Protolabs has launched its new digital quoting and design analysis platform to its U.S.-based customers, after a launch late last year to its European-based users.
“Protolabs was founded on a digital manufacturing model that would dramatically reduce the time it took to get parts—and it was a success. Twenty years later we’ve reinvented manufacturing once again with the launch of an all-new digital experience to our customers that reaffirms our position as the global leader in digital manufacturing services,” says Protolabs’ VP and GM of Americas, and incoming CEO, Rob Bodor.
The new platform has a modern, user-friendly interface that lets engineers better manage their project requirements, collaborate easier with colleagues and see new levels of transparency into their orders. Like the previous platform, its flagship feature—interactive design for manufacturability (DFM) analysis—remains, but is more intuitive than ever before.
“We listened to hundreds of our customers to learn about their design analysis and quoting needs and then built our new quoting platform around those needs,” says Mark Flannery, global product director for e-commerce at Protolabs. “We then thoroughly tested the platform with our customer base to refine it even further. The result is a digital quoting system designed entirely around an elevated user experience that accelerates their product development cycle every step of the way.”
With the launch, three of Protolabs’ services—molding, machining and 3D printing—are now united in a single platform for a much easier quoting and ordering experience. Injection molding users can now view and discuss gate and ejector pin layout before ordering tooling and parts. With CNC machining, threading assignments have been drastically simplified to let users quickly assign required threads. And 3D printing customer can now see per-part pricing with itemized costs as well as self-select their desired delivery date for each part within an order at checkout.
“Unprecedented changes in many of our markets are underway due to customer demand and the ongoing pandemic, but technological advancement in manufacturing are throwing the doors of innovation wide open to allow suppliers and their customers to pivot quickly,” adds Rich Baker, Protolabs’ CTO who led the launch of the platform. “And that agility is often the difference between success and failure.”
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