Rapid tooling is an important service offered by some technical plastic injection moulding companies. Rapid tooling has transformed plastic injection tooling services making the creation of mould tools faster and more flexible. These advantages have proven particularly popular in industries where speed, adaptability and quality are key, such as in medical devices, consumer electronics and automotive sectors.
Rapid tool production also supports rapid prototyping and has opened the door to a quicker, more efficient, and collaborative design, development and validation process for finished products.
However, these similar sounding processes are often confused. So, what is the difference between rapid prototyping and rapid tooling? In this blog we will discuss the meanings and purpose of each and show how rapid mould tooling contributes to a huge reduction in product development lead-times.
What is rapid tooling?
As a process, rapid tooling enables the quick production of mould tools. It differs from conventional tooling in terms of being faster as a production method. As a result, the overall product development cycle can be accelerated, enabling products to get to market more quickly.
Benefits of rapid tooling
As a process, rapid tooling has also helped boost innovation. This is because, unlike conventional tooling, rapid tooling services allow for faster iterations to be developed, encouraging greater design experimentation. It also reduces risk for manufacturers, as it allows for the detection of potential design flaws and manufacturing issues early on, minimising costly changes once full-scale production has begun. It is ideal for short production runs, low-volume manufacturing and pilot projects.
This makes it a more accessible manufacturing process for small to medium-sized production runs (up to 100,000 pieces). Also, rapid tooling often uses additive manufacturing (AM) techniques – such as 3D printing – and these are much more material efficient than more traditional subtractive processes. Tight tolerances and high-quality standards and surface finishes are also possible with rapid tooling, OGM can achieve tolerances as little as +- 0.05mm.
What is rapid prototyping?
Rapid prototyping allows the creation of scale models of physical parts using computer-aided design (CAD) data. One of the most common processes used to create the object is 3D printing and this can be done using materials such as metals and polymers. Rapid prototyping differs from traditional prototyping in that, as the name suggests, rapid prototyping is faster.
Benefits of rapid prototyping
Prototype turnaround times can be significantly reduced using rapid prototyping, with results delivered in a matter of days compared to weeks or months of more traditional methods. This also allows for iterations and refinements to be delivered more quickly, enabling multiple design versions to be tested and adjusted as needed in quick succession.
Rapid prototyping also leads to reduced waste, labour costs and modifications in later development stages, compared to manual prototyping methods. All of which lowers production costs.
Rapid Tooling Vs Rapid Prototyping
Purpose:
Rapid tooling quickly creates tools and tool inserts for injection moulding low-volume, short production runs. Rapid prototyping has the primary purpose of developing one-off prototype parts or products at speed.
Lead Time:
When it comes to rapid plastic injection tooling services, rapid tooling has streamlined the process as for time-to-market for products. It offers significantly shorter production times than traditional tooling, OGM has reduced lead times down to two weeks with moulded parts compared to the traditional tooling 8 weeks or more for a traditional tools alone. Gains in lead-time can be made throughout each of the design, manufacture stages.
For rapid prototyping the lead-time can be shortened by a few hours up to a couple of weeks, depending on the complexity of the project being undertaken.
Materials:
Composites, plastics and resins are the traditional materials used in rapid prototyping and the material chosen is often similar to the final product. Metals may also be employed in more advanced prototyping, where real-world properties and functionality are important. In rapid injection mould tooling it is best to use the final product material to maintain part functionality.
Cost:
Rapid tooling requires high initial investment in equipment and software, compared to the relatively affordable 3D printers used in rapid prototyping. Also, the materials used in rapid prototyping, such as plastics and resins, are traditionally cheaper on a per-unit basis than those used in tooling materials.
The production of rapid tooling requires skilled labour and in general has a longer production time than rapid prototyping. Therefore, rapid tooling is more cost-effective for low to medium-volume production (up to 100,000 pieces), whereas rapid prototyping is ideal for a handful of products or unique items (1-10 pieces).
How rapid mould tooling can help with prototyping
As can be seen, rapid tooling is ideal for short production runs. It can support new product development in high value industries requiring technical products such as in the medical, consumer electronics and automotive sectors. For manufacturers in these industries, rapid tooling supports prototyping by producing high quality parts that often have complex geometries. They can also be tested and validated, speeding up the product development process by delivering market ready components that customers can assemble into complete working prototypes. Alternatively, some companies may just require the mould tool to test their own production processes.
With speed of the essence when developing tools for short-run production and prototyping projects, OGM uses the latest in hybrid additive manufacturing technology. By combining additive manufacturing and conventional CNC machining, steel mould tools, complete with conformal cooling channels, can be created quickly. OGM has many years of experience in offering customers rapid tooling for plastic injection mould tooling. Whether the need is project concept and tooling design, prototyping and tooling manufacture, high and low volume injection moulding, part assembly, testing or packaging and delivery, OGM can make production dreams a reality.
Are there any areas of new product development and prototyping that will help you maximise speed, whilst minimising costs?