Protolabs
Protolabs offers the fastest and most comprehensive manufacturing service in the world for Injection Moulded, CNC and 3D Printed parts.
Accelerate your product development cycle, slash costs, and streamline your supply chain with cutting-edge digital manufacturing solutions. As the world’s premier source for rapid prototypes and on-demand production parts, Protolabs specialise in delivering commercial-grade plastic, metal, and liquid silicone rubber components within days.
Protolabs has an unmatched speed to market as it seamlessly navigates the complexities of demand volatility throughout a product’s lifecycle. With automated quoting and manufacturing systems, your product development cycle is cut by weeks or even months, bridging the gap to production with parts in record time—sometimes within a single day.
A consultative design service can be tapped into for engineering expertise, ensuring the creation of highly manufacturable solutions. Not a design consultancy per se, but Protolabs engineers collaborate closely with you to overcome challenges and optimise your designs for efficient production.
With an extensive range of engineering-grade materials, including ABS, polycarbonate, nylon, aluminium, stainless steel, and more, Protolabs can tailored to diverse applications and industries. With its digital processes, scientific moulding techniques, and stringent inspection protocols, Protolabs ensure the consistent delivery of exemplary parts, accelerating your product development journey and driving innovation forward.
From their entrepreneurial beginnings to the way they position their services to help new product developers get critical prototype parts faster; these guys are a perfect network fit!
Manufacturing Partner
Services
Injection Moulding
Protolabs deliver custom plastic injection moulded parts within 1 to 15 days, depending on complexity and volume.
The service captures plastic injection moulding, liquid silicone rubber, overmoulding, insert moulding, prototyping, and on-demand manufacturing to ISO 9001 standards.
Transition from prototyping to on-demand manufacturing for fast, high-quality parts. Your prototyping tool is free upon shifting. Partnering with a single supplier offering free design consultation expedites manufacturing, enhances supply chain flexibility, ensures consistent parts, and simplifies qualification.
CNC Machining
Protolabs is a dependable, quick-turn supplier of machined plastic and metal components.
With numerous CNC machines, its in-house capacity guarantees timely deliveries. At Protolabs, its CNC facilities cater to rapid prototyping and low-volume production of end-use components.
The CNC milling process crafts custom prototypes and production parts in as fast as 1 day, utilising 3-axis and 5-axis milling for over 30 engineering-grade materials. Precision turning employs advanced CNC lathes for accurate machining of features like holes, flats, grooves, and slots.
3D Printing
Protolabs is ideally positioned to help you move beyond desktop 3D printing.
Its industrial 3D printing service offers precision and repeatability, providing accurate parts with each run. Specialising in additive manufacturing, Protolabs delivers functional prototypes, intricate designs, and production components in as little as 1 day.
Its online experience now includes design feedback for additive manufacturing with each quote, ensuring part quality and identifying difficult features. Materials available include metals like Aluminium, Stainless Steel, and Titanium, plastics such as ABS and Nylon, and elastomers like TPU and Silicone.
Low-volume moulding up to 100,000+ parts with volume pricing available—no MOQ required
100+ plastic, elastomeric, and silicone rubber materials
Automated CMM for fast, in-house quality documentation
Machined parts in as fast as 1 day with optional plating and anodising in as fast as 6 days
Cost-efficient machined parts at higher volumes
Tolerances down to ±0.020mm through our digital network
Additive technologies include metal 3D printing, SLA, SLS and more
30 plastic and metal materials in a range of finishes
25 years of additive manufacturing expertise
Resources
Partnership
Information Guide
Learn more on how to get the most out of your Protolabs partnership.
Education Hub
Whether you’re teaching a class of future engineers, prototyping in a university laboratory, or expanding your manufacturing knowledge with continued learning, you’ll find a mix of valuable resources here covering digital manufacturing, 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection moulding.
inspirON academy
Created by Engineers, for Engineers, inspirON academy provides training and educational resources to help you develop personally and professionally. All courses are free and CPD accredited, with training material provided upfront meaning you can learn at your own pace.
Design Tips
Get quick advice on creating plastic and metal parts for 3D printing, CNC machining, and injection moulding processes. Designing with manufacturability in mind can accelerate production time and reduce production costs.
Partner Content: Protolabs InspirON Podcasts
InspirON Exchange is a podcast series by PP Plus network partner Protolabs, delving into some of the most pertinent topics in manufacturing today.
