|
|
|
|
About
|
Brief Overview
Proto Labs is the world’s fastest provider of CNC machined parts and injection moulded parts. Our First Cut and Protomold services utilise proprietary computing technologies and automated manufacturing systems to provide both prototype and short-run production parts.
|
Corporate History
Proto Labs, Inc. began in 1999 as The Protomold Company, Inc. which specialised in the quick-turn manufacture of custom plastic injection moulded parts. Our Protomold injection moulding service is perfect for low to mid-volume production, bridge tooling, and prototyping parts. We work with advanced aluminium alloys, high-speed CNC machining, and none of the costly and time consuming custom engineering that normally goes into the development of injection mould tooling. In 2005 we expanded to Europe with the creation of a full manufacturing facility in England, which now serves all of Europe with offices in Germany and France.
In 2007, the company introduced the First Cut rapid CNC machining service. It’s great for functional prototypes in very small quantities or custom one-off projects, such as jigs or fixtures; there is never any up-front Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) cost. We are as happy to make 1 part as 10 or 100. We currently utilise 3-axis milling from up to six sides of the part to machine as many features as possible.
By 2009, we began operating both our Protomold and First Cut services under our corporate name, Proto Labs, Inc. in the USA and Proto Labs, Limited in Europe. We opened Proto Labs Japan in 2009 to provide both services to Japanese design engineers.
In 2010, Proto Labs, Limited was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category. This award is given to companies that demonstrate outstanding performance, representing a glowing endorsement of the dedication of everyone involved across Europe.
|
What We Do
Our single focus is to provide engineers and product designers with the easiest, fastest and least-expensive way to obtain low volumes of parts based on their 3D CAD design. Our First Cut CNC machining service supports an array of engineering-grade plastics as well as aluminium, and our Protomold plastic injection moulding service offers thousands of material choices to designers. This capability is applicable to all markets, including but not limited to medical devices, electronics, appliance, automotive and consumer products.
|
How We Do It
Proto Labs has radically changed the economics and lead times associated with obtaining CNC machined and injection moulded parts. We routinely ship parts to customers before they can even get quotes from conventional suppliers, sometimes as fast as the next business day.
|
We can do this because we have automated the manual processes normally associated with mould design and toolpath generation through the use of proprietary software running on a compute cluster at over 2 trillion floating point operations per second. Our ProtoQuote® and FirstQuote® systems are interactive and provide free manufacturability analysis based on the 3D CAD information provided by you, the customer. And we do all of this in-house, with the scale that is required to support the largest projects.
|
|
|