Protolabs expands production capacities: Full-service approach for prototyping and series production

Protolabs, a digital manufacturing company, has expanded its production capacities and now offers comprehensive manufacturing solutions that cover the entire product life cycle. With this development, the company addresses both early prototyping phases and high-volume production and also supports customers with end-of-life products. This expansion includes optimized pricing structures for larger order quantities, improved quality control and special industry certifications, without compromising the previous capabilities for small series and fast production runs.

“This is an even closer partnership with our customers – product developers, engineers, buyers and procurement teams – to provide comprehensive manufacturing support from start to finish,” explains Rob Bodor, President and CEO of Protolabs. “For companies worldwide, this move makes us a unique partner – bringing together all the manufacturing resources they need under one name!”

A key part of the extension is the ability to work directly with production experts. Customers can now have their projects supported with comprehensive program management, including the optimization of CAD models to reduce costs. Protolabs also offers strategic procurement via its own network. This not only facilitates logistical processing, but also improves the quality and efficiency of orders with complex requirements.

“Our regional organizations are now fully aligned to ensure the best possible customer relationship and experience, and we have a global operations organization solely responsible for seamlessly fulfilling customer orders for parts as a unified offering,” Bodor reports.

Despite the changes, the core elements of Protolabs – speed and automation – remain unchanged.

“Despite these changes, Protolabs’ core competencies – high speed and an immense amount of automation – remain the same,” explains Luca Mazzei, Strategic Growth Officer at Protolabs. “These core elements of Protolabs are as important today as they were 25 years ago when the company was founded with the same mission: to deliver outstanding products and parts quickly and at affordable prices. 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, so too is Protolabs changing to better meet the evolving needs of our customers. That’s what our expansion into full-service manufacturing represents – a much more comprehensive way to serve our customers from start to finish.”

With this strategic development, Protolabs is responding to the growing demand for flexible, high-quality manufacturing solutions that combine technological innovation and economic efficiency.

“The combination of speed and automation with quality control, cost efficiency and advanced manufacturing is a union that has never been seen before in the manufacturing industry. Our customers have been asking for these combined benefits for years, and we are pleased to be able to offer them from prototyping to production – and every step along the way,” concludes Mazzei.