Tooling

While most interpret the term as synonymous with mold, "tooling" may refer to any hardware dedicated to the manufacture of a part or product. Tooling may include molds, automation hardware and fixtures.

Molds

Often the most costly portion of the product development process, an injection mold is a precision machine that functions under high mechanical and thermal loads. A well designed mold will reliably produce the intended part while inattention to good design will likely result in some combination of reduced quality and increased cost. The cost of an injection mold can range from a few thousand dollars to well over $100,000 for complex tools.

Automation Hardware and Fixturing

Once a part is molded, it has to be manipulated or held for inspection, printing, or perhaps some other post mold operation. Sometimes we use our hands for quality checks and gate trimming, other times it is better to use a robot to move parts around. There may also be a need to position the part very precisely for measurement. In such cases custom fixtures and / or part gripping devices are required.