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Cut the tool in aluminium before you cut it in steel.
Plan the bridge tool into the schedule so the first parts are a test rather than a commitment.
Tomas Bergqvist
@tomas-moulds
Written by someone who worked on it.
The same argument as the Nairobi programme, run deliberately rather than by accident: a bracket maker planned two tools from the start and used the first to find eleven changes.
Problem
A cable bracket had eleven mounting variants and no way to know which ones the market wanted before parts existed. Committing to steel meant committing to a variant list.
Context
A three-person spin-out from a larger bracket manufacturer, working with a local mould shop that had never quoted a bridge tool before.
What they did
- Wrote the bridge tool into the first quote as a line item rather than treating it as a contingency.
- Ran 1,200 parts across the eleven variants and put them in front of four installers.
- Dropped six variants on the evidence and cut the steel tool for five.
- Reused the bridge tool's runner layout in the steel tool, which the mould shop had not expected to be possible.
What to avoid
- The mould shop initially quoted the bridge tool as a discount on the steel tool, which hid its real cost and made the comparison meaningless.
- Aluminium tools flash sooner than the team expected and the last 200 parts needed hand trimming.
The business facts
- Timeline
- 7 months, two tools
- Capital raised
- $42,000
- Norrfall Bracketworks
- Gothenburg, 2024
- Name withheld
- Gothenburg, 2024
- Variants tooled in steel
- 5
- Variants dropped after the bridge run
- 6
- Parts off the bridge tool
- 1,200
Sources
No public source for this one.
Related lessons
- tooling
- injection-molding
- design-for-manufacture
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