Bridge tooling, soft tooling, pilot production, semi-production, market testing, gap testing, etc. Called by any name it still is pre-production quantities for plastic products with volumes that may need millions of parts.
Keep in mind, that all customers needs are different, and Phoenix Proto has the experience to accommodate. A 1,000,000 product life expectancy can be achieved with Aluminum cavities. Often for higher quantities using bridge tooling is far more cost effective than a Steel Alloy due to faster builds and cycle times therefore reducing the mold and piece price. So a plastic part that normally would be built in a Steel Alloy can be had at a greatly reduced cost of the same or superior quality when Aluminum is used as a bridge tool.
One major OEM just did a recent study proving Aluminum Tooling value and durability in production. In one instance we were able to take a doomed project made out of Steel and turn it into a
success using bridge tooling. We were able to produce 800,000 parts off of this bridge tool, that amount by some standards is definitely production quantity. This tool saved our customer over $100,000, learn more about
Aluminum Tooling savings from this case study.