"In just a few weeks, we came back to the retailer with a revised prototype and they were blown away. We could never have had that kind of fast turn around time without our Dimension 3D Printer."Wendy Steele, Co-founder and CEO
Tape Wrangler is a product development and manufacturing company that attributes rapid revenue growth in large part to product design made nimble by a move to in-house 3D printing. Founded in 2006, the Traverse City, Michigan-based company brings innovative, high quality products to the marketplace. Among its offerings are a line of specialty hardware products, including its popular Tape Wrangler™ heavy-duty tape dispenser.
THE CHALLENGE
During its first year of business, Tape Wrangler worked with several different design bureaus to create 3D models for product development and was unsatisfied with the results. “Outsourcing proved to be too costly, time-consuming and inefficient,” said Wendy Steele, Tape Wrangler co-founder and CEO. “In addition, to time and expense, we had to go through the trouble of getting the design service bureaus to sign nondisclosure agreements to protect our intellectual property.”
THE DIMENSION SOLUTION
After learning more about Dimension 3D Printers, Wendy and her husband Rick Steele – Tape Wrangler co-founder and COO – were confident that bringing 3D printing in-house would be a wise business decision. Within a month, they purchased a Dimension 3D printer and it was added to their design shop.
Since purchasing a Dimension printer, Tape Wrangler’s growth has more than doubled and projections for the future look even more profitable. In addition to the ability to quickly produce models, Tape Wrangler is thrilled with the high quality and fine feature detail delivered by its Dimension 3D Printer. The company’s products are highly engineered – some of its pieces requiring tolerances down to 1/250,000 of an inch.
Tape Wrangler also uses the Dimension to build fixtures, jigs and supports to assist in manufacturing and assembly processes. For example, Rick created a fixture to hold the body of their tape gun while branding labels were put on. The fixture makes it easy to put the labels on straight for a professional look.
THE FORTUS SOLUTION With the help of their Dimension Printer, by early 2009, the company had almost a dozen new products designed, prototyped and ready for production. Like many business owners, this progress came during a weary economy with cautious buyers. But how could they cost effectively launch these products without breaking the bank? In the past they built steel injection molded tools which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once again the answer came from Stratasys. This time, it was the Fortus 400mc with its variety of plastics and large build envelope. As Rick explained, “We had worked with FDM technology with our Dimension printer and knew that somehow, this technology had to be the answer on the tooling side as well”.
Since purchasing their Fortus 3D Production System, Tape Wrangler has built jigs, fixtures and end use parts to assist in their manufacturing and assembly processes.
Reseller: FISHER/UNITECH
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Find Tape Wrangler on the web at www.tapewrangler.com.