Production Tooling

Supercharge your production line

Has your productivity hit a plateau? Through additive manufacturing at Materialise, you can produce the jigs, fixtures, assembly aids, and other crucial tools you need to evolve, enhance, and de-risk your production lines. By maximizing uptime, reducing costs, and embracing flexibility, you can break through the productivity barriers slowing you down.

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A gripper with a rigid, round base and three flexible pneumatic fingers, shaped like bellows. The gripper is shown lying on its side, and is not currently mounted on a robot. A small box-like part is shown in the gripper fingers as an example of common pick-and-place assembly line tasks.

Why choose 3D printing?

Improve part performance

De-risk supply chains

Increase efficiency

Focus on innovation

Our services for production tooling

Ready to start your project with us? Discover our services, ideal for your application.

Manufacturing services

Innovate and speed up your manufacturing in collaboration with our experts. Rely on our full range of in-house technologies suitable for all industries and applications. 

Software

Build your success on a platform of software tools that efficiently manage and control the 3D printing process, allowing you to meet the highest standards of the most demanding industries.

RapidFit

Through expert knowledge of engineering, 3D printing, and software development, the RapidFit team provides jigs, fixtures, and tools for the automotive industry that save costs, time, weight, and space.

Manufacturing services

Innovate and speed up your manufacturing in collaboration with our experts. Rely on our full range of in-house technologies suitable for all industries and applications. 

Software

Build your success on a platform of software tools that efficiently manage and control the 3D printing process, allowing you to meet the highest standards of the most demanding industries.

RapidFit

Through expert knowledge of engineering, 3D printing, and software development, the RapidFit team provides jigs, fixtures, and tools for the automotive industry that save costs, time, weight, and space.

Production tooling success stories

Discover how additive manufacturing helped these companies improve their productivity.

  • A worker at Volvo using a 3D-printed gluing jig to affix the Volvo logo and key information to the trunk of each new car
    This 3D-printed gluing jig helps workers affix the Volvo logo and key information to the trunk of each new car. The new jig is 64% lighter, has a lead time of just two weeks, and is nearly half the price of the original.
  • A gripper hand with four flexible pneumatic fingers, 3D printed in TPU, mounted on a production line robots. The gripper is picking up a small screw as an example of pick-and-place assembly line tasks.
    Made for production line robots, as shown in this example from ABB, these flexible pneumatic grippers allow the robot to fulfill pick-and-place tasks on an assembly line with greater precision, efficiency, and consistency.
  • A white 3D-printed nozzle made of Polyamide 12 with four extrusion holes. The nozzle is used on a food processing machine to produce multicolored marshmallows in a single piece, by Confiserie Van Damme.
    Designed in collaboration with our Mindware experts, this PA 12 nozzle allowed Confiserie Van Damme to produce multicolored marshmallows from a single piece. This solution was one-tenth of the cost of traditional techniques and with a lead time of just one week.
  • Side-by-side comparison of a production suction gripper. One is bulkier and created with conventional manufacturing methods and one is sleek and made with 3D printing
    When a customer approached our Design & Engineering services for help optimizing a design, we provided them with an aluminum suction gripper that is 94% lighter, 50% cheaper, and more performant than their former solution.
  • Two small metal parts are placed next to each other. On the left is a new, 3D-printed stainless steel bracket with no visible assembly seams. On the right is an old, rusted bracket with visible seams showing it has been assembled from multiple parts. These brackets are used by Philips Lighting in the manufacturing of lightbulbs.
    A bracket (right) used in Signify's (formerly known as Philips Lighting) production process was very prone to breakage, with at least one failure per week. Materialise co-engineered and printed a new single structure bracket (left), reducing time-consuming part assembly and completely removing weld line pressure points.

    • Inspiration

    Get inspired for your next project with a look at how others have benefited from 3D-printed production tooling.

    More inspiration

    Get in touch

    Would you like to ask a question or begin working on a project? We’d love to hear from you.

    Talk to our team

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    Other applications

    Rapid prototyping

    Build and test fully-functional or visual prototypes that match your final design with a wide range of materials and technologies. 

    Discover how we can help

    View of the middle section of a geometrical, 3D-printed chair seat from a 3D-printed prototype of a customized, futuristic-looking wheelchair, using multiple 3D printing materials. The seat is lattice-structured and made of a translucent gray resin. The wheel spokes are made of 3D-printed metal.