“We needed the prototype to have a level of quality equivalent to or even higher than the final industrial design. We also needed it delivering on time and in a form that can eventually be mass produced. We tried many suppliers and had little success. Protolabs pleasantly surprised us with how easy they were to deal with, their reliability, the constructive feedback provided and the excellent result.”
“There is also no minimum order quantity, so it’s ideal for me since I only wanted a single high precision part. It’s a great service for small businesses when you need to outsource manufacturing and to control and understand the process.”
“Machining plastic parts produces different mechanical properties – we needed moulded components manufactured from the actual material. Initially I searched the internet for companies capable of meeting our requirements but most were quoting six, seven or eight week lead-times. Unfortunately timescales of these proportions are not fast enough in the IT industry. Then I came across the website of Protolabs, where I discovered I could have my parts in just five days!”
“Once we put the prototypes together, we could test to make sure the fasteners were feeding correctly, and if the sliding action of the plunger was operating smoothly without jamming. If there were any problems, we would modify the part and have another one machined. Once everything was working, we made molds.”
“Protolabs gives us peace of mind with adaptable manufacturing schedules using their lean and just-in-time techniques. This lets us better manage cash flow and successfully grow our direct-to-customer business.”
“We could see the tooling and manufacturing costs virtually straight away, along with aspects of the product design that needed tweaking. We finalised the design quickly, and then Protolabs produced 500 cases within two weeks – which is exactly what we needed.”
“It all depends on what the user wants. We design and sell monitors, under our own name, directly to doctors. A lot of [the monitors] are customized to a specific practitioner’s requirements. We also design OEM devices for companies that sell into cardiovascular centers and for drug testing. In FDA-mandated drug testing, the devices could be used to determine whether a drug causes irregularities in heart function.”
"I am still hugely grateful to Protolabs for the support provided via the Cool Idea award, and the manufacture of Floome using rapid injection moulding, which helped us gain at least four months on the standard time to market.”
“The Protolabs experts were responsible for modifying the non-machinable parts. We received a revised DFM 24 hours after submitting our parts and we immediately accepted it. If we had to redesign our parts, we would have lost quite a few days”.
“Like jet engines, a coffee machine requires high pressure, controlled temperatures and precision engineered components. If I could build a jet engine, I realised I could probably build my dream espresso machine.”
“Everything I asked for, whether I had questions of your customer service people, or I was waiting on quotes, or waiting for parts, there was nothing slow about it. It was immediate. It was all about getting stuff done. I hate waiting.”
“Responding to a growing market need for energy efficiency and flexibility meant acting swiftly. We needed a prototype and injection moulding partner that could help us get the product to market as quickly as possible and having worked with Protolabs on several projects, we were able to design the solution to meet the short development time expectations.”
“By all accounts, the project was a great success, everything ran extremely smoothly and brought together a team of specialists to deliver a first-class result."
“However, the speed of the unit could in no way compromise the quality and reliability of the test results – this is a nasty toxin that comes from bacteria including E. coli and Salmonella. Our customers will rely on this test to provide assurance before expensive devices and vaccines are released to market.”
"Being in an early prototyping stage, it was much easier to 3D print the complicated lug versus machine it. You get all of the features without having to do any additional design for manufacturability work."