Design Focus: Time is Money, So Prototype for Profit
May 9, 2008 | Levent OZLER
Rapid prototyping can reduce the number of costly engineering changes made to a mold, cut the time-to-market for a new product, and-with the development of new RP systems and materials-even fill the gap between prototype and low-volume processing.
Developments in rapid prototyping have gotten to the point that firms such as Quickparts Inc. are gaining more notice, and more competition.
As its name implies, Quickparts can supply parts, quickly, using CAD models to form parts via a number of RP methods.
Patrick Hunter, VP of sales and marketing at Quickparts, notes, "The continual evolution of materials has pushed prototyping into the mainstream as a technology.
It allows designers to have greater design freedom: they're not as limited in their design, especially with respect to SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), which many customers are choosing for actual end-use parts."
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