Much of the cost associated with producing innovative products comes from the tooling and risks of manufacturing. Injection mould tools need to be, designed, developed and manufactured which is time consuming, labour intensive and expensive. Should adjustments need to be made it could be necessary that the whole process begins again, eating into financial resources and development time.
DES claims that its 3D printing process can produce a physical prototype in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of traditional manufacturing methods, allowing users to quickly and efficiently identify and amend any design alterations.
Nick Lomax, managing director of DES, added: “We’ve already seen a number of our clients turn their ideas into products that you can find on the shelves of major retailers and manufacturers. It’s a really exciting industry for us to be a part of.
“The process is also more affordable than using traditional manufacturing techniques, which opens the doors to a whole new division of inventors, designers, design engineers and product engineers; all of the people who may have previously had amazing ideas, but lacked the funds to develop them beyond the point of conception”
DES carries out the process end-to-end under one roof; from laser scanning, CAD design, digital printing, 3D printing, conventional toolmaking and plastic injection moulding.
