Healthsense Slashes Time-to-Market with Protomold

Mechanical Designer Dave Anderson of Healthsense? was initially cautious in approaching Protomold®, a division of Proto Labs, Inc.  He had been aware of the company for several years before becoming a customer, but has since become a fan of both Protomold and First Cut Prototype®, another division of Proto Labs.  “I’d been seeing Protomold ads in design magazines for several years,” says Anderson.  “Their prototyping and production services were clearly faster, more flexible, and less expensive than other comparable prototyping processes we were seeing, but I didn’t fully understand their process.” 

About three years ago Anderson went to Protomold’s web site and took a closer look at ProtoQuote®, the company’s free online quoting tool.  “I uploaded a CAD model to ProtoQuote and was very impressed with what I got back,” he says.  “Within a day I had a detailed, interactive online price quote along with feedback on the mouldability and design of my model.  While viewing the quote, I could adjust parameters like finish, resin, and part quantity and the pricing changed to reflect the new input while I watched.  Their quoting process is huge.  With the vendors we had been using, you’d get a static one-page price quote.  If you wanted to change something, you had to start all over, and unless you were talking to an engineer you didn’t get any design feedback at all.  In my job I wear a lot of hats, so I’m not a specialist in plastic parts design, but Protomold let me submit designs and through their ProtoQuote 3D viewer they pointed out areas where I could adjust and improve the design.”