Optical parts made of plastics play an increasing role in many areas of application. For example, lenses for LED-headlamps or mobile phone cameras enable the development of innovative products in the field of automotive technology or lifestyle products. Since the optical design of these components is often thick-walled, the duration of the injection moulding process takes several minutes to achieve the desired high quality. In order to ensure an economical production, the thick-walled optical components cannot be moulded in one step. The goal of multilayer injection moulding is therefore to reduce the cycle time by a process in which a pre-moulded layer is overmoulded with the same transparent material. The separately overmoulded layers are thinner than the final wall thickness. In this manner the resulting cycle time of a multilayer lens is lower than a single layer lens with the same thickness. Furthermore a lens build up from layer by layer using overmoulding can achieve a higher precision in geometrical accuracy because of a lower potential of warpage and shrinkage in each layer itself. As a first step, the segmentation of the whole lens into layers of different thickness is calculated in thermal simulations in order to minimise cycle times. In a second step the replication of lenses with thicknesses between 5 and 20 mm is being investigated to compare single layer and multilayer lenses. Lenses with the same resulting wall thickness are therefore moulded as a single layer lens and compared with a lens produced in two or three layers. A newly developed mould with an inclined ramp allows the continuous adjustment of the individual layer thickness. A hot runner with a closing needle allows a second and third injection of melt into the cavity through the same gate. Preliminary investigations show that a production of optical components build up from several layers is possible and can lead to higher geometrical accuracy combined with shorter cycle times.