On-demand manufacturer Protolabs now offers a detailed measurement and inspection reporting service.
This is the first of a portfolio of in-house secondary services that the company is launching across Europe.
As part of its standard process, Protolabs carries out X, Y, Z measurements at the start of the production run as well as at final inspection. The additional measurement and inspection services complement the standard process to meet specific customer requirements.
Secondary services have been launched to provide additional support for on-demand manufacturing requirements and the company will launch additional value add secondary operations such as surface treatment and assembly later in the year.
Stephen Dyson, Protolabs’ Special Operations Manager said: “Our customers really value our rapid manufacturing services for low-volume parts and prototypes, but they now want the benefit of on-demand manufacturing for production parts, which have higher expectations for sampling, measurement and process documentation.”
Mr Dyson continued: “The marked increase from customers across all industries wanting to take advantage of the speed and flexibility of On-Demand manufacturing brings with it a desire to simplify the supply chain. We are offering Secondary Services to reduce the number of process steps that the customer has to manage, saving time and resources.”
In many industries there are particular quality processes and procedures, such as First article inspection (FAI), Initial Sample Inspection Report (ISIR) and Product Part Approval Process (PPAP). Some of these have originated from the Aerospace industry, some from Automotive, but many industries have adopted these procedures as they provide a framework for establishing confidence in component suppliers and their production processes. It also provides the necessary control documentation.