BERMO Inc.’s decades of tool and die expertise enable efficient production and improved part quality.
Our metal stamping capabilities, powered by in-house tooling, allow us to offer flexibility and customized solutions to save you time and money.
As a full-service manufacturing partner, BERMO simplifies manufacturing and offers a strategic advantage for customers, bringing tooling, engineering, and production together under one roof.
Hard Tooling: Built for Long-Term Efficiency
For more than 50 years, BERMO has designed and built progressive dies and hard tooling (Class A tools) to support high-volume production runs.
While the upfront investment is higher for hard tooling, the long-term savings are significant. A single tool can support the full lifecycle of your part, whether you need 100,000 or several million pieces, maintaining accuracy and consistency, even for complex geometries.
Hard tooling offers:
- Lower cost per part at scale
- Consistent, high-quality output
- Reduced labor and increased operational efficiency
- Reliable performance for complex geometries
- Long-term production stability
By building and maintaining hard tooling in-house, we provide faster turnaround and full control over the life of your program.
Soft Tooling: Speed and Flexibility for Early Stages
For lower volumes or early-stage development, soft tooling (Class B tools) offers a fast, cost-effective solution, ideal for flat parts.
These quick-turn tools allow for fast iteration and testing without high upfront costs. Soft tooling enables engineers to refine part designs based on early feedback, making it a cost-effective method during prototyping.
Soft tooling offers:
- Quick turnaround
- Low upfront cost
- Flexibility to refine designs
- Support for low-volume or short-run production
Our expertise can support you from prototype to production.
How to Choose the Right Tooling
Every project is different, but as a general guideline, if your annual usage exceeds 5,000 parts, and the program will run for more than one year, hard tooling is often the most cost-effective option.
Customers usually see a return on their tooling investment within 12 to 18 months.
Budgets, timelines, quantities, and product lifecycles all play a role in selecting the right tooling strategy. The BERMO team works with you to evaluate your options and provide clear cost comparisons to help you choose the best solution for your business.
Real-World Impact: Designing for Cost Savings
One customer initially came to us for soft tooling to produce a small horseshoe traction component, requiring 10,000 parts per order.
After evaluating the cost per part, we recommended switching to hard tooling.
The customer benefited from significant cost savings while experiencing improved production efficiency.
Engineering-Driven Tooling Solutions
For this same customer, multiple variations of the part were required for different track conditions.
BERMO engineered a solution that allowed several versions to be produced using a single tool with simple changeovers.
We also optimized the design by using the same die shoe across multiple variations, reducing tooling costs and saving the customer thousands of dollars.
Our engineering department regularly evaluates opportunities to:
- Reduce tooling costs
- Simplify production
- Enable part variation without new tools
- Improve long-term scalability
Partner With BERMO for the Right Tooling Strategy
Your tooling decisions affect cost, lead time, quality, and your ability to scale efficiently.
BERMO supports that decision-making process with guidance, engineering support, and in-house capabilities to streamline production.
As a one-stop shop manufacturer, we simplify complex projects and deliver solutions built for long-term success.
Request a quote today and discover how BERMO’s tooling solutions can save you time and reduce costs.