“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’s baked into our design and our R&D process now. It’s easier for me to order a mold for a part for a medical device (from Protolabs) than it is for me to pay my mortgage online.”

“Protolabs’ quoting system, where you can upload CAD models onto their website, really is brilliant. The interface is really easy to use and then it takes a good look at your design and gives you feedback for production. It’s an invaluable tool.”

“Obviously we chose to go ahead and go for it because it didn’t seem anybody was going to do this anytime soon We couldn’t afford for our family to wait for somebody else to do it.”

"Our team of engineers were impressed by the design analysis. Within two days, we knew which areas needed our attention and what changes were required to achieve quality injection."

“The Protolabs process allows an injection moulding novice to design and order a part without any problems.”

“Protolabs and its MicroFine get me to a prototyping stage that I know will match that of the actual production parts off of a hardened tool. I wouldn’t want to be surprised when I get my $50,000 tool [from another supplier] and it doesn’t work the way I thought it …

“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”.

"They send us their statement of requirements or aircraft interior parts and we design, reverse engineer or re-make before the aircraft returns to operational service. The window for doing so may be a matter of days."

"This is where we add true value. We have in-house reverse engineering capabilities, finite element analysis and stress, strain, cyclic loading and fatigue testing facilities. When an ACI part is ready to go into production, its considerably better than the original."

“It always takes time to enhance design accuracy, but we cannot alter delivery times. With Protolabs, we do not have issues with the timing or cost problems associated with regular prototyping methods.”

“We approached Protolabs to 3D print our product, as we knew they use quality materials and with the ability to provide a superb, polished finish. We now have excellent products to take to market, showing exactly what the finished article will look like when it goes into full manufacture.”

"Dentists were already using wedges in other procedures, but they were usually made of wood. We couldn’t use wood since it would absorb the materials used in the treatment after tooth separation, so we started the development of an appropriate plastic wedge."

“Protolabs has a really nice interface that’s easy for uploading different parts and seeing prices on the screen, and we can get them really fast."

“What Cool Idea will help us to do is have some injection-molded parts to use for our pilot run as well. We came up with our own architecture for the internal components within AMPY and did a lot of customer development to find the right form factor and size, and …