Product development speed is a critical competitive advantage, and efficient product development tooling solutions are essential for OEMs to stay at the top of their markets. While the early stages of product development are fast, thanks to CAD and plastic-3D-printed prototypes, the process slows when a production-represented molded part is required via injection molding. The traditional tooling needed to produce these parts creates bottlenecks that slow product development, delay testing and validation, and extend the time to market. These inefficiencies impact production timelines and a company’s ability to innovate and respond to market demands, whether due to lengthy tool builds, supply chain constraints, or limited in-house toolmaker labor capacity.
To stay ahead, many OEMs are innovating their approach to product development tooling and looking for solutions to help accelerate product development by being able to rapidly produce mold tooling. One such solution is Mantle’s automated toolmaking system, which seamlessly integrates into existing toolrooms to rapidly produce mold tooling that enables faster product development with quicker iteration cycles, increased production flexibility, and strategic control over tooling supply chains.
Automated toolmaking solutions help OEMs optimize their in-house toolmaking processes and speed up production to drive efficiency, reduce lead times, and enhance overall product quality. Watch it in action here.
Reduce Time to Market with Production-Representative Parts
Having the product development tooling to create production-representative parts early in the development cycle is key to avoiding costly surprises when a design is produced in its final form. While aluminum tooling and 3D-printed plastic parts offer lower costs and faster turnaround times than traditional steel tools, they fail to replicate real-world production conditions.
Aluminum tooling behaves differently under injection molding pressures and temperatures than final production steel tooling, leading to variability in parameters such as shrinkage or cooling rates, potentially leading to defects when transitioning to steel molds. 3D-printed plastic prototypes don’t match the mechanical properties and processing behavior of molded parts, making them useless in validating a component’s performance and manufacturability when produced via injection molding in production. These inconsistencies increase the risk of late-stage design changes, unexpected processing issues, and costly retooling.
By using production-grade steel tooling from the early stages of development, manufacturers can validate designs, optimize molding parameters, and confidently accelerate product development, especially in highly regulated industries like medical device.
Mantle’s automated toolmaking system creates steel tooling quickly and efficiently in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional toolmaking. Using Mantle, manufacturers can print multiple designs simultaneously – in some cases; customers print 10+ design variations in one build for parallel testing and faster validation.
- De-risk production and eliminate costly delays by validating end-use manufacturing processes with steel tooling and end-use plastic material.
- Empower your engineering team to take greater control of tooling, enabling the rapid production of injection mold inserts for efficient in-house product development.
- Produce multiple mold insert design variations simultaneously to iterate and refine quickly, optimizing molding process parameters and bringing better-quality products to market faster.
VP of Engineering at Heyco Products
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMEN TOOLING
THREADED FLUID FITTING
An internally and externally threaded component was developed for a new product design. When a change was needed to the external threading, a new H13 tool steel insert was printed with crisp details, and very little labor was required.
- 2+ Weeks Saved
- Fully functional NPT threads, gauged and sealed properly
Maintain Strategic Control Over Your Tooling Supply Chain
Tooling is not just a necessity — it’s a strategic asset. For OEMs, relying on external suppliers for product development tooling, especially overseas, introduces risks, including extended turnaround times, supply chain vulnerabilities, and potential IP security concerns.
Optimizing tooling production in-house accelerates internal feedback loops and offers production flexibility, ensuring updates and improvements are implemented without being bottlenecked by third-party lead times or supply chain disruptions.
- Reduce reliance on external suppliers to improve responsiveness and use production agility as a strategic advantage.
- Streamline communication and iterations between product development, engineering, and manufacturing teams.
- Keep critical tooling IP in-house and reduce the strategic risks associated with outsourcing.
- Automate the toolmaking process to overcome labor shortages and operate efficiently to reduce tooling lead times dramatically.
top 10 medical oem
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TOOLING
MEDICAL DEVICE
Prototype parts molded in acetal and radel (high-temperature plastics). Using Mantle’s automated tooling solution, the tool steel cavity and core mold inserts were ready in just over a week and accurate within 0.001″ as printed without additional finish. Read the full story.
- 50% cost savings
- Lead time reduced from 7 weeks to 8 days
- Produced production representative parts
Expand Toolroom Capacity with Automation
Like the entire toolmaking industry, many OEMs face the challenge of finding skilled toolmakers, making it difficult to scale in-house tooling operations. As experienced workers retire and fewer young professionals enter the trade, companies need ways to expand or maintain their toolroom capacity without increasing headcount.
By adopting automated toolmaking systems, OEMs scale operations efficiently and cost-effectively, ensuring they meet increasing production demands while maintaining full control over quality or delivery timelines.
- Automate up to 95% of a tool build to allow toolmakers to focus on high-value tasks that maximize throughput.
- Streamline workflows by easily creating ribs, deep pockets, or blind features during the tool build, eliminating the need for many sinker EDM operations.
- Operate lights-out and change over with minimal operator intervention to keep production going – even during vacations or longer-term labor shortages.
"Using Mantle, we automate 70% of the tool build, freeing up our toolmakers."
tammy barras,
president at westec plastics
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TOOLING
torch packaging housing
Validate a new product design.
- 75% cost savings
- 75% lead time reduction
- Printed tool was used with no post-processing to part detail
- Injected PEEK 30% glass filled
Maximize tooling performance with confromal cooling
Beyond speed and efficiency, OEMs can further enhance their ROI in toolmaking automation by quickly unlocking the benefits of conformal cooling. Using additive manufacturing as part of its hybrid process to deposit and shape tool steel, Mantle’s automated toolmaking system easily creates internal channels without the manufacturability constraints of CNC-machining. Unlike other metal 3D printing technologies, Mantle does this without increasing the time and cost of producing the insert compared to traditional toolmaking.
Even by incorporating basic cooling channels that follow the shape of the mold, built easily without added time and cost during the automated process, manufacturers capitalize on faster cycle times and improved part quality. When paired with molding simulation software, users can continuously innovate cooling designs and optimize their tooling and molding process.
- Reduce cycle times by improving cooling efficiency with channels that follow the shape of the mold for better heat dissipation.
- Enhance process stability by maintaining consistent temperatures throughout the mold to improve repeatability and prevent warping and shrinkage that leads to defects.
- Extend tool life by reducing thermal stresses on your molds.
conformal cooling
automotive lens component
This part’s optical performance was equivalent to conventionally tooled components with a 50% cycle time reduction of the thick, multi-shot part. It also featured a highly-polished finish after heat treatment and single point diamond turning to achieve roughness consistent with A1 requirements.
- 50% cycle time savings
The Best Way to Accelerate Product Development: Faster Tooling
Toolmaking automation solutions allow manufacturers to regain control and make tooling a strategic advantage, not a barrier to success. For OEMs looking to improve their product development cycles, Mantle’s automated toolmaking system provides flexible capacity to reduce development timelines, control the supply chain, and manufacture efficiently.
