Low Volume Tooling vs. Production Tooling: Making the Right Tooling Choice
Bringing a plastic part from concept to market involves a series of critical decisions, and tooling strategy lies at the heart of this process. The choice between low volume tooling and production tooling can significantly influence your project’s budget, timeline, and the quality and consistency of your final plastic components. Selecting the right tooling path ensures that your product development proceeds smoothly and meets your performance and cost targets.
At Midwest Mold, we help manufacturers navigate these decisions by providing both low volume and production tooling solutions under one roof. Our expertise aligns tooling strategy with your specific product goals, timelines, and budget, delivering value at every stage.
What Is Tooling in Plastic Injection Molding?
In plastic injection molding, tooling refers to the complete mold system, including the cavity, core, ejectors, and cooling channels, used to form plastic parts. At its center is the mold, where molten plastic is injected and shaped. Tooling plays a critical role in determining part quality, dimensional accuracy, cycle time, and overall production efficiency.
Tooling must be designed with the end-use requirements and production volume in mind. For example, molds for mass production need to be extremely durable and precise to maintain consistent quality over hundreds of thousands or even millions of cycles. On the other hand, molds for low volume focus more on flexibility and speed to support design validation.
Low Volume Tooling: Accelerate Development, Minimize Risk
Imagine you have an innovative product idea, a brilliant design that’s ready to take physical form. However, before committing to a large-scale manufacturing investment, you need to validate your design, test its functionality, and perhaps even conduct early market trials. This is where prototype tooling shines.
Prototype tooling, also known as “soft tooling,” is engineered for rapid turnaround and low-volume production. Unlike production tooling, it often uses less expensive materials and simplified manufacturing processes to keep costs and lead times down.
Key benefits of low volume tooling including rapid prototyping:
- Proof of Concept: Quickly produce parts to test form, fit, and function, allowing for iterative improvements.
- Urethane Mold: Used for 35-50 pieces as a precursor to low volume in aluminum tooling to support 500-50,000 pieces.
- Early user feedback: Provide tangible samples for demonstrations, pilot runs, or regulatory approvals.
- Bridging to production: Create functional parts to support initial market entry while full production tooling is under development.
At Midwest Mold, we combine rapid prototyping technologies with low-volume injection molding to produce accurate, functional products, typically up to 10,000 parts per year, with speed and precision.
Production Tooling: Precision and Durability at Scale
Once a design is locked and production volumes rise, investing in high-quality production tooling becomes essential. Production molds are engineered to withstand the rigors of long-term manufacturing runs, often producing hundreds of thousands to millions of parts without compromising quality.
Key features of high-quality production tooling:
- Longevity: Built to run reliably for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of cycles with proper maintenance.
- Tight tolerances: Precision manufacturing ensures dimensional accuracy and repeatable fit for even the most complex components.
- High efficiency: Advanced features such as optimized cooling, automated ejection, and compatibility with high-speed equipment reduce cycle times and improve output.
- Tool transfer readiness: Midwest Mold supports tool transfers by validating and optimizing existing production molds for seamless integration into new facilities.
Our production tooling is built not only for quality, but also for scalability, supporting the demanding requirements of industries like automotive, consumer products, and industrial components.
Modern Tooling Strategies: Flexibility from Start to Scale
The tooling landscape has evolved, and today’s manufacturers often adopt a phased tooling strategy. Rather than viewing prototype and production tooling as binary endpoints, many now embrace a flexible continuum, i.e., choosing the right tooling path based on part complexity, production volume, regulatory requirements, and time-to-market demands.
One widely adopted approach follows a three-stage progression:
- Rapid prototyping and low volume tooling: A variety of methods can be deployed including 3D printing, urethane molds and aluminum tooling for early-stage design and functional testing.
- Hybrid (pre-production) tooling: Semi-hardened steel molds that simulate production conditions, enabling low- to mid-volume runs and performance validation.
- Production Tooling: Fully hardened steel tooling designed for long-term, high-volume manufacturing.
This full three-stage strategy is commonly used for medical devices, automotive and aerospace components, and industrial equipment. However, many companies streamline the process by opting for a two-stage path:
- Low Volume → Production: This is used when part design is stable and launch timelines are tight, often seen in consumer electronics, household products, or startup environments.
- Hybrid → High Volume Production: This option is selected when early functional testing must use production-grade materials and finishes, common in wearables, IoT devices, and low-volume commercial products.
Hybrid molds, also known as pre-production molds, bridge the gap between early prototyping and high-volume manufacturing. Technically, they offer improved durability over prototype tooling without the cost or lead time of fully hardened production steel. Hybrid molds can support higher shot volumes and are capable of producing parts with near-production material specifications and surface finishes.
This phased approach allows for:
- Faster design validation without high upfront tooling costs.
- Real-world testing with production-grade materials and geometry.
- Reduced risk of costly rework, as issues are identified before scaling.
- A smoother transition to mass production, maintaining consistency in part quality and performance.
Midwest Mold’s integrated design and engineering teams collaborate closely with clients across all tooling phases, from initial CAD analysis and prototype tooling through hybrid validation and final production mold fabrication, ensuring tooling evolves in lockstep with the product’s development and market readiness.
Collaboration Starts Early: Design for Manufacturability
Successful tooling begins long before a mold is made. Early collaboration between product designers, engineers, and tooling experts is critical to ensure parts are manufacturable, cost-effective, and high-performing.
Tooling specialists provide invaluable insights on critical design factors such as:
- Draft angles: Proper angles facilitate part release from the mold without damage.
- Wall thickness: Uniform thickness prevents defects like warping or sink marks.
- Undercuts: Design features that may complicate mold design and require special mechanisms.
- Material compatibility: Matching resin choice with mold design to optimize flow and durability.
- Gating strategies: Deciding where molten plastic enters the mold to ensure complete fill and minimize defects.
Early input helps reduce design revisions, accelerate time-to-market, and optimize tooling performance. It also improves long-term part quality by anticipating how materials and tooling will behave under operational stresses.
Making the Right Choice: Questions to Consider
When deciding between low volume and production tooling, ask:
- What stage is your project in? Early development or ready for launch?
- How many parts do you need, and how fast?
- Is your design finalized, or are changes still expected?
- What level of part precision or surface quality is required?
- What’s your budget for tooling and per-part cost?
At Midwest Mold, our team works closely with manufacturers to answer these questions and recommend the right tooling path, whether it’s a fast, flexible prototype tool, robust production tooling, or a combination of both.