Case Study: Arrow Global slashes prototyping costs and cuts lead time from weeks to overnight with Markforged

Mark Two Making the Glass More Than Half-Full

Arrow Global, a Wisconsin-based transportation window and protective barrier manufacturer, struggled with costly, slow prototyping—machined extrusions and jigs often cost around $400 and took 2–2.5 weeks to produce. New Product Design Engineer Joseph Walters needed a rapid, robust solution that could produce useable parts (not brittle PLA/ABS) for iterative testing and assembly tooling, so he evaluated Markforged’s Mark Two 3D printer.

Markforged’s Mark Two delivered carbon-fiber–reinforced, production-like parts overnight, slashing prototype cost to about $1.59 and cycle time to ~1.9 hours per part (versus $400 and ~420 hours machined), and reportedly paid for itself in fewer than 14 parts. Arrow Global now runs multiple design iterations per week, uses printed jigs for nearly 1,000 cycles with no visible wear, and has dramatically reduced lead time, wasted inventory, and assembly time.

Arrow Global

Joseph Walters

Product Engineer