Tooling
For some small parts manufacturers, the tooling cost is the first obstacle to obtaining the tray that best fits their needs. To the professional team at Custom Tray, it’s simply the first step in providing you with the perfect tray.
We understand your cost concerns and have developed our tooling process to provide our customers with as many low-cost options as possible in record time for extensive design requirements.
Our Process
Thermoforming industry professionals will agree that the most important part of the tooling process is actually “talking” about it.
At Custom Tray, we start this process by letting you tell us what the purpose of your tray is going to be. It’s not always just “to ship my product in”. The main requirement may be to protect an element of your part, or to provide quick visual confirmation of the quantity, or quality, of the parts you are shipping. Perhaps it’s to arrange component parts in the order of assembly. It may just be a device to enhance the presentation of your product.
Whatever the reason for your tray, tooling will be instrumental in determining the effectiveness of the tray, and that’s why we listen to your needs and understand exactly what you’re hoping to achieve before the process even begins.
Once we refine the basic concepts, and reach an agreement on the best possible design, we will provide you with a cost estimate. This will give you an accurate picture of the expense so we can proceed to make you a tray that perfectly matches your requirements and your budget.
During the design process, we utilize the latest CAD/CAM software technology to design our tools, and we will be in constant communication with you to ensure the design process creates the perfect finished product.
We’ll provide you with high resolution imagery and drawings in the initial stages and as we build the prototypes, we’ll send you formed pieces to physically check your part fit. This ensures there will be no surprises when the order is completed.
Tray Design
The process begins by designing your tray to fit your product’s specific dimensions or shape. Custom Tray utilizes the latest CAD software to create our tooling and provide your engineers and sales personnel with realistic 3-D drawings and images for clear interpretation of the tray’s appearance and functionality.
We can also incorporate your CAD program to evaluate your design for the thermoforming process, if you already have a design. This allows us to make any necessary changes to produce the tray that best fits your needs. We can also work directly with your engineers to exchange files and expedite the design-to-tooling process–all to ensure the tray’s purpose is fully met.
