All of the “additive manufacturing comes to the rescue” stories of the past couple months have proven one thing to me: 3D printing is an excellent technology for delivering products in a hurry, but if you need to produce millions of something, traditional processes such as plastic injection molding, cold forming, machining, and sheet metal fabrication are the winners—hands down.
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For example, a couple months ago I was chatting with a technical representative from a leading supplier of metal additive equipment. This guy eats metal powder for breakfast, breathes argon, and counts metal sheep at night before dreaming of laser beams and topology optimization software. His comment on the various 3D printing successes we’ve all been hearing about? “Conventional manufacturing is still bloody good.” Later that week, I spoke to the owner of a large shop who heard and answered the call to produce emergency ventilators needed during the […]
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Texas Prototype is a full-service concept to production service company offering concept review, design consultancy, material selection, prototyping, and low volume production.
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A division of Texas Injection Molding, we understand the requirements of high-volume manufacturing and offer design for manufacturing experience to ensure cost-effective manufacturable products as product designs are delivered from prototype to high volume production.
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