A prominent challenge product designers, developers, and manufacturers face is the inability to make clients, administrators, and company owners see and realise the value of a new product or concept. Despite advancements in 3D modelling and other CAD technologies, explaining certain design aspects of new product ideas most often ends up in an “I’ll believe it when I see it” proposition. This is where rapid prototyping and additive manufacturing comes to play. China is one of the main countries where rapid prototyping as a manufacturing technique and as an industry is gaining importance, especially among engineering designers and manufacturers. Rapid prototyping provides a fast, accurate, and cost-efficient way to realise a product or a design’s potential. Conventional paper prototyping and scale modelling simply cannot provide the same fidelity from conceptualised designs as rapid prototyping offers.
Companies that provide rapid prototyping services enable product designers and manufacturers to realise design concepts way beyond what virtual visualisation can illustrate. This gives designers a way to showcase how a product should look, feel, and work instead of simply assuming them based on a virtual model. It’s a way to carry forward an idea and implement a design prior to finalising the product. Rapid prototypes also provide proof of concept, which many end clients seek for a tangible realisation of the design concept.
Another advantage of rapid prototyping is the ability to incorporate design chances instantly. With a physical model, it is verily possible to make changes on the product design after a first round of evaluation or when feedback from target end users or consumers becomes available. This means a more efficient means of identifying and addressing the actual needs of the market, which results in the development of highly competitive products with high acceptance rates from the target market. Also importantly, you save a substantial amount of time and cost with the help of rapid prototyping.