Accelerate Product Development and Production with Stratasys Additive Manufacturing
Industrial manufacturers are under pressure to move faster without sacrificing part performance or reliability. Stratasys 3D printing helps teams move from CAD to validated prototypes, tooling, and low-volume components while reducing lead times, lowering tooling costs, and enabling more design freedom than traditional methods.
Form, Fit, and Function Prototyping
Validate product performance earlier in the development cycle with prototypes that do more than represent a concept. Stratasys prototyping solutions support everything from high-fidelity visual models and ergonomic reviews to functional prototypes that can withstand mechanical, thermal, and chemical stress.
Best Fit Technology:
- PolyJet: Produce high-fidelity, multi-material visual and tactile prototypes.
- P3 DLP: Produce fit and functio prototypes with high accuracy and better mechanical properties for more demanding validation.
- SLA: Produce large scale prototypes with high accuracy and detail.
Benefits:
- Validate snap fits, assembly clearances, ergonomics, and more before cutting metal.
- Accelerate design reviews and validate prototypes 5x faster.
- Reduce prototyping costs by at least 80% compared with traditional methods.
Jigs & Fixtures
Replace slow, expensive, and heavy production tools with 3D printed jigs, fixtures, assembly aids, end-of-arm tooling, and soft jaws produced on-demand. 3D printed tooling offers a lightweight alternative to metal.
Instead of waiting days or weeks for outsourced machining, manufacturing teams can print custom tools on demand and revise them as production requirements change. Stratasys notes that 3D printed tooling can be produced in hours versus days or weeks with traditional methods, while strong thermoplastics offer a lighter alternative to metal tooling.
Best Fit Technology:
- P3 DLP: Produce high-quality jigs & fixtures with injection mold-like precision, leveraging engineering-grade materials.
- SAF: Cost-effective production of jigs & fixtures at scale.
Benefits:
- Reduce lead times by at least 40% by printing tools, brackets, and
replacement components. - Lower costs by at least 70%.
- Improve operator ergonomics.
Mold Tooling
Use 3D printed mold tooling to validate designs, produce pilot runs, and bridge the gap before final production tooling is ready. For injection molding teams, 3D printed molds and inserts create a faster path to testing real part geometry and, in many cases, production intent materials without waiting weeks for machined soft tooling.
Best Fit Technology:
P3 DLP: Produce high-temperature, stiff injection molding inserts and tooling
Benefits:
- Shorten the mold validation loop by going from design to test in under a day.
- Reduce the cost of design changes.
- Create mold tooling with complex geometries that are expensive or impractical to machine.
Casting Patterns
Produce accurate, complex master patterns for investment, sand, and urethane casting without the time and cost of CNC-machined wax molds or traditional pattern tooling. 3D printed patterns enable geometries that are difficult to achieve using conventional methods.
Best Fit Technology:
SLA: Produce detailed patterns with smooth surfaces and strong dimensional accuracy.
Benefits:
- Streamline preparation for complex investment casting geometries.
- Save up to 75% lead time compared to CNC or wax molds.
- Eliminate expensive molds and dies for custom or low volume workflows.
Connectors
For low-volume, high-mix connector and adaptor production, Stratasys technology gives manufacturers a way to produce precise, fine feature parts ideal for demanding environments without opening injection molds for every variant.
Best Fit Technology:
- P3 DLP: Short run production of connectors requiring tight tolerances, repeatability, and smooth surface finish.
Benefits:
- Support customization, reduce tooling dependency, and respond faster to customer-specific connector requirements.
- Injection mold-like part quality, surface finish, and tolerances across a range of geometry.
- Over 93% repeatability within ±50 micron accuracy.
Low Volume End Use Parts
Stratasys 3D printing is a strong fit for low volume, high-mix, bridge-to-production, replacement, customized, and design optimized components, helping manufacturers avoid tooling delays, reduce inventory, and respond quickly to late-stage design changes.
Best Fit Technology:
- P3 DLP: Produce parts with tight tolerances and injection mold-like quality.
- SAF: Produce higher volume, cost effective production parts in nested batches.
- SLA: Produce large parts with high detail and smooth surfaces.
Benefits:
- Reduce or eliminate tooling lead times and costs for small batch production.
- Bring production in-house to simplify supply chains.
- Support complex geometries, lightweighting, and customization without tooling penalties.
Best Stratasys 3D Printers for Industrial Manufacturing Applications
