Rapid prototyping and production of complex parts.
After 2020, the year of pivoting to meet emergency Covid-19 PPE manufacturing requirements, 2021 has proven to be a year when Potomac expanded innovation in order to meet ever more demanding customer challenges in a variety of industries.
Although cool, new concepts in the medical device, microfluidics, micro-electronics, aerospace, or consumer industries may grab all the headlines, innovation in manufacturing processes are equally important in getting new products to mainstream markets. That’s where Potomac’s expertise shines. From prototype to long production runs, Potomac has developed the hardware, software, measurement, quality control systems, and processes to ensure success for new products.
Rapid Prototyping
Every product starts with demonstrating proof of concept by building a prototype. But the initial design must also show that the idea can be manufactured economically and ultimately, in high volume.
Potomac has enough customer experience to have created innovations for producing viable prototypes. From modeling and simulations to iterative customer testing, 21st century methods ensure that a final prototype hits the market fully optimized, both for end-user satisfaction and manufacturability.
By innovating business practices, Potomac also has been able to identify up-and-coming startups with high potential for long term market success. Rather than turning away entrepreneurs, Potomac takes a big picture view and works with the best candidates as partners toward a better future.
Truly Advanced Manufacturing
Potomac’s R&D engineering depth allows us to invent unique processes and equipment in-house, as well as upgrade purchased machines to improve performance.
Innovations in 2022 include laser welding of plastics, building 3D Printed fixtures for miniature parts being laser or CNC micro-machined, developing sophisticated alignment tools to accurately register parts within 10’s of microns for assembly, and creating finely tuned calibration tools to integrate an entire manufacturing cell into a factory system.
Automated Inspection 
In looking back at 2021, the innovations Potomac has developed are sure to propel the company to the next generation of advanced manufacturing possibilities for us and for our customers in 2022 and beyond.
Animal testing has long been an established protocol in drug discovery programs. But there are systemic issues with the far from reliable methodology. In fact, only 10% of the drugs that move from animal testing to human clinical trials succeeds. Such low yields increase the time and expense required to get pharmaceuticals to market, fueling…
In the field of microfluidics, where precision is key to innovation and application success, our expertise at Potomac Photonics sets a standard. We specialize in the art of laser drilling precise small holes in glass slides and coverslips, a critical capability for the fabrication of microfluidic devices. These devices play a pivotal role in various…
The world today seems consumed with fears about Artificial Intelligence, otherwise known as AI. Writers, journalists, ad copywriters, teachers, and artists are fearful their jobs will be lost to computers but in manufacturing we have been applying a subset of AI to manufacturing for decades with positive results. Like other forms of AI, Machine Learning…