How to Choose a Silicone Manufacturer: 12 Questions
7 min read · updated 2026-10-19
Ask these twelve questions before you send a deposit. A real factory answers them in specifics — numbers, standards, days. A trading office answers them with adjectives.
The twelve questions
- Who owns the mould after I pay the tooling fee, and how long will you store it?
- How many days from drawing approval to first article, and how many from sample approval to shipment?
- What tolerance do you hold, and on which process?
- Which standard do you measure hardness against, and can I see the reading?
- Is the part compression moulded, LSR injected, extruded or die-cut?
- Do you do post-curing, and at what temperature and duration?
- Can I visit the plant, or get a live video walkthrough?
- What third-party lab do you use, and who pays for the test?
- What is your AQL and do you do 100 % inspection or sampling?
- What happens if the batch fails inspection — remake, credit, or argument?
- How do you handle overruns and underruns?
- Will you sign an NDA before you see my design?
What a good answer sounds like
Good: "You own the mould, we store it free for two years, ±0.1 mm moulded, hardness read per ASTM D2240 on every batch, post-cured 200 °C for 2 hours, AQL 2.5 with 100 % in-line inspection." Every clause is a number or a standard.
Bad: "We are a professional factory with rich experience and high quality, fast delivery, competitive price." There is nothing in that sentence you can hold anyone to.
The question most buyers forget
Ask who physically presses the parts. A trading company that cannot answer this clearly is not necessarily a problem — plenty of good trading companies exist — but you should know whether you are talking to the plant or to a desk, because it changes who fixes a defect.
One test that settles it faster than any questionnaire
Order a paid sample of something simple. Speed, honesty about what went wrong, and whether the sample matches the drawing will tell you more than twelve answers.