What Is the Difference between Rapid Tooling and Conventional Tooling?

Last Updated on October 6, 2023 by assistant

In manufacturing, the role of tooling is self-evident. Different toolings may affect the processing of your project. Suitable tooling can lead to greater success. And tooling decides the production speed, quality, and cost of the project. 

What are rapid tooling and conventional tooling?

Rapid tooling refers to the methods of producing the parts(molds) quickly. And injection molding tooling is one kind of rapid tooling. Conventional tooling is a technique that needs to combine different manufacturing techniques to create the parts.

Figure1 Rapid Tooling VS Conventional Tooling

Difference between rapid tooling and conventional tooling?

1. The speed of rapid tooling is quicker than conventional tooling. Rapid tooling would be a perfect choice especially when you get some urgent projects to do. 

2. The quality and accuracy of rapid tooling are higher than conventional tooling. Rapid tooling has achieved semi-automation and even full automation while conventional tooling relies heavily on manual labor. That’s why the precision of the parts produced by rapid tooling is higher than in conventional tooling. At the same time, rapid tooling is often used for creating parts, which have a shorter lifespan than the parts made by conventional tooling.

3. The cost of rapid tooling spent is less than conventional tooling. Rapid tooling is more dependent on human labor instead of labor. It can save money on labor and also reduce material waste.