Toivalan Metalli

Honest work, uncompromising quality, and a solution-oriented approach.

Toivalan Metalli has stood by their mission statement since 1978. From their perspective, no metal job has ever been too big or too small to take on. They have the tools and the flexibility to meet their clients’ needs for custom components. Their services encompass laser cutting, pipe bending, welding, and a range of additional offerings. Their customer base spans across construction and elevator companies, as well as manufacturers in machinery, weather protection, and furniture.

Toivalan is a well-established Finnish machine shop whose main customers are machine builders, construction shops, and the mining industry. Never opting to rest on their laurels, they’ve continuously developed their operations in recent decades.

They firmly place customer orientation at the core of their organization, and for their people, that primarily entails a genuine desire to listen to customers and offer versatile service, quality, and reliability.

Their solutions partner, Vossi Group, created a viable solution that would both enable their independence and control the replacement of steel tooling for process and design validation.

A major factor in surviving and thriving in today’s service industry is the ability to stay up to date with production equipment and its development. Toivalan Metalli have consistently invested in advanced manufacturing technology. In recent years, they’ve made major investments in versatile manufacturing technologies, including fiber laser, disk grinding, edge turning machinery, CNC pipe bending machinery, and pipe end forming machinery – taking their business to the next level.

Yet despite their investment in new, cutting-edge machinery, there was still one major issue to address: their ability to take on low-volume, custom projects. With many jobs requiring a different bending tool, the cost of a part could jump to as much as €4,000, due to the need to purchase specific tube bending dies from major suppliers. This was proving not only costly, but most importantly, slowed down projects due to associated dependencies and supply chains.

Tool diameter, wall thickness, and radius*

Instead of paying a premium for low-use steel prototypes, Toivalan Metalli now have the capability to print tools on their Markforged ® X7 printer – tools strong enough to withstand several bending runs before having to purchase the final die. The original intention was for the custom tools to endure approximately ten bending runs. However, by adapting the design and integrating off-the-shelf hardware, they now yield nearly 500 runs, with 25 – 30mm diameter, 1.5mm wall thickness steel tubes at a bend radius of 70mm.

Toivalan Metalli primarily use their X7 to produce tube-bending tools. Previously they purchased their bending tools from OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), at a cost of around €4,000, with a lead time of up to six weeks.

Prior to utilizing the X7, Toivalan Metalli ordered up to four different tools each year, only taking on high-volume jobs that would justify the high tooling costs. Now, they have the capability to print their own functional prototype bending tools for low-volume production as required. By printing the tools on the X7, the price per part has dropped significantly to €300 – €400, with a maximum lead time of just one week.

_{*These three parameters change, based on customer requirements.}

So what are the main benefits for Toivalan Metalli?

• 90% Cost Savings
• Huge lead times reductions with their digital inventory through Eiger
• Reduced reaction (turn-around) time to custom requests
• New revenue streams for low-production runs

Toivalan Metalli continue to push the envelope with the help of the Digital Forge. They’ve also increased the strength of their printed tools by embedding bolts into the design and reinforcing with continuous carbon fiber.

By introducing additive Toivalan Metalli have been able to attract more low-volume business. Over their three years of printer ownership, they have attracted tens of thousands of euros in increased business and revenue, previously impossible without the ability to create custom tools.

For Toivalan Metalli, the X7 will continue to enable better solutions for their customers. The capability to respond at pace and print a wide array of production-quality parts means their customers can now obtain parts that are otherwise challenging to procure, and access machineable parts faster and at a significantly lower cost, without compromising on quality.

So what does the future look like from Toivalan Metalli’s perspective? This expert group of Finnish trailblazers plan to introduce even more new applications to the shop floor, from press brake tooling to welding fixtures, and beyond.