If injection molding is a manufacturing process then how is it possible to process rapid tooling?

At AISA, we define rapid tooling as several hundred to several thousand pieces created from a single cavity, low-cost tooling within 1-3 weeks. Rapid toolings are made with the same manufacturing process as mass production but there are differences in the tooling and the processing of the parts.

Here are a few of the differences:

• The rapid tooling is not typically as robust as the final product. The tooling is often made from aluminum or softer steel/P20 steel in order to reduce both the material costs and the labor to make the tool. The tools are not designed for a high yield of parts, but sometimes it could run about 50k shots of parts if the tool could be maintained in the workshop at AISA.

• Rapid toolings are made to prove that the design of a part will work. The majority of the cost is in the tooling. The cost of producing the parts is relatively minor so almost no effort is put into the tool to make the parts run fast. In mass production, however, the focus is on the price of the piece. Getting the tool to make parts as quickly as possible lowers the cost of those parts. This change in focus can make significant changes to the design of the tooling. But there is no limit on the part design/tooling constructions, we could still make it, in a different way.

• Mass production focuses on cost, so the reduction of labor is critical. Mass producers can afford to invest in robots to handle parts coming off of a tool because, while the initial cost of