Raid Tooling The 2010 Definition
By its definition, if a company is claiming to provide anything other then rapid tooling
, then it must be providing slow tooling. Hardly a compelling marketing message. But what does Rapid Tooling mean in context of todays Must have it now! society?Prototyping rapid products to market is reliant on a host of factors. Are the products, people and machinery readily available? How does a company claim a 2 week delivery if there is a backlog?
Back in the late 1990s, a typical lead time to produce tooling would be eight to twelve weeks. Today, these lead times have been slashed to an average of four to six weeks. Over the coming years, it is believed that lead times for rapid tooling could fall to two to four weeks. With such an exponential improvement over time, at what point does a lead time not be considered rapid? Staying state-of-the-art is important to all manufacturers who are serious about Rapid Tooling.
Emerging 3D CAD/CAM technologies enable mouldmakers to respond quickly. Incorporating these advances into todays rapid tooling environment is vital to the long-term success of the industry. Though technology reduces time to delivery, prototyping rapid tooling technology advances cannot guarantee it.
What does all this mean to the rapid tooling industry? One such UK based company, Iota Sigma, specialise in helping organisations enhance their manufacturing capabilities. Their continuous investment in machinery, training, prototyping rapid methodologies and the developing emergence of the industry allows them to remain on course to keep the word rapid in their product offering. At the end of the day, Rapid Tooling is not a process, it is about how fast a product can be delivered within the tolerances of cost and quality to meet their customers expectation. If they ultimately fail, then their excellent reputation that they strive so hard to maintain in the market place would be severely tarnished. They are not going to let that happen lightly.
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