As one of the most advanced manufacturing hubs in Europe, Sweden combines strong engineering traditions with cutting-edge innovation. So, whether you are in the automotive industry, or aerospace, or medical technology, or anything else for that matter, you have most likely started thinking about relying on rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing to, well, speed up product development. Click this to better understand additive manufacturing in general.
Understanding Rapid Prototyping and Additive Manufacturing
Now, before we get to talking about how you can choose the right partner to provide you with the services you need, we have to make sure that you understand what we are precisely talking about here in the first place. So, to cut right to the chase, rapid prototyping refers to quickly producing physical parts from some digital designs, using additive manufacturing technologies. Or, more precisely, 3D printing.
How to Choose a Company
Having understood what these services actually entail, you are now most probably ready to proceed towards the main topic for the day. The topic of finding the right additive manufacturing firm in Sweden that can provide you with what you need. And, well, in order to find great companies and make the right choice, you will absolutely need to put some effort into this entire process, and to know precisely what to consider when making the decision. So, let us share some tips that will help you out with that.
- Ask Around
Unsurprisingly, you should begin by asking around, in an effort to check if anyone has some recommendations to share. Perhaps you know other businesses that have already been using manufacturing services, and they may be able to share some suggestions. Listening to those suggestions is important, but it doesn’t mean that you should immediately jump towards choosing one of the companies that someone recommends. After all, you still have some research to do.
Understand 3D printing better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing
- Search Online
The above step will help you get familiar with some of the companies operating in this line of work. But, you should definitely not jump right towards hiring one or the other before doing any research, as mentioned. And then, you should also use another step to find out about those firms in Sweden that can offer these services, because chances are that the people you will talk to won’t really be familiar with all the experts operating in this industry.
So, what you should do is also search for them online. Most of the great providers are sure to have their official websites, or any other kind of online presence. And this will allow you to not only easily find potential candidates, but also to research them in a bit more details before making your decision. In any case, the point is that you should use this step, together with the one above, to make a list of potential candidates.
- Check Technical Capabilities
Moving on, you should understand that not all additive manufacturing companies in Sweden will be the same, and that not all of them will offer the same technologies. So, what you should do is ask your potential partners about what kinds of technologies they are using, what build volume sizes are available, what materials they specialize in, as well as whether they offer post-processing and whether they can handle metal printing if necessary.
- Assess Experience
It should go without saying that assessing industry experience is also important. What you want to do here is, well, find a company that is experienced in your particular industry, as that will mean that they understand the typical compliance requirements, the mechanical standards, the design expectations and similar things. Thus, when you come across Norra Additive Manufacturing AB or similar places, take your time to check if they have worked on projects similar to yours, ask for case studies or references, and check if they understand regulatory requirements. Industry familiarity will, in the end, reduce costly mistakes, as well as shorten the development time.
- Inspect Reputation
Inspecting reputation is clearly a must as well. To put things simply, what you have to do here is take some time to read the reviews that have been written by previous clients, in an effort to check how happy they have been with the services they received from particular companies. Of course, a few complaints here and there are normal, but you want to, in the end, choose a company that is known to be trusted and reliable.
- Consider Lead Times
Rapid prototyping is all about, well, being fast. Yet, the timelines can vary from one firm to another. So, ask about the lead times, and check if expedited services are offered if necessary. Finally, don’t forget to check how urgent revisions are handled, and whether scaling to short-run production is an option.
