Prototyping application in design and manufacturing

In today´s global economy, a country´s economy is highly dependent on the development of new products. These products have to be innovative and their life cycle from design to manufacturing must be short. As the direct result of this global competition, the industry is required to apply new methods and techniques such as Rapid Response Manufacturing to shorten the design and manufacturing time. Rapid Manufacturing (KM) is a new manufacturing category which can improve manufacturers?? flexibility and speed to cope with today´s competitive market and product variety. Rapid Prototyping (RP) and Rapid Tooling (KT) are two important techniques that support the Rapid Manufacturing process. Reverse Engineering (KE) is among important design methodologies which utilizes RM. In this article the use and the application of rapid prototyping is discussed for integrated design concept analysis and manufacturing verification.