Jul 14/23
What Is Tooling in Manufacturing?
By 2030, the experts expect that the global tooling market will reach $439,994.9 million. This is a 7.5% increase from 2021.
This means that tooling manufacturing will be on the rise, and you need to know all about it so that you don’t get left behind.
Keep reading to find out what it is, the types of tooling, and why it’s important.
What Is Tooling Manufacturing?
Tooling manufacturing is also sometimes referred to as machine tooling. It’s the process of shaping, cutting, designing, or forming different materials that produce components and parts that are tight tolerant.
For example, you can’t make a well-formed cake without a cake pan. Many machines need a tool that performs a similar function as the cake pan does.
Many different industries use machine tooling in the manufacturing process, including firearms, medical, and even automotive.
Types of Tooling
There are two main types of tooling: soft tooling and hard tooling.
Generally, soft tooling is better suited for machines that are only making a low or medium volume of parts. One of the most common types of soft tool material is aluminum.
Aluminum is great because it can be formed into molds, and it’s perfect for creating a mold pattern that might be too complicated to make.
The one disadvantage of soft tooling is that it’s not as durable, and you’ll have to swap out new tools very frequently. If you don’t, the tool will start to lose shape, and you may end up creating different parts.
Hard tooling is made from durable metals like nickel or steel alloys, which makes it much more durable. This means it can last for many production cycles, and manufacturers use this when they’re doing a high volume of parts.
It can be more time-consuming than soft tooling, but you won’t have to replace the parts as often, so this is the better option if you’re going to have long production runs.
Tooling Stages
There are three main types of tooling stages:
- Prototype tooling
- Bridge tooling
- Production tooling
Prototype tooling is when the tools are produced, tested, designed, and functioned in the production process.
The bridge tooling is at the end of the development phase and the beginning of the production tooling. Once the product has been tested for function and quality, then it can move on to the production tooling process.
The production tooling is great for long-term and efficient success. It’s more precise and can be scaled for mass production.
Why Is It Important?
Tooling manufacturing is important because it can produce a quality finished part. The speed, accuracy, and quality of the finished part will be repeatable in high volumes.
This ensures that each product produced is high quality.
Learn More About Tooling Manufacturing
Tooling manufacturing is important, especially in the automotive industry for creating high-quality parts for cars.
However, it can be challenging to find good and trusted tooling services. Thankfully, we do our tooling in-house.
Check out this webpage to learn more about how our tooling services can create quality car parts.