Proto Labs, Inc. Celebrates 10th Anniversary

May 2009—Proto Labs, Inc. the global leader in quick-turn CNC machining and injection moulding today announced the celebration of ten years in business.

In May of 1999, Proto Labs began business as Protomold and radically reduced the lead time and cost to manufacture custom prototype and low-volume production parts.  Their industry-changing innovation was achieved through the application of proprietary software and automated manufacturing systems that allow Proto Labs to do in hours what used to take weeks.

Over a millennium saved in time to market.

“By our calculations, since 1999 we have helped design engineers reduce their cumulative time to market by about 1,200 years” said Brad Cleveland, Proto Labs President and CEO. “We have also continually expanded the size, complexity and materials offered by our services as well as our ability to support design engineers around the globe. We can’t wait to see what the next ten years brings.”

Today, Proto Labs offers two quick-turn services: First Cut (www.firstcut.eu) offers CNC machining and Protomold (www.protomold.co.uk) offers injection moulding, both in as little as one business day. And the company has also accumulated a remarkable list of achievements over the past decade:

- 22,000 moulds

- 24 million parts

- 5 offices worldwide with manufacturing locations in Maple Plain, Minnesota, Telford, England, and Tokyo, Japan.

- 300 employees

- Multiple patents covering software and automated manufacturing systems

- Nationally recognized by Inc Magazine and numerous others for rapid growth

About Proto Labs
Proto Labs has radically changed the economics and lead times associated with low-volume production of CNC machined and injection moulded parts through the use of proprietary software running on a compute cluster at over 2 trillion floating point operations per second.  Proto Labs offers two services in North America, Europe and Japan: First Cut provides CNC machining and Protomold, rapid injection moulding; both of which can ship parts in as little as one business day.  For more information, visit: www.protomold.co.uk.

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