The Digital Thread

Often, injection moulding is considered the most cost-effective production option for SKUs with estimated annual usage in the low-thousands for volume. It comes down to economies of scale—you just set up once to run tens or hundreds of thousands of parts. The highest volumes often bring you the lowest per unit price tags. But, the production setting also typically carries something else with it if you’re thoughtful—cost control, and lots of it.

3D printing is often a great entry route to prototyping plastic parts mainly because it is a quick, flexible, and cost-effective process. But what happens once you are ready to move forward with your product development plan?

When we launched more than 20 years ago, our digital manufacturing model was revolutionary. But it’s been necessary to continuously evolve ever since – by expanding our manufacturing services and enhancing our capabilities way beyond the original prototyping service. Many of the customers we serve have grown along with us, so expectation is being continuously elevated.

Our brand new online quoting platform is not the only exciting launch from Protolabs recently. We are also now offering on-demand manufacturing (ODM) as well as prototyping. This means that we can now support you further through your product life-cycle journey.