Newspaper Publishings

July 1997

Protosys Technologies Private Limited is offering Rapid Prototyping Service. Based in Mumbai, Protosys is the first commercial organisation offering such a service in India. Protosys uses 3D CAD models generated by customers and converts it into a prototype sample within a few hours.

Today, these samples are obtained in Investment Casting Wax or ABS equivalent Plastic. Prototypes produced by this process have an accuracy of +0.005 inch/inch and possess about 60% of the strength of the original part.

Protosys can help customers reduce time of developing new products and in many cases can also develop tooling for these products within a few days. It is expected that automobile and its ancillaries, consumer goods, Investment casting foundries, toy and other industries using plastics components will get maximum advantage of these services. Protosys can also provide short-run production of such parts in cast polyurethane materials.

With the present capacity, Protosys targets at achieving a turnaround time of seven days for a prototype, two weeks for a tool and about month for the small batch production. Working with associate companies, Protosys is also geared up to handle full scale production of components that are manufactured by injection moulding, die casting or investment casting. It is also working out arrangements with other companies in India and in the U.S. for further enhancing its capabilities.

The Indian industry has to come up with better and more innovative products to survive in the international competition. This technology has proved successful in achieving these very objectives around the world. In India too, some of the major companies who have their own equipment have also reaped the benefits of the technology.

The objective of Protosys is to provide access to a wider spectrum of industries where innovation is a way of life. Also with lower overheads, Protosys also stands a good chance in providing service to the overseas clientele, says Mr. J K Gala, chairman and managing director of Protosys.

Recently we developed a few samples for a large consumer white goods company, adds Mr S J Bakshi, one of the directors. The samples were designed using highly sophisticated CAD software and were brought to us developed after the design was almost finalised. But upon reviewing the physical samples, the company decided to redesign the parts as the aesthetics of the original design were not upto their expected level.

According to the Chief Design Manager of the company, had they not used the services of Protosys, this decision would have been taken after about 4 to 6 more months and a cost of Rupees 7 to 8 lakhs (about 20,000 US Dollars) could have been spent on prototype development which includes the cost of low-cost tooling. Protosys helped the customer save this valuable time and money.