German engineering company kabkin says its Prompt-to-Product platform has generated more than 100 qualified industrial project enquiries since its current version went live in early 2026.
Announced on 21 September, the milestone covers B2B requirements involving mechanical functions, movement, installation space, loads, safety, costs and deadlines. The figure represents project enquiries rather than completed product or confirmed contracts.
“The supply market starts with products and suppliers. The demand market starts with a need,” said Chris Windhövel, kabkin’s founder.
Users describe the function they need a product to perform. They can provide photographs, sketches and technical documents alongside performance requirements, target budgets and delivery deadlines. kabkin’s engineers then assess the requirement and determine how it could be developed and manufactured.
From functional requirement to manufacturing
Despite its Prompt-to-Product name, the platform is not an automated text-to-computer-aided-design (CAD) generator. kabkin describes it as an engineering and manufacturing service supported by a digital interface and human engineering expertise.
Engineers evaluate submitted requirements through kinematic analysis, considering factors including movement, forces, degrees of freedom, installation constraints and interfaces. kabkin says it draws on a database of more than 15,000 previously realized kinematic solutions to determine whether an existing product can meet the requirement, an established design can be adapted or a new mechanism needs to be developed.
Qualified enquiries receive an initial engineering feasibility assessment within 24 hours according to the company. This assessment covers technical feasibility, budget and project timing rather than delivering a finished product within a day.
From there, kabkin’s service can extend through design, prototyping and industrialization to manufacturing, quality assurance and delivery.
kabkin operates conventional machinery alongside laser based processes and 3D printing and can use qualified manufacturing partners where required. This makes additive manufacturing one potential production route within the wider Prompt-to-Product workflow.
The company has not disclosed which additive manufacturing processes or materials it uses, or whether 3D printing featured in any of the more than 100 enquiries. It has also not provided figures showing how many enquiries progressed into paid engineering projects, prototypes or delivered products.
Matching manufacturing processes to requirements
kabkin’s approach addresses a broader challenge in industrial manufacturing, a customer may know what a component needs to do without knowing whether an existing product can meet that requirement, whether a new design is needed or which manufacturing process is best suited to producing it. Additive manufacturing can provide one route, particularly for customized or low volume components, but the appropriate process depends on factors including geometry, material, production volume, required properties and post-processing.
A recent example is JOME Engineering’s production of a replacement 26kg marine propeller when the original CAD files and tooling were unavailable. The existing component was digitally reconstructed using 3D scanning before a near-net-shape replacement was produced from 316L stainless steel using wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). In this process, metal wire is fed into an electric arc, melted and progressively deposited to build the component before conventional machining and finishing bring it to its final geometry.
The manufacturing route illustrates why selecting additive manufacturing does not necessarily mean replacing conventional processes. Material deposition took approximately 20 hours, while machining and finishing accounted for around 100 hours. Caracol, the equipment manufacturer, reported a 60% reduction in lead time and a 40% reduction in costs compared with the tooling and casting route. The final component therefore resulted from a workflow combining reverse engineering, additive deposition and subtractive manufacturing.
Manufacturing service providers are also expanding specific AM processes as demand moves beyond prototyping. Protolabs recently increased its HP Multi Jet Fusion capacity by 50% after reporting more than 40% year-on-year growth in US MJF revenue through the third quarter of 2026. Unlike the metal wire deposition used for the propeller, MJF produces polymer components from a powder bed. Printheads selectively apply fusing and detailing agents to each layer of powder before thermal energy fuses the required regions, with the process repeated to build the parts.
The two examples illustrate the manufacturing gap kabkin is seeking to address. kabkin’s strategy is to move those decisions into the engineering workflow, where conventional manufacturing, an additive process or a combination of technologies can be selected according to the requirements.
The more than 100 enquiries suggest demand for that requirement led approach, with no data on paid projects or production progress. The next test for Prompt-to-Product is therefore whether those engineering enquiries convert into manufactured products.
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Featured image shows Kabkin’s Prompt-to-Product homepage. Image via kabkin.
