Protolabs Expands End-to-End Manufacturing CapabilitiesProtolabs Expands End-to-End Manufacturing Capabilities

The new capabilities stretch from custom prototyping to full-service production volume.

Rob Spiegel

January 29, 2025

3 Min Read
Protolabs Expands End-to-End Manufacturing Capabilities
Protolabs

At a Glance

  • Protolabs engineers collaborate with customers to optimize CAD models and reduce overall costs.
  • Aligning with the expansion, the entire customer experience at Protolabs is also evolving.
  • Protolabs assists with the quoting platform and file uploads to navigate orders with complex bill of materials.

Protolabs has introduced a full-service production to help serve companies at every stage in their product life cycles—from early prototyping and pre-production to large-scale manufacturing and end-of-life product support. The evolution enables improved pricing options for larger part orders, enhanced quality control, and focused industry certifications critical in production while maintaining Protolabs’ established low-volume, quick-turn prototyping capabilities.

Aligning with the expansion, the entire customer experience at Protolabs is also evolving. In addition to immediate online access to instant quoting, customers now have the option to connect directly with a team of production experts for complete program management on projects. That includes assistance with the quoting platform and file uploads to help navigate orders with complex bill of materials (BoM) and strategic sourcing from both Protolabs and its network partners.

Assisting users with logistics

Operations specialists can assist with logistics fulfillment and applications engineers can work with customers to optimize CAD models and reduce overall costs.  “It’s a deeper partnership with our customers—product developers, engineers, buyers, procurement teams—to ensure full production support from start to finish,” said Protolabs’ President and CEO, Rob Bodor. “We are now truly a single manufacturing resource for companies around the world.”

Related:NASA and Protolabs Demonstrate the Value of Generative Design

Bodor and his leadership team have reorganized Protolabs’ business structure in parallel to further strengthen that partnership, bringing a more streamlined prototyping-to-production experience to its customers. “Our regional organizations are now entirely focused on ensuring the best possible customer engagement and experience, and we have a global operations organization with the sole responsibility of seamlessly fulfilling customer part orders as a single unified offering,” Bodor explained.

Even with the shift, Protolabs capabilities remain rooted in speed and automation, elements that are as critical now as when the company was in its infancy 25 years ago, according to the manufacturer’s Strategic Growth Officer, Luca Mazzei: “Rapid prototyping driven by automation and technology-enabled processes will always be at the core of who Protolabs is as a company. But as the market has changed, Protolabs is also changing to better meet the evolving needs of our customers. That is what our expansion into full-service production represents—a much more comprehensive way to serve our customers from start to finish.”

Related:Harley-Davidson Partners with Protolabs for Part Changes That Win Races

Comprehensive capabilities

The idea of a “comprehensive offer” becomes tangible through the ongoing work to expand Protolabs’ four flagship service lines as well as the capabilities through the company’s manufacturing network. High-volume manufacturing with lower piece-part pricing is possible across services; high-requirement molding along with verification and validation processes are available to better serve quality assurance and certification needs of industries like medical devices; and advanced polymers and metals in 3D printing will help sectors like aerospace innovate at new levels.

“The marriage of speed and automation to quality control, cost efficiency, and advanced manufacturing is a union unseen in the manufacturing industry until now,” said Mazzei. “Our customers have asked for these combined benefits for years, so we’re excited that we are able to bring this to them from prototyping to production—and every step along the way.”

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About the Author

Rob Spiegel

Rob Spiegel serves as a senior editor for Design News. He started with Design News in 2002 as a freelancer covering sustainability issues, including the transistion in electronic components to RoHS compliance. Rob was hired by Design News as senior editor in 2011 to cover automation, manufacturing, 3D printing, robotics, AI, and more.

Prior to his work with Design News, Rob worked as a senior editor for Electronic News and Ecommerce Business. He served as contributing editolr to Automation World for eight years, and he has contributed to Supply Chain Management Review, Logistics Management, Ecommerce Times, and many other trade publications. He is the author of six books on small business and internet commerce, inclluding Net Strategy: Charting the Digital Course for Your Company's Growth.

He has been published in magazines that range from Rolling Stone to True Confessions.

Rob has won a number of awards for his technolloghy coverage, including a Maggy Award for a Design News article on the Jeep Cherokee hacking, and a Launch Team award for Ecommerce Business. Rob has also won awards for his leadership postions in the American Marketing Association and SouthWest Writers.

Before covering technology, Rob spent 10 years as publisher and owner of Chile Pepper Magazine, a national consumer food publication. He has published hundreds of poems and scores of short stories in national publications.

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