Physical prototypes let development teams test for fit, actuation, operation, instrumentation, and controls. That’s been good enough for a long time. But conventional physical prototyping also can turn the development process into an inefficient, linear affair.
A concept is sketched, the product engineered, and the physical prototype built and evaluated for issues and adjustments that are required. With each prototype failure, the process starts over again. But the electrical engineer, for example, may not have the opportunity to advise the industrial designer “out of sequence” and share insight that could help the designers avoid spending time on a pointless undertaking.
The goal of digital prototyping is to bring all geometry and functional characteristics into a single model. So digital prototyping is an approach that favors a two-way pipeline over the conventional, linear sequence. Information flows to and from that model during the industrial design, engineering and manufacturing teamwork.
Digital Prototyping gives you the ability to explore a complete product before it is built so they can carry out product design, visualise, and simulate from the conceptual design phase through the manufacturing process.
By using a digital prototype, manufacturers can boost design performance and innovation by visualising and simulating the real-world completion of a design and save time and money by reducing the number of physical prototypes they build.
Digital Prototyping brings together design information from all phases of the product development process and facilitates manufacturing work groups to create a unique digital model that can be used in every stage of production bridging the gaps that usually exist between conceptual design, engineering, and manufacturing organisations.
The solution for Digital Prototyping is different in that it is scalable, attainable, and cost-effective. This solution enables a wider group of manufacturers to realise the benefits of Digital Prototyping, with minimal disruption to existing work flows providing the most straightforward path to creating and maintaining a single digital model.
“Prototype” is a test article designed to demonstrate areas of high technical risk that are essential to system success. A prototype need not be a full system, but, in scope and scale, it is tailored to accommodate series of decisions so it can represent a concept, subsystem, or end item according to the decisions to be made. Rather than reflect the final design, prototypes are built with the expectation that, as decisions are made, change will follow.
“Prototyping” is the practice of testing prototypes, of appropriate scope and scale, for the purpose of obtaining knowledge about some requirement, capability, or design approach. The knowledge obtained informs a decision-making process with output to result in some degree of change. The degree of allowable change is bounded in proportion by the scope and scale of the prototype.
A prototype is a working model of a product that is used for testing before it is manufactured. Prototypes help designers learn about the manufacturing process of a product, how people will use the product, and how the product could fail or break. A prototype is not the same thing as a model. A model is used to demonstrate or explain how a product will look or function. A prototype is used to test different working aspects of a product before the design is finalised.
Your team will follow a similar process. By building a prototype, you should be able to determine if your chosen design solution is feasible and which aspects of your design needs special materials or further refinement. You will also ask other people to test your prototype to help you identify any problems a user might encounter. You may even have time to complete a few iterations, or modifications, to your prototype.
No matter where you are in the process and no matter how much experience you have, working with a dedicated prototyping shop is valuable. A prototype gives you a tangible object that you can hold in your hands, inspect and test in the real world. It’s also a chance to see exactly how a part comes together during assembly and catch errors or omissions before final production.
We understand the value of a prototype and have a dedicated prototype shop to help meet customer requirements and suggest materials and part geometry based on solid experience.
Streamline your entire product development process with our solution for Digital Prototyping, which lets you explore your ideas before they’re even built. Gather design information from all phases of the process into a single digital model. Validate it against product requirements. Reference it as you build deliverables for release.
A prototype is anything that represents your product work, in a tangible format, to actual customers for the purpose of gathering feedback. It is a testable proposition about value or technical feasibility. A good prototype minimises the time and cost needed to get smart about a new offering.
Early on, when you’ve identified some key ideas and need to understand which ones are worth pursuing, storyboards or paper mock-ups are appropriate. As you continue, you’ll want to know how a selected idea is best translated into a design. At this point high-fidelity mock-ups or a non-production implementation of a key interaction are ideal.
Each new project is assigned to team charged with oversight of all stages: quoting, design, programming and fabrication. Team attention to your requirements reduces miscommunication along the way and keeps your project moving.
Many original equipment manufacturers use hard tooling to manufacture large quantities of parts in their own factories. When it’s time to update a part or create a new one, they can’t always afford the time and money it takes to manufacture a new tool set on-site just to test new parts.
Rapid prototyping shops take the prototype designs and making tools for them. Recently, our team manufactured and tested a new punch and die set for a client. As a result, the company quickly learned that it was worth the investment in this hard tool without having to divert time and resources from its regular manufacturing.
What if you’re developing a new product or have proprietary parts to test? Is your design classified? Can you still get a prototype when the fabricator truly can’t know all of the details?
There are many times we do not know the end use of a part or assembly that we’re making for a customer so we will ask for as much information as they can give and offer suggestions for design improvements as we can see them.
We have worked with enough types of material and parts to identify clues and make improvements even without the full picture. Having years of experience means knowing the optimal thickness for hot-rolled steel sheets or if laser welding will increase joint strength even if the final application is a mystery.
Working closely with clients is key. In a recent case, we worked to improve a design they were bringing to market. After many meetings and prototype sessions with their engineers, and sharing their sheet metal fabrication knowledge, the final product was easier to manufacture.
As we’ve said before, there’s more than one way to design and build a part. By following manufacturing design principles, prototype fabricators can facilitate assembly, or speed time to market. We do deep dives into designs looking for ways to refine and improve the final product.
In one recent case, we took a three-piece welded design and changed it to a one-piece design that was cheaper and easier to manufacture.
In-shop fabrication equipment plays a role too. Offering laser welding, we are able to take an enclosure that was originally welded and finished with grinding and changed it to a laser welded design. The result? A part that works better and is cheaper to manufacture.
Laser welding gives you an opportunity to redesign parts for more efficient production. Some of the greatest advantages come from simpler joints, reduced overlaps and welding in places that might otherwise be inaccessible.
If you have a design ready to fabricate or if you’re still working out the kinks in your plan, request a quote or contact the team to find out how our express prototype shop can help.
In a perfect world, there would be no deadlines.
Ideally, you would get the chance to exhaustively explore all possibilities for a design. You could develop many different alternatives, ensuring that you arrive at the best choice for all design characteristics.
Of course, it’s not a perfect world. And, like everyone, engineers can find themselves facing a looming deadline. In these frequently encountered cases, they can end up desperately exploring a couple different choices before going with the first feasible design.
There are big challenges facing engineers that keep them from exploring the design space for the items they’re developing. Emerging technologies can help mitigate those barriers.
One reason deadlines today have become so challenging for engineers is that the expertise of one person can only cover so much. As products become more complex, so do the manufacturing and technology options that can be incorporated into the product, and the number of engineers with particular specialties—mechanical, electrical, etc. —working on the product rise.
You’d like to carry out your job and pass the design to the next engineer for approval and enhancement. But of course, that cycle needs to end at some point.
Also, you, like many other engineers, may have a specialty within your discipline--you may work primarily in plastics or sheet metal, machined products or composites, for example. To exhaust all design possibilities that could result in a high-performing product requires knowledge of every aspect of your field and every other field involved in that product’s production, which isn’t usually a practical expectation.
You also need to weigh how fully you need to explore your designs. Is meeting the minimum on a project good enough? Or would further exploration, iteration, and improvement result in a justifiable return on your project?
Even if you answered that meeting the project minimum is good enough, nothing may make you happier than the freedom to fully explore your design space, even as that the project deadline nears.
As an engineer you are a problem solver. Left alone with a design you’ll likely want to explore, design, iterate, and repeat the cycle until you come up with a great design solution for the situation at hand.
And sometimes a design really needs to be the best one, rather than the first feasible one, In that case, further exploration does result in a justifiable return on your time.
But too often, exploration can feel cut short because you work within competing constraints of the design cycle. On one hand, the design needs to be released on time. On the other hand, you need to spend time developing a design that meets all specification and requirements.
Your freedom to explore their design space to varying degrees is based on these competing design-cycle demands. The demands themselves are at two extremes; between them is the huge range you have to explore.
There are many legitimate scenarios in which you do need to go with the first feasible design for a number of reasons. Likely, a deadline looms and design needs to be passed off to the manufacturing floor or sent out to a supplier, even as you’d like to explore a few other design possibilities, check out a few other results even after you’ve found a feasible design.
Today, shorter and shorter development schedules can force you, even as you pass back and forth, to make compromises that come in a few different forms. Maybe you feel the model geometry could be further perfected or maybe you’d like to run a few more assessments for virtual prototyping reasons. But time runs out.
In all, you may not feel so great about your lot in the development cycle. Sometimes, you might feel like they aren’t given the room you need to truly develop real design solutions because you’re forced to go with the first feasible design.
It is in this context that the objective and associated enabler is revealed. For you to find something better than the first feasible design, your organisations must accelerate design exploration.
To do that, you must be enabled to be more productive in design. Today, there is a range of emerging design processes and technologies that can do just that.
How fully are you able to explore your designs? How and when is it justified to exhaustively explore design alternatives and why is that important?
Rapid prototyping technology is gaining a lot of importance among the engineering designers and manufacturers, as it offers a fast and accurate way to realise the potential of the product. Adopting rapid prototyping brings higher fidelity from the concept design compared to the conventional paper prototyping.
The use of rapid prototyping in product design and development is a profitable decision and must be encouraged in the manufacturing organisation. In a fiercely competitive landscape, this tool can help in developing innovative products cost-effectively.
Rapid Prototyping utilises a group of technologies used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using 3D printing/design. Prototyping isn’t a new concept, but techniques have been refined to advance many industries, including fabricated reflective optics.
A common misconception about Rapid Prototyping is that a machine is simply loaded and a finished part magically appears. In fact, the majority of work involved in creating a prototype happens well before a prototype is created. We first work with customers to determine the specific prototype needs; then our engineers pinpoint which of the Rapid Engineering technologies will produce optimal results.
3D Printing and Modeling are the most common methods, using equipment that produces 3D components in various materials including plastics, wax, and metal. While effective, this technology can’t directly produce a fabricated reflector. Instead, we use 3D Printing and Modeling for rapid tooling and fixture needs. It dramatically reduces prep time, which otherwise takes weeks using traditional methods.
Laser and Punching are the most traditional Rapid Prototyping methods for fabricated reflectors. These technologies continue to mature and advance, making them the core of versatile and rapid fabricated metals processing. Laser and Punching are programmable and changeable so the process can continue until the part is right.
Designers, more often than not, ignore the process of prototyping before finalising concept models. Most think prototyping is a waste of time and money. Couldn’t a 3D model achieve the same result? Some are simply confused about what prototyping actually is.
Prototyping across many industries refers to creating a highly realistic model of the product solely for testing or promotional purposes. It’s different to building a computer or 3D versions of design models, which are hard to interact within a realistic sense.
Prototyping is both progressive/practical and can be one of the many stages of developing a high-quality, error-free product.
Using the following techniques provides you with significant advantages:
1. Prototyping with Reduced Costs in Development is Possible and Available
Much of the costs of prototyping in the past were associated with expensive materials used in the products. Nowadays, prototypes can be made for far less using inexpensive and alternative materials. Cheaper new materials can realistically replicate shapes and features of products, and ultimately mimic real functionality as well.
We specialise in creating concept prototypes using inexpensive material without compromising the overall quality of the prototype experienced in visually replicating products near exactly as prototypes. We employ a wide range of manufacturing tech to develop prototypes, some of which allows for creating different prototypes at the same time for side-by-side comparison. If your budget isn’t big enough for a specially made concept, you could always purchase materials and build your own prototypes.
Prototypes do cost money, but the benefits they offer can eliminate many expensive costs associated with errors. Think about how costly it is to fix problems in products discovered after the product goes to the market. Designers, developers and others can use prototypes to fine-tune final products in a manner that typical concept art does not allow. Companies not only have to pay developers to correct mistakes, but there are additional costs. In an overall sense, prototyping can actually save your company money.
Prototyping is also much less costly than ordering samples of the final product. Companies often place sample orders to test products before mass-market retail. These sample orders are the real product, so each would cost more. Prototypes are far cheaper to make realistically for testing purposes. As mentioned above, being specialised and seasoned manufacturers, we can deliver the perfect testing prototype for the fraction of a cost of an original sample. All in all, companies can save significant amounts of money in the long term by using prototypes.
Prototyping injection mold tools and production runs are expensive investments. The 3D printing process allows the creation of parts and/or tools through additive manufacturing at rates much lower than traditional machining.
2. Speed Up Time-to-Market
3D printing allows ideas to develop faster than ever. Being able to 3D print a concept the same day it was designed shrinks a development process from what might have been months to a matter of days, helping companies stay one step ahead of the competition.
With additive manufacturing, time required to develop molds, patterns and special tools can be eliminated. The same CAD applications and the printing equipment can be utilised to produce different geometries. Unlike conventional prototyping methods, the amount of waste produced is minimum, as rapid prototyping only prints the material that is actually required to build the object.
Manipulating geometry in 3D space presents hard to see opportunities very early; before everyone has committed to the first reasonable idea. At the point of launch, new products often have things that could have been done better in hindsight. Even with this being so there is no reason to make sure by not using tools that are already available to use.
Anyone can make anything once, but what about the second time, and every time after that? The prototyping process always represents the production process, ensuring consistency and a quick start-up of the production process.
As the name implies, Rapid Prototyping produces results quickly. However, it’s also understood that while prototyping is rapid, it’s never rushed. Experience, engineering, and technologies combine for best outcomes.
Speed, better results, streamlined transitioning and easy refinements – mean you’re able to get your product to market faster. And the profitability that goes with it.
In the modern boom of digital art and design, the possibilities are not only accelerating but limitless. One can now 3D print almost anything they imagine after drawing it up virtually. In a relatively short time, an idea, concept, dream or invention can go from a simple thought to a produced part that you can hold.
3. Verify Design Concepts to Mitigate Risk
Being able to verify a design before investing in an expensive molding tool is worth its weight in 3D printed plastic, and then some. Printing a production-ready prototype builds confidence before making these large investments. It is far cheaper to 3D print a test prototype then to redesign or alter an existing mold.
Rapid prototyping allows designers to realise their concepts beyond virtual visualisation. This enables to understand the look and feel of the design, rather than simply assuming through the CAD model. This helps designers to carry forward their ideas and implement them in their design prior to finalisation. It also provides a proof of concept for the end client, seeking for a more realistic product design rather than merely visualising the design on screen.
With a prototype you can test the market by unveiling it at a trade-show, showing it to potential buyers or investors, or raising capital by pre-selling. Getting buyers response to the product before it actually goes into production is a valuable way to verify the product has market potential.
4. Minimisng Design Constraints/Limitations
The additive manufacturing offers the ability to identify flaws in the design prior to mass production. The materials available for rapid prototyping closely resemble the properties and strength of the actual product, making it possible to perform physical tests easily. The risks of faults and usability issues can be identified earlier to avoid problems that might occur later during manufacturing process.
There’s nothing inherently risky about integrating geometry and performance data into a single model to simulate function—unless the design team is afraid to find out that their assumptions are wrong. The value of bringing this technique into the design process sooner, rather than later, is that it helps to eliminate invalid design options and isolate those that are going to be most advantageous.
The limitations of standard machining have constrained product design for years. With the improvements in additive manufacturing, now the possibilities are endless. Geometry that has been historically difficult or impossible to build; like holes that change direction, unrealistic overhangs, or square interior cavities, is now possible and actually simple to construct.
5. Customising Designs
The most promising benefit of rapid prototyping is the ability to develop customised products as per the individual requirement. It requires no special tools or process to implement design changes in the product. A small change in the CAD model and the entire process remains the same. For manufacturers, this is highly advantageous as it offers a connected experience for the customer with the product they purchase.
With standard mass-production, all parts come off the assembly line or out of the mold the same. With 3D printing, one can customise fits. One thing you can’t get from a picture or virtual prototype on the computer screen is the way something feels in your hand. If you want to ensure fit of a product is just right, you must actually hold it, use it and test it.
6. Proof of Design Concept
Many developers overlook proof of concept prototypes because they have a short lifespan. Proof of design prototypes may not survive rigorous testing, but these models provide valuable information regarding how practical the design concept is. These prototypes can facilitate the creative process of design and point out mistakes early in a highly realistic manner.
Developers can have several concepts prototyped to make informed, digital-based decisions on which models to move forward with. Prototyping can eliminate some confusion of the design process as well, especially if multiple teams or many employees are involved. While these prototyping models are not built to last, they can be highly valuable in many other ways.
Being able to test ideas quickly and discover what doesn’t work accelerates discovery leading to an ideal solution. 3D printing allows a product developer to make breakthroughs at early stages that are relatively inexpensive leading to better products and less expensive dead-ends.
7. Clearly Communicate Results to Customers
Describing the product you are going to deliver is often misinterpreted since it leaves construction up to the imagination. A conceptual picture of the product is better than the description since it is worth 1,000 words, but getting to hold the tangible product-to-be, in hand, clears all lines of communication. There is no ambiguity when holding the exact, or at least a very close, representation of the product.
An accurate prototype is critical in evaluating and verifying function, fit, and finish of the product. Precision is the basis of Rapid Prototyping. Once you’ve gone through the Rapid Prototyping process, revisions and modifications to products are much easier to implement.
8. Receive Better Feedback
Prototypes are designed to scale. Interacting with a prototype is not so different to interacting with the real product. So designers can use prototypes to obtain valuable user feedback to improve the final version. User feedback with prototyping is complete and is not based on a disproportional version of the product. Designers can rely more on such feedback to make improvements to the final product.
One major advantage of prototyping is that companies can present audiences with a highly realistic model of the product. Therefore, the resulting feedback would be as if it were based on the real deal. Prototypes can also be used highly effectively for visual presentations for feedback from clients. Visual presentation prototypes can eliminate doubts and misunderstandings when it comes to gathering high-quality feedback or initial impression reviews.
Using prototypes is highly recommended before a product moves to mass manufacturing. Prototypes can eliminate much of the problems associated with mass production as well. Designers should use prototypes to validate digital representations, reliability,and functionality of models. The cost savings down the line are significant when you create a prototype first. As the prototyping process has become cheaper in modern times, it’s a cost even startups can now bear.
9. Incorporating Changes Instantly
Having a physical model in hand, it is possible to incorporate the changes instantly merely by asking the feedback from the customers. Prior to finalising the design, there are several iterations required. With each iterative process, the design improves further, building confidence for both the designer as well as the end consumer. This also helps in identifying the actual need of the market, making possible to develop competitive products with better acceptance rate.
Furthermore, early low-volume prototyping allows affordable design modification. Modifying final product designs requires tooling modification, which is very expensive. Prototyping, on the other hands, doesn’t require tooling, so developers can benefit from surprisingly low costs. If a product needs to be rushed to the market, prototyping can speed up the process and eliminate typical errors.
10. Rapid Implementation
Prototyping can fast-track the implementation process by removing many of the quality bottlenecks product launches face. Prototypes can help designers and developers immediately spot major problems present in products. Because prototyping occurs during the development stage, that still leaves plenty of time to do a course correction if necessary. The result is fewer or no errors during the final product unveiling stage. Bugs in products can hurt sales and brand reputation. So using prototypes in advance to determine whether users can interact with the product as the designer intends helps perfect the final product that goes into the hands of the customer.