Production
Production Services
In addition to prototyping, Prototier has the capacity to offer short run and low volume
production services. These services become economical when production quantities are low and timing is tight. Typical production tooling can take months to build while our short run tooling can be finished in a matter of weeks or even days. This allows our customers to develop their parts and get to market faster. In many cases, our tooling and processes can support production runs of tens of thousands of pieces or greater. We can also offer annual order options with just-in-time (JIT) delivery to eliminate the need to reserve storage space.
Short Run Services
Prototier has the ability to assist customers with short production runs. With over 25 years in the manufacturing industry, we know that factors such as engineering changes, design failures, and production tooling delays can jeopardize meeting required milestones. In case of any delays in production, we can quickly build tooling and parts to support production and make sure schedules are achieved.
With our supply of CNC mills, laser cutters, and many other processes, we can also rapidly modify production parts when there are updates to the design. We can quickly add features such as holes, slots, and can even build tooling to modify production part form. We commonly use our 5-axis laser to cut production parts before sheet metal trim designs/stations are complete.
In recent years, Prototier has gained the ability to reverse engineer service parts and perform short production runs if original tooling or drawings have been discarded. Using our 3D scanners, we can 3D scan parts, re-create CAD, and build tooling to get our customers back up to speed.
Low Volume Production
Prototier’s tooling and processes are perfectly suited for low volume production runs. Our tooling costs are often a fraction of the cost to build mass production tooling. This makes low volume runs very economical. We are also able to offer much shorter lead times to build tooling due to reductions in tooling complexity. The result of this is the ability to get to market faster. Even though our tooling can be produced faster and at reduced costs, our parts have the same or even better quality then what can be achieved with production tooling. In many cases our tooling can be built to reliably withstand a life of up to 100,000 parts before major maintenance is needed.
Additionally, Prototiers Ermaksan fiber laser cutter can cut at speeds significantly faster than our previous laser cutting equipment. This now gives customers the option to eliminate the need to buy expensive blanking tools to run production for flat parts. Another benefit of using laser cutting for production is that it gives customers the flexibility to make changes to their designs at any point in the production schedule without expensive tooling modification costs.
Prototier houses 14 stamping presses (ranging from 40 to 1,600T), 3 laser cutters, and 5 CNC milling machines to ensure there is availability for short run/low volume production services.