in-house
- Quoting within 48 hours
- Instantly accept work based on CAD file/prints
- Comfort with running low-volume prototyping work
If your business is not comfortable completing work with the demands outlined above, then completing work through the job board is not a good fit at this time. Consider creating a Shop Profile through Xometry’s Seller Marketplace to earn more work for your business.
If you have any questions regarding the status of your onboarding, please contact us by chatting with us through the chat support window in the Community or by submitting this support form.
Read below for our entire Injection Molding Guide:
Completing Injection Molding Work
Setting Up Your Account
Set up your account:
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Job Offers and Accepting Work
All work through Xometry will be offered to you through the Xometry Job Board by logging in to the Partner Portal at work.xometry.com. The Partner Portal may also be accessed on a web browser on your mobile device.
You can expect to receive new Injection Molding Job offers at least once a week. Keep in mind that the job offers you receive will also be offered to other Xometry Injection Molding Partners. We recommend accepting a job as soon as you know that it is a good fit for your business.
All injection molding work will be offered to you beginning with the Tooling Job, shown below. An additional job offer for the parts will follow the acceptance of the tooling job. When reviewing a job offer for the tool, review and consider the following before accepting the job:
- Job Details
- All Part Files
- PDF contains part details
- Job notes
Within 24 hours of accepting the tooling job offer, you will receive a second job offer for the parts.
You will receive email notifications for new job offers posted to your job board. Email notification settings may be managed on your account page in the partner portal.
Job Offer Feedback
Review job details thoroughly when deciding whether you’re interested in a job or not. If the job is a good fit for your business’s capabilities, simply accept the job offer. Use the "Provide Feedback" tool for any jobs that are a close fit but not a perfect match.
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Accepted Jobs and Manufacture of Parts
Upon acceptance of the job, you are agreeing to manufacture the parts in your own facility. These parts cannot be made in alternative locations without explicit consent from Xometry. Only post-processing operations may be subcontracted without advance consent from Xometry. Additionally, you are responsible for ensuring all subcontractors comply with the relevant Xometry Partner Terms & Conditions.
Accepted jobs can be managed in the “Current Work” section of the Partner Portal where you can easily provide status updates and upload inspection documents when required.
We ask that you provide job status updates in the Partner Portal while completing Xometry work. This will inform Xometry that the job is progressing as expected. In the job details for a particular job, you will find places to provide status updates.
When providing status updates, please consider the following checkpoints for tooling jobs vs. parts jobs.
Injection Molding Quality Standards
A Standard inspection VQC is for Xometry jobs that require a Standard Inspection. This is the majority of them and will be indicated on your Xometry Purchase Order under “Inspection Requirement” which you receive upon accepting the job.
A Report VQC will be required when a job is accepted that requires a Formal Inspection, First Article (FAI) inspection or CMM Inspection.
Check out the rest of our Virtual Quality Control process for injection molding:
For Standard Inspection VQC:
A Standard inspection VQC is for Xometry jobs that require a Standard Inspection. This is the majority of them and will be indicated on your Xometry Purchase Order under “Inspection Requirement” which you receive upon accepting the job. For this type of inspection, you will utilize the Xometry IM VQC Template found below and for the dimensional report section within the template, you may insert your shop’s own dimensional reports.
Please note, to efficiently serve our partners and maintain our part quality, we now require that all partners upload their VQC documentation to the Partner Portal for review by our QC team by 12 pm (in your respective time zone) in order to receive same-day inspection.
For Report VQC:
A Report VQC will be required when a job is accepted that requires a Formal Inspection, First Article (FAI) inspection or CMM Inspection. In these cases, you will still complete the IM VQC Template found above, but rather than inserting your own dimensional reports into the template, Xometry will bubble the customer’s print and generate a report layout for you to fill out. These will be available to download from the partner portal as they are ready. Please keep in mind that all dimensions need to be measured with calibrated equipment. To complete the VQC process, the following will be required:
- All reports must be typed, not handwritten.
- All information must be filled out completely. This includes material information at the top of the form, all results, and all tooling information for each result. You can not “blanket” the report with only entering one results for multiple measurements or listing the tooling only once on the report. The reports must be signed and dated on all forms.
- All sample sheets must be filled out completely. You will see a sample sheet for each Xometry required sample at the bottom of the Excel form. Please see the Xometry Sampling Plan for further information on how many samples will be required to be checked.
- Parts that were checked MUST be tagged so that Xometry and the customer can correlate what parts go with what report. Please expect these to be checked as well as the possibility of a random part that is not tagged.
- Do not copy your results across samples. Again parts must be tagged and results must correlate between the report and the sample that is tagged to go with it.
- If the measurement requirement is a number, a number result must be provided, not a Pass or Fail.
- All dimensions on the report must have a result.
- Report must be on the Xometry report that was provided by Xometry with the job.
- Include the following pictures: a general picture of how the part(s) look, picture of any required part markings, picture of the samples tagged, and picture of any bag and tag requirements.
- If job requires it, you must have the CoC completely filled out and uploaded and all material, finishing, marking, and hardware certs uploaded to be reviewed.
Again, it is advised that you have everything uploaded and reach out to vqc@xometry.com to set up the VQC a day before the job is due to ship. This will give the inspectors time to completely review everything before the shipping cut off to not make the job late.
DFM & VQC Templates
To simplify the VQC process for Injection Molding, we have created templates for partners to follow which provides step-by-step instructions and helpful hints.
DFM Template and Example
VQC Templates and Example
Please note that orders involving both tooling and molding will require a VQC to be completed for each job.
Injection Molding Packing & Shipping
The most important factor in deciding how to pack a part is that part’s wall thickness. Parts with 2 mm thickness or less need to be packed more carefully with additional internal support if possible using kraft paper or similar material. A minimum of 2 layers of bubble wrap (3/16” standard small bubble) is needed no matter the size of the part.- “Use Best Judgement” but minimally these small parts need to be put in individual poly bags. Zip Lock sandwich bags are not an acceptable substitute for poly bags.
Download our Injection Molding PDF Packing Guide here →
Learn more about packing & shipping tricks →
Note: the injection molding guide is the exact same as the additive packing guide.
Getting Paid for Injection Molding Work
Parts Orders
Payments for Parts orders will be paid out automatically according to Xometry’s Standard Payout Schedule.
Xometry does not issue partial payments for production orders. Partners will receive payout upon completion of the job. The job must be marked as completed in the Partner Portal in order for our system to process the payment.
Tooling Orders
Xometry will pay up to a 50% deposit for a tool upon accepting the tooling order. To receive this deposit up-front, please submit an invoice to moldingdeposits@xometry.com clearly indicating a 50% deposit is requested. Payments for partial tooling deposits may take up to 1 week to be processed.
The remaining balance for the tooling order will be processed for payment upon completion. The job for the tooling order must be marked as completed in the Partner Portal in order to be processed for payment.
Tooling deposits and balances can be tracked in the Shop Finances section of the Partner Portal.
If you have any questions regarding a payout for a tooling order, please contact us through this Xometry Support Form and a representative will reply via email.
