Production Tools | FIT Additive Manufacturing Group

Increase the efficiency of your production

As competition and price pressure increases, productivity becomes critical. Many work steps therefore use production tools, which often involve high production costs and long production times, but which also do not perfectly meet the specific requirements for the relevant work step. Our diverse solutions for the additive manufacturing of production tools give you numerous possibilities for making the most of existing improvement potential.

Additive design and 3D printing allow us to customize production tools or, as is the case with injection molding tools, integrate complex geometries for surface cooling. The result: lower-cost and faster production, better functionality, and a better range of functions. We know the paths and have the necessary tools and technologies that lead to your perfect production tool.

Our core areas:

Rapid tooling
Special tools
Assembly aids and devices

Take advantage of our 3D printing service for production tools. Test us out. Send us your inquiry and we will get back to you with quote shortly.

Why FIT?

14 days - the average time to develop, design and additively manufacture your production aids.
90 % - the maximum savings effect for one-off costs, such as devices, which have previously been achieved by 3D printing.
94 % - the present peak value for reducing throughput times for the production of 3D printed tools.
99 % - the percentage of our customers satisfied with our performance and with the result of the use of their 3D printed production tools.

Application example

An automotive supplier uses component chutes in its production area, which are manually assembled from sheet metal parts by specialists. High costs and an acute shortage of specialists are an increasing problem. Our solution: an organically designed component chute. The chute is made 25 % more quickly, with a 70 % reduction in costs, in one plastic (PA) piece with selective laser sintering (SLS or Laser Powder Bed Fusion PBF-LB/P). It is also 80 % lighter and enables controlled component guidance with the integration of rollers.

Rapid tooling

Injection molding tools are expensive and are therefore often uneconomical for producing individual parts or small series. In this case, 3D printing offers key benefits, because it is faster, more cost-effective, and more flexible than conventional technologies. Laser melting (LM or Laser Powder Bed Fusion PBF-LB/M) allows us to manufacture over 300 different injection molding tools every year, many of these with complex surface cooling to avoid “hot spots“, which otherwise lead to a considerable increase in the reject rate.

Special tools

Drawn from their daily experience, your employees have numerous ideas on how to complete the work more productively with better tools. The good news: these days, customized grippers, holders, forceps, or guides can easily and quickly be designed with CAD software and they can be produced cost-effectively and in a short space of time with additive manufacturing. Results from practice show that, for example, the throughput time can be reduced by up to 94 % with 3D printed assembly line tools.

Assembly aids/devices

High one-off costs, e.g. for the development of devices, are annoying precisely because they occur once. This is similar for assembly aids, which are also only used once or very rarely. This means that it is sensible to keep costs as low as possible. Once again, we provide 3D printing solutions that allow you to reduce your one-off costs by up to 90 % and manufacture your assembly aids cost-effectively and quickly.

Additive manufacturing

Laser Melting (PBF-LB/M)

It's all about productivity