Production of plastic and metal prototypes still accounts for the majority of 1zu1 Prototypen’s (Dornbirn / Austria; www.1zu1prototypen.com) sales. Although it has grown its prototype production, the company is now making big advances in the field of injection moulding and series manufacturing. This was probably the reason why it decided to delete the reference to prototypes from the brand name – but not from the company name.

In the last few years, the company has expanded considerably with its three business areas of prototyping, manufacturing and tooling. In 2017, it grew sales by around 10% to EUR 18m, and in 2018, its aim is to reach the EUR 20m mark.

There have been considerable shifts between the three business areas. "Ten years ago, prototypes accounted for 100%, and five years ago for 80% of our business. Now, prototyping is responsible for only 50%," said the company's founder and managing director, Hannes Hämmerle. In fact, prototyping, C-series production in injection moulding and additive manufacturing will probably each account for around one third of turnover in 2018. In the case of additive processes, selective laser sintering (SLS) is used in 60% of the cases, followed by stereolithography (30%). The remaining 10% are shared by various technologies including fused deposition modelling (FDM). Hämmerle expects the number of production and processing methods both on the market and at 1zu1 to increase further.

Despite the new emphasis, the company does not see itself as a producer even though technological development is making the use of earlier prototyping processes possible and economically viable for small and large series. "The borders between prototyping and manufacturing are becoming increasingly blurred," says Hämmerle. Instead of one-off components, nowadays the company often manufactures several hundred pieces by additive processes, and, using injection moulding in aluminium moulds, there can sometimes be series with 100,000 pieces.

The 170 employees in Dornbirn annually process around 20 t of different plastics by injection moulding, as well as 5 t of polyurethane cast resins and 10 t of polymers for additive manufacturing. In the latter case, the materials are predominantly PA 12 (sometimes with a glass bead filling) and PP.