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| The Independent Community for Dassault Systemes SolidWorks, Enterprise PDM, Simulation, and Sustainability Tools | ||||
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| The Independent Community for Dassault Systemes SolidWorks, Enterprise PDM, Simulation, and Sustainability Tools | ||||
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| Proto Labs
Proto Labs founder Larry Lukis created his company as a reaction to the perceived poor turn-around time and high cost of traditional injection molding. Lukis began working on a process to automate the way injection molding projects were handled. His work resulted in the creation of Protomold, the company that would eventually evolve into Proto Labs. Today, Proto Labs uses the process developed by Lukis to rapidly produce injection molded and CNC machined parts for clients, including large corporations such as Xerox. Recently, Proto Labs split into two separate divisions. The Protomold division provides rapid injection molding and ships in typical quantities of 25-5000 parts. And the First Cut Prototype division provides quick turnaround CNC-machined plastic parts in quantities of 1-10 parts. Both divisions can ship parts as fast as the next business day, says Proto Labs CEO Brad Cleveland. One of the early innovations used by Protomold was the ability to allow clients to submit 3D CAD designs over the Web. The part designs are automatically analyzed and marked with any necessary changes, and cost and time estimates are provided. In the past, the data uploaded to injection molding vendors had to be manually checked for injection moldability and manufacturability, says Cleveland. Other factors, such as surface finish, resin, and delivery are also taken into account in order to create a complete price quote, says Cleveland. “Given the fact that Protomold was founded by an engineer frustrated with the manual nature of the conventional injection molding industry, it should come as no surprise that the process of evaluating a customer’s 3D CAD model and the preparation of a quotation quickly became the target of Protomold’s software development team,” says Cleveland. Cleveland adds that the company’s desire to automate the quoting process led to the creation of the ProtoQuote system. ProtoQuote is a largely automated process for generating interactive and illustrative 3D feedback on the manufacturability of a design. As the ProtoQuote system began processing several hundred designs per day, their software development team created a parallel processing environment to speed-up the automated operations. He says this parallel processing is currently running at 100 gigaflops of processing power. Cleveland says almost all custom manufacturers have made the move to exchanging data files and performing quotations via the Internet, and many rapid-prototyping services have implemented a quoting engine that can quickly produce a quote or estimate based on user specifications. However, what makes ProtoQuote unique is the combination of a Website as a resource center for engineers, an interactive system, automated confirmation and the use of live Web-based tools allowing designers to interact with the people actually making their parts, according to Cleveland. In the Protomold division, the elaborate computing system is used to generate ProtoQuotes based on an analysis of the designer’s 3D CAD model. Once the order is entered, the software completes the detailed design of the mold components and generates the toolpaths required to create them on high-speed CNC mills. This allows Protomold to respond with injection molded parts, sometimes within one day. Furthermore, Proto Labs has recently developed a new proprietary software package called ProtoFlow, says Cleveland. ProtoFlow is used to verify the moldablity of their customer’s designs. ProtoFlow’s capabilities has recently been integrated into the ProtoQuote design feedback to the customer. For First-Cut Prototype, the process is similar. The quotation process is called FirstQuote and it provides data on the design’s machinabilty. Also, the receipt of the design with the request for quotation goes directly to begin generation of toolpaths that can be used to cut the customer’s part from a block of resin. Proto Labs is in the process of expanding aggressively. As a consolidated company, Cleveland says Proto Labs expects to have a 40-percent growth this year. This growth will occur in the United States and in Europe, where the company already has a fast growing manufacturing center in the United Kingdom serving the European Union. The company also recently announced their incorporation in Japan and plans to be up and running there in 2009.
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