Even more than our tendency to use titles based on plays on words, we constantly need new room for Proto Labs operations. In our history, we have expanded facilities or moved into larger offices and plants many times (by some counts, as many as 20 times in the past 13 years, worldwide). In the first quarter of 2011, we moved our UK operations into a new 130,000 square foot building. In the first quarter of this year, we moved our Japan operations to a new 32,000 square foot facility. In April of this year, it was US operations’ turn to add manufacturing space.
Proto Labs US has grown constantly since 1999. We started Protomold’s Plant 1 in one end of an industrial warehouse in the Minneapolis suburb of Maple Plain (Brad Cleveland, the CEO, initially sat at a folding table next to the first presses). As we grew, we took over adjacent bays in the building, eventually buying the building from the landlord. In 2005, we added Plant 2 for Protomold manufacturing in a nearby Maple Plain warehouse building. In 2007, we bought a 95,000 square foot manufacturing building next door to Plant 2 and moved our headquarters into it. In 2011, our growth projections predicted we would completely fill Plant 1, Plant 2, and HQ by mid-2012. Time to find more space…
After an extensive search of Twin Cities available real estate, we purchased a 128,000 square foot building in Rosemount MN, a southern suburb of Minneapolis – St. Paul. After some planning, we kicked off a construction project to add the necessary infrastructure. The construction wrapped up on schedule about April 1, and we started the move.
The first “tenant” in the building is Protomold Production, the part of our business that manufactures injection-molded parts after the samples are approved (tool making and sampling remain in Plant 2). Over the course of about three weeks, we moved the entire contents of Plant 1 – 35 presses, about 40 dryers, 20,000-plus molds, about 2,000 containers of resin (both stocked and customer-supplied), a host of miscellaneous items, and we managed to commission ten additional new presses as well. Our most important asset, people, also made the move. About 45 employees from Maple Plain moved down to Rosemount to join 25 new hires from the Rosemount area. Eventually, we expect to employ about 300 people at the Rosemount facility. After a long and hotly-debated creative process, we have designated the new facility “Plant 4.”
Everyone in the US contributed to making the move a success, either directly or by taking on additional work to keep orders flowing during the move. I’m proud to say we did not have a single order that was late as a result of the move. Plant 4 is now fully operational, running production parts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We already have plans to fill the space Protomold vacated in Plant 1 – for example, we will put our Protoworks team together in a new home there. Firstcut is spilling out of its space at HQ, and is eyeing Plant 1 as an expansion venue. Plant 4 will continue to add people and equipment as Protomold grows. And, believe it or not, we are already thinking about where we will put Plant 5!
Don Krantz is COO, Proto Labs.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 1:59PM | Author: 
Taking you where no one has gone before, musically speaking, NASA has created Third Rock, a radio station that is to tunes what the shuttle program was to space. As the NASA folks describe it “On THIRD ROCK, you’ll hear New Rock of all kinds, including a whole galaxy full of new music that seems to go largely unexplored by ordinary radio. Just like a healthy scientific curiosity leads to great discoveries in technology, a good musical curiosity is constantly leading us to great New Rock, which we will immediately share with you!” You can tune in on your computer, Android or iPhone, and in addition to the musical menu, you’ll get tidbits of NASA info thrown in the mix for good measure.
