Case Study: Thorlabs cuts months off product development with Protolabs prototyping and on-demand manufacturing

Combined prototyping and production saves months of product development for Thorlabs

Thorlabs, a specialist manufacturer of optical laboratory equipment, needed to outsource parts for a new motorised polarisation controller and validate critical design details such as material selection, motor performance and screw-hole sizes before moving to final production. Protolabs supported the project with design-for-manufacturability analysis, rapid prototyping and low-volume injection moulding.

Protolabs produced SLA prototypes to help Thorlabs test and refine each iteration, then used on-demand aluminium moulding for final ABS parts. The result was a much faster development cycle: prototype iterations were delivered in under a week, the first production order of 75 parts arrived in less than five weeks, and subsequent orders of 100, 150 and 200 parts were delivered in less than a week, saving Thorlabs months of time to market.

Thorlabs

Philip Storey

Senior Engineering Buyer