Getting Real About 3D Printing

From a manufacturing perspective, 3D printing is here to stay. From manufacturing auto parts to medical devices, from quick-turn prototypes to components for the space shuttle, 3D printing has fundamentally changed the cost, speed, and logistics structure of manufacturing. It has also opened a box of creativity and opportunity for niche businesses. Sites are popping allowing consumers to dimensionalize everything from their children’s artwork to images of their own heads.

The change brought by 3D printing is radically reshaping the world of manufacturing, and that is only accelerating. However, when it comes to how and where commercial printers can capitalize on 3D printing, there are still more questions than answers. Let’s look at what we know.

1. This is a mature market. In the manufacturing space, 3D printing has been around for years. For the highest volume users, there is an established, highly experienced, and well-equipped source of supply. 3D printing service bureaus are set up to handle a high volumes and a wide range of substrate needs, from plastic to metal to paper.

2. For commercial printing, the early adoption phase is largely over. Starting about two years ago, the prices began to fall and the technology became more plug and play. This enabled 3D printing to be offered to the wider consumer and prosumer markets, and commercial printers started testing the waters. From individual printers to franchises like FastSigns, early adopters were investing in printers in the $5,000 - $35,000 range to see what the technology could do.

3. Most early adopters are no longer proactively selling 3D output. Even if they continue to operate their machines, many of the early adopters are no longer focused on 3D as a venue for sales growth. The service may still be listed on their websites and they may do the occasional customer job, but the business model has not developed. Printers explain that tapping the existing opportunities for selling 3D printing requires significant time and dedication. Without the ability to generate enough revenue, they cannot get enough sales to justify the time spent marketing and selling it.

4. Adoption is growing among larger chains. Where we still see expansion in 3D printing as a service is among the larger chains. The UPS Store made headlines when, in 2014, it launched a pilot program for 3D printing in six stores in key markets. Today, that program has that program to 100 stores. Staples offers 3D printing at more than 50 locations, as well. Most retail stores are not designed as maker spaces, however. They have entry-level machines offering limited substrates, small build spaces, and limited resolution. Most do not offer 3D design services.

Where Are We Now?

Everywhere we look, we see interesting case studies of shops doing fascinating things with 3D printers. Why is this such a tough market for printers to gain traction?

First, the buyers of 3D printing services are not the same as for traditional printing services. 3D output is additive manufacturing, not ink on paper. It is designed for producing products, not marketing communications. Consequently, most 3D printing is purchased by engineers and parts designers, not marketers. This is an entirely new market, with entirely new buyers, and requires a dedicated sales and marketing effort that takes away from a printer’s core business. (Unlike email, mobile, and social media, which integrate with printers’ core business in a multichannel marketing environment, if there is a way to integrate 3D products with commercial print, that opportunity is still waiting to be found.)

This is not to say there is no buyer overlap at all. There is some, such as when services are needed by small business owners. However, these customers often need design services, which most printers are not ready to offer. This creates a challenge for commercial printers wanting to target this audience with an output-only solution. Kind of like trying to sell customers an automobile with wheels but no chassis.

So why is 3D printing growing among retail giants like The UPS Store and Staples? Even if they don’t do a lot of customer work, there is not much downside. It costs relatively little to get started, especially if they are only outputting files, and it boosts brand identity. For retailers like Staples (which has a relationship with Makerbot) that sell the 3D printers on their retail shelves, it increases visibility and sales. Make widgets through the output service, get traction with the product, and buy a 3D printer to make your own from there on out.

Staples has a ready-made market for this business model — small businesses and prosumers. “Say I have a widget 2.0 that is going to revolutionize my industry,” says Hubbard White, former 3D specialist for Form Labs and now working at Staples Bel Air, MD. “Now I have a board meeting and have to make six iterations of this widget for five different board members. What am I going to do? Am I going to pay an intern to spend a week making them? Pay a company [thousands of dollars] to injection mold them? Or pay $3,000 to buy a 3D printer to create them myself?”

Isn’t this a perfect opportunity for commercial printers to step in for those who just want to output prototypes and not run purchase and run their own equipment, even if they can afford it? Only if they can offer design services too. Aye, there’s the rub.

Digicopy, a commercial print shop based in Italy, uses paper-based 3D printers from Mcor Technologies. It solves the issue of issue of not offering design by using 3D scanners and printing mainly 3D print models developed by university students for their thesis work. In one month alone, Digicopy printed models for one thousand students, as well as prototypes for designers and stylists, including some famous fashion firms.

But printers need to be wary of building a business model around any market that has a high need for output-only services, including education, since these are the prime markets for bringing 3D printing in-house. Already, secondary schools are adding 3D printers into their Tech Ed programs, and increasingly colleges and universities are, as well.

Although we read case study after case study on unique projects being produced by shops with 3D printers (Brandywine Printing in Cummings, GA, for example, has tapped a market for 3D hazard maps of volcanic areas using Mcor’s full-color 3D printers), printers are indicating that this is not a sustainable business model. There is not a high volume of these projects, they take more time and energy to sell than they generate in revenue. Especially if long-term, higher-volume customers are likely to bring 3D printing in-house.

This is why we are seeing more and more high-profile users, like Brandywine and Digicopy, become authorized resellers. Using 3D output services to draw customers in and ultimately sell them their own 3D printer just makes sense. Digicopy may be printing one thousand 3D models per month, but at some point, that volume will likely drive the university to bring 3D printing in-house. When it does, purchasing an Mcor 3D printer from Digicopy is a natural fit.

Substrate Stickiness

Another sticky issue with being output-only shops, printers find, is that verticals using 3D printers have wide ranging substrate needs. Most 3D print machines handle one or a very limited number of substrates. What happens if the customer needs a substrate not offered by your 3D machine? Or needs different substrates at different times?

Jim Corliss, co-owner of Braintree Printing (Braintree, MA), discovered this first hand. Braintree was the earliest printing operations to adopt 3D technology, installing a Stratysys Dimension 1200es in April of 2012. To promote the service, Corliss used a list of several thousand businesses in his area and whittled it down to 100 targets.

“Many had their own equipment,” recalls Corliss. “But the real issue is that to be a job shop, you need really need 10-15 pieces of equipment. A lot of these devices only extrude one type of plastic. If you only have one machine and a customer who needs a different type, you can’t do it.”

Substrates ended up being a deal breaker for a number of potential clients. “One guy asked what kind do you use, and I said ABS [plastic], and his end products are flexible and he needs the prototype to be flexible,” Corliss explains. “I talked to someone else who was in the aviation industry. He needed his parts to be a certain type of plastic with fireproof capability. Another guy wanted clear plastic. None of which I did. It was like trying to get into the printing business with a single-color copier and nothing else.”

While Braintree continues to produce 3D printing jobs, Corliss no longer proactively sells the technology. Instead, he focuses on the company’s existing base of customers using the shop for overflow work. These companies have 3D designers, and many have the same equipment as Braintree. They are submitting print-ready STL files for those projects they don’t have the capacity to print themselves.

“Typically a manufacturing operation that is designing some component has a busy period when they are doing design,” Corliss explains. “Then there are ebbs and flows, and they might need two prototypes per week for six weeks [which is when Braintree’s Stratysys gets busy], but once it’s designed, they go into production mode and stop having design needs.”

While it’s not a big money-maker, Corliss keeps the Stratysys as long as he has enough work to pay for the lease.

Braintree Printing is not alone. You won’t see most printers, including the giant retailers, actively promoting 3D printing as a service either. Unless they want to invest in being a maker space with multiple machines of varying resolutions, substrates, and speeds, finding the right fit between customers and technological capabilities a bit like finding a need in a haystack. Shops may have in-store signage and it may have a place on their websites (The UPS Store and Staples both have “store locator” links). But few companies are spending manpower or capital to actively market it.

How about hobbyists? Aren’t they a huge market? Printers report that hobbyists drain a lot of the CSR’s time, generally need design services, and are too price-sensitive. “We had a lot of calls from hobbyists, but design is expensive,” says Corliss of Braintree Printing. “Depending on complicated and big the project is, it could be $500 or $1,000. They want to spend $10. They didn't realize the cost of the stuff.”

Made In Space

If printers have an interest in pursuing 3D printing and the traditional avenues of exploration aren’t yielding obvious business models, where can they look? Jason Dunn, CTO, co-founder of Made in Space, suggests disrupting the supply chain.

Made in Space manufactures “zero gravity” 3D printers for use in space and is known for its 3D printer on the space station. Users range from NASA and other government space agencies to individual and private entities that can have objects 3D objects printed in space rather than launched.

“Today the space station is a national lab, and there is a huge amount of research going on,” says Dunn. “It seems like there are breakthroughs every day. It’s hard to transport supplies to space (in the past year, three of the resupply rockets have not made it), and having an option to manufacture in place — on the space station — is a game changer.”

This is Made in Space’s primary focus, but it has profound implications for the rest of us on the ground. “At the end of the day, if 3D printing is a disruptor to something, it’s the global supply chain,” says Dunn. “This is one of the most critical impacts of 3D printing.” If printers can find places where their customers have pain points in the supply chain, he speculates, this is a place to explore.

“If you want to make a supply chain better, you have two options,” Dunn explains. “You can move things more quickly from one point to the next or you can reduce the distance between them. In space, a lot of research has revolved around the logistics of getting a supply rocket launched. Nobody had really considered what if you just reduced the distance? 3D printing moves printing to the point of need.”

Dunn gives the example of an astronaut who was bemoaning the fact that he’d lost his ratchet. Five days later, he had one in his hands. “That picture was taken two hours after we sent the file,” says Dunn. “That same supply chain bottleneck exists on the ground. Think about global commerce. Military on the front lines. Cruise ships. Anywhere there is a supply chain problem, it becomes easy to see where a 3D printer makes sense.”

Although Made in Space focuses largely on space, it builds customized solutions and what it calls “the world’s most robust” 3D printers designed for extremely rugged environments.

“A lot of parts such as airplane and automotive parts are made by 3D printing already and we don’t even know it,” Dunn continues. “Nobody asks, ‘How did the airplane engine get put together?’ Or, ‘What’s under my dashboard?’ 3D printing is well established in those areas. That will continue to grow, not because it’s catchy technology but because it makes things faster and cheaper for the end user.”

Centralized Operation

Another interesting opportunity arises with the concept of remote operation. Made in Space operates its printers on the space station remotely. Astronauts simply have to open the printer and see what’s inside. What implications might this have for simplifying and opening doors for 3D production in a commercial print setting?

“Even in industrial setting, there is no reason to think that a suite a printers couldn’t be operated by a suite of technicians remotely,” says Dunn. “All the end user has to do is turn the machine on, turn it off, and take parts out when they are finished. Think about companies like The UPS Store or Staples. They are using basic Stratysys printers. Could they could have a better printer in their stores — opening greater production opportunities — if they were remotely operated by a highly experienced, centralized team?”

3D printing still offers a lot of questions, and they are fascinating to consider. While sustainable business models still elude the commercial printing industry for now, what is clear is that as the technology develops, there are more avenues to explore. The cost of entry continues to drop, 3D scanners continue to improve, and other breakthroughs (such as remote operation) continue to keep wide open the doors of experimentation.