Why 3D Printing Is Key For Mass Customizable Products

luxmea face mask variations
LuxMea’s customized face masks. Photo source: LuxMea Studio

Consumers in today’s market expect more and more for their products and experiences to be tailored to them, and to have more control over what they pay for. The challenge in meeting that demand for mass customization is having to switch from producing hundreds to millions of the same item to efficiently producing small batches of personalized items within a similarly short time frame without costs going up astronomically. Additive manufacturing helps maximize efficiency in making large-scale personalization more accessible.

Customer-Led Designs

Companies that use 3D printing for customization set up design interfaces to allow customers to make their own design choices in regards to color, texture, material or fit. For example, some automotive companies have given their customers the ability to choose their vehicle’s colors or include personalized lettering on the interiors. Any product can potentially be customized according to what suits the buyer: cars, furniture, fixtures, jewelry and more.

3D Scanning for a Perfect Fit

With 3D scanning software becoming more prominent and user-friendly, it is easier than ever for customers to contribute to the design process themselves. The footwear industry is making use of 3D printing technology, allowing customers to make aesthetic choices for their shoes and also to personalize their insoles based on their specific foot shape, weight or running style. Customization is also becoming a standard in the tabletop gaming industry, with more and more companies offering customizable game pieces.

A smart-phone app can take a scan of a person’s face or other body part and generate a 3D file that can be used to create a product that fits them perfectly. LuxMea has used this technology to produce face masks that are not only aesthetically customizable but also provide a perfect fit for the individual wearer, making them safer and more comfortable.

3D scans can be used to personalize earphones, shoe insoles, eyewear and many more products thanks to 3D printing technology. This ability to creatively participate in the design process boosts customer satisfaction, as the ability to have more say in what they spend money on makes the process more fun and efficient for the users.

Customization
to Improve Lives

Advances in 3D scanning technology contribute heavily to the medical industry, an area where personalization can be crucial. With the ability to scan specific parts of the body, more accurate and patient-specific improvements can be made to someone’s health and wellbeing. 3D printing allows for more affordable and personalized prosthetics, implants and other aids ensuring a higher level of comfort and support. This is an area where perfect fit as well as timely delivery can be of the utmost importance to the success of medical devices and equipment. 3D printing is able to surpass the limits of traditional processes because of its ability to produce highly complex parts quicker. Customization also improves the instruments and supplies that physicians use, making them more efficient and comfortable and improving surgical outcomes.

Understanding Preferences and Trends

By allowing customers to make more of their own choices, the process provides key insights into trends and consumer preferences. Customers’ tastes can be used to help companies evolve their products and make product developments to fit the needs of their customers.

On-Demand
Manufacturing

Another benefit of using 3D printing for customized products is a shift towards more on-demand production. By placing more emphasis on smaller personalized products instead of mass-produced products before orders are received, inventories can be reduced and a substantial amount of waste can be avoided. This can save money in material costs and create a more sustainable manufacturing process.

The 3D printing industry is growing at a very fast rate, and is making it easier to transition to using 3D printing over traditional mass production methods as time goes on. However, the transition can still be expensive and time consuming. 3D printing services like Shapeways can ease that transition by giving you access to high quality manufacturing as well as tailored e-commerce support. Let us know how we can help with your mass-customization needs.

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3D Printing and Mass Customization, Hand in Glove Part V

We know that we are using far too many materials in a quest for consumption, could recycle them and could use these recycled goods in high valued materials but why use 3D printing? 3D printing is a series of technologies that are very good at making a unique shape in a day or two for far too high a cost per item. That means that if we consider volume businesses than 3D printing is currently too costly. Apart from machine time and cost as well as labor material cost is the biggest cost driver. Ideally, with recycled materials we would make low-cost materials that would enable more manufacturing. 3D printing’s sweet spot in terms of part size is still somewhere between a marble and a volleyball currently, however. So not for everything and not all the time. Intrinsicly, once you’ve invested in your mold and if you’re willing to wait for the boat to come back from China 3D printing is still a far lower throughput and higher cost technology than molding. But, if we want something now(ish) and we want it at a certain place 3D printing can give us an answer. Broadly, mass customization, fashion risk, and local production could all spark use cases in high-value consumer goods.

Local production is a hot topic due to renewed interest in nationalism and assuring one’s supply chain. If this is pertinent, rather than making something overseas local manufacturing could make significant dents in time to market. Being closer to your customer can have you respond on trend to the market quicker. A new style of fidget spinner could be in your customer’s hands before the other guy has ordered them from AliBaba. There is cause for pessimism here, however. In the fidget spinner trend, we as an industry made no inroads, and in fashion and luxury goods they often consider our parts ugly. On the extreme low end, our technology finds it difficult to leverage itself whereas on the high end we find it hard to impress. We could think of ourselves as a completely modular technology where one printer could make a 1000 hearing aid shells or dental molds per day. Theoretically, one could scale up and down manufacturing very easily and be much more versatile than other technologies. Yes, we save significant time and start-up costs over other manufacturing processes that require tooling. But, we have still to find a sweet spot where our intrinsic qualities can be appreciated.

Billie Eilish called, she wants her style back, Pull & Bear by Inditex

We can not compete with the least expensive things nor can we do battle head-on with the hand made. We can not compete against those things that are solely cost-driven and need to be made in their millions either. For the right 3D printed product to make sense, it needs to be a relatively small, high-value product that could benefit from our technology, immediacy and being made in relatively low volume on time. The sum total of these things point to a very exciting benefit that our technology has, and that is to be able to mitigate fashion risk. We do not have to plan 14 months ahead to see how many green slippers Danish people will buy. This means that huge errors in these numbers, either on the more optimistic and pessimistic side can be avoided. Yes, per item 3D printing will be more expensive but we won’t have to put 100,000 slippers in TJ MAXX or miss out on selling 200,000 orange slippers that you didn’t have in stock.

A Zara Capsule Collection

By combining up to date supply chain information from in stores with short completely controlled supply chains Inditex can already reorder parts in a number of days, redesign and deploy items in a matter of a days as well and go from an idea to a widely available in-store product in a week or two as well. We can already see that Zara’s parent company is widely successful because it mitigates fashion risk for itself. Its competitors are often still trying to estimate two years or 14 months in advance even today. To me the Zara model is sure to be the right one, but can 3D printing pull this off?

 

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LuxMea’s Customizable 3D Printed Face Masks Are Designed For Individual Fit

LuxMea Studio, a company specializing in computational design and digital fabrication, has developed customizable face masks called Nuo Masks and have partnered with Shapeways to use 3D printing technology to print each customized model. These masks are designed to be comfortable, durable, reusable and are designed to fit each person individually. The speed and affordability of 3D printing have enabled LuxMea to conduct fast prototyping and produce reliable, bespoke masks built especially for individual customers. They have just launched their kickstarter campaign to make them accessible to the public.

As the concept of
“one size fits all” falls short, especially when it comes to comfort and
safety, the ability to customize on a mass scale efficiently and affordably is
of the utmost importance. See how LuxMea and Shapeways’ partnership facilitates
mass customization with the Nuo face masks:

Photo source: LuxMea Studio

How did
your idea for the Nuo Mask start?

We have been working on Personalized Profile + Customized Products (PPCP™) over the last two years to create a bespoke experience for everyone. Our first project was with doctors from Mass General Hospital. We have also been working on a bespoke glasses project and when we found out we couldn’t get a mask that fit, we naturally thought 3D printing and mass personalization was the answer.

How are
the Nuo Masks made?

The masks use an interchangeable
filter that filters 99.9% micropollutant particles and an ergonomically
designed dual valve system. The fit is determined by an online smart guide that
takes individual measurements of the face. A bespoke design is then generated
based on those measurements. A customizable label on the mask is also offered.
The design is then sent to Shapeways where it is printed and shipped out to
customers.

Photo source: LuxMea Studio

What
was involved in the initial prototyping stages?

Prototyping involved a functional test, fit
test, structural optimization, and user data measurement test. Then we used 3D
printing to quickly test our ideas.

Why 3D
printing? What other manufacturing methods have you considered?

We have not considered other manufacturing
methods. The geometry we are working with, for example, is not suited for CNC
or injection molding techniques. We believe that 3D printing enables new
possibilities for mass customization and personalization. It makes perfect
sense to us to 3D print personalized products. There is the clear benefit of
fast prototyping. With 3D printing, we have printed tens of revisions within a
period of three weeks.

Photo source: LuxMea Studio

Aside
from comfort and reusability, how does your 3D printed mask compare to a
disposable one?

The 3-ply disposable (or surgical) masks are made from a soft material so there is no way to seal the nose, face and chin properly which makes for serious leakage problems. By creating a custom nose, face and chin profile, our mask has a much better fit and seal. N95 masks require professional training to wear them properly. Because they are “one size fits all”, a fair amount of pressure is required which often leaves a mark on the face. The Nuo 3D mask has passed the N95 fit test by one of our hospital clients at their facility.

How do
you make personal customization possible virtually?

We have plans to release an online AI for users to get instant feedback. We are considering Autodesk Forge cloud. Autodesk has been very supportive in our past endeavors.

What
materials are you using to print the masks and why?

We are considering versatile nylon, for two reasons. The first reason is that the material is very reliable. Second reason is the cost. We want to make sure it is affordable for everyone.

Photo source: LuxMea Studio

What
are your expectations with the kickstarter campaign?

Kickstarter is the platform to validate our idea. Mass customization is a challenging task, and we believe kickstarter is the right community to bring our vision alive.

What
role does Shapeways play in bringing your product to life?

We have been working with Shapeways since early 2016 and Shapeways has always been our trusted and go-to partner for commercial 3D printing production. We had a meeting last year and discussed the possibility for mass customization. The Shapeways API allows certain software platforms to export files directly to Shapeways, without the need of manually uploading each file. Without Shapeways’s API, we would have to limit the quantity and increase the cost to account for manually uploading and checking for each file.

Do you have a project that could benefit from a partnership with Shapeways? Tell us how Shapeways could help you with your manufacturing needs!

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3D Printing and Mass Customization, Hand in Glove Part IV

Earlier in this series, we’ve discussed how we’re drunk on consumption, how we use up too much material and that recycling has some constraints. Now we’ll look at how creating and using high valued goods using recycling and sustainable materials is key. Whereas a lot of the especially wasteful waste of today is used on the low end of the cost scale. Plastic bags and plastic packaging survives for only a few days before it is disposed of in landfill. Materials such as PE, HDPE and PP are low cost and versatile. Thermosets can’t even be recycled into anything meaningful but can become perfect forms for a brief time. The lowest value applications also see, typically, the largest volumes and the shortest life of the material in that part. A nice ASA mirror could spend a few decades on a car and a PEI part could live in an aircraft for a decade while polyethylene bags last a day or two. The lest functional materials are also expensive to correctly identify and sort, something that is still often done manually. Due to all of this there is a mismatch between the high value needs of today’s consumers and the low value availability of abundant materials close to them.

Noble and trusted materials such as marble or wood, feel luxurious and long-lasting to the touch. Meanwhile, the feel of a polymer has made myriad inexpensive memories in our lives. There are notable exceptions, some high-value products use polymers well. The polypropylene handles of Wusthof knives, for example, seem very durable and luxurious. The German knife firm has gone further however and now uses “smoked oak” fiber composite materials on its Epicurean line of knives. Instead of an oil-based polymer or a costly wood, these fiber-based materials can give the manufacturer lower cost while maintaining good quality and a great feel. Outdoor retailer Patagonia has used a significant portion of recycled polyester in its recognizable product line. 72% of its collection now uses one recycled material or other and the firm also uses recycled wool, cotton, and cashmere.

One could look at other ways than just recycling materials and turning them into near new ones. Patagonia’s worn wear program patches up your jackets so they look visibly repaired but last longer. Asos’ reclaimed vintage line reportedly uses deadstock and old styles and turns them into new ones while Beyond Retro uses vintage clothing as fabric for new styles. Alternative methods can be found in 3D printing where materials such as hemp fill PLA replace an energy-intensive material with lower intensity hemp used as a filler. I like Wusthofs fiber examples and the 3D printed hemp fill because what you can do as a firm or designer is to craft a new feel, look and process to give people a completely new sensation. Using low impact and recycled materials it is possible to give a wholly contemporary branded material a sense of purpose that showcases its humble recycled origins while making the people using it feel better about themselves. Positioning these products in the higher echelon of branded products elevates the recycling process and makes for good business cases. Yes recycled napkins will elevate and use a vast quantity of material in a “morally superior” way but if we make good recycled materials design the pinnacle of achievement we will position renewed goods as a growing business set to expand across the globe.

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3D Printing and Mass Customization, Hand in Glove Part I

The industrial revolution saw the advent of mass manufacturing. The assembly line and the hourly wage worker invented, splitting up products into parts made through a series of repetitive serial tasks. Hand in glove, the worker and the line would go on to manufacture the world we now live in. Factories could produce millions of things, as long as these things were identical. These low-cost products still needed to find millions of customers hower. The science and art of persuasion and psychology were therefore deployed to create a need and later a desire and subsequently a habit for a product and a marque associated with that product. The modern world grew up together, with mass brands enabling much of the mass media and strengthening systems of companies working together. A chemistry company would invent a polymer that would allow for less expensive buttons that would be used by a nearby button molding company that would grow in production as the local shirt firm grew to fulfill the demand for the regional department store to make a product fitted not to you, but to who you wanted to become in a new 9 to five world.

Aspirations, the need for needful things, self-worth through consumption, and cluttered storage units are now the result. These are the apparent fossils of a stratified system of things. Other things loom so large as to be imperceptible. We see a movement towards minimalism where people are abrogating stuff in their life. They bask in the glory of not having or wanting things. In that self-flagellation in the face of consumerism, the not wanting things, the consciously not desiring them, and making this a core of your life still makes things, in the not having, an important part of our lives. They are reformed addicts, teetotalers who yearn for a drink but smother it in sincerity and betterment. Yes, it is noble, their pursuit, but their past addictions have changed them.

We yearn for nature but don’t realize that we only needed to invent the word nature at one point when we’d screwed up certain portions of surroundings to such a degree as to no longer be identifiable as “world.” We realized that there was the unscrewedupyet and the screwed up, and we had to come up with a word for the unscrewedupyet, and this word became nature. Forever after we see ourselves as man in nature or man versus nature or man shaping nature; perhaps not realizing that we have also constructed the construct. Our consumerism and mass-manufactured understanding have ground our lens. Suburbia, the middle class, left or right, almost all of the -isms, the state, human rights, equality, our interpretation of our minds, language; these lenses themselves have been shaped by our shaping of a mass-manufactured world. If we see ourselves and our time, it is through the distortion of a mass consumption society. Economic growth and the market are sacrosanct, alters upon which we sacrifice our earth. Would you grind up your house for paper? Yet we, the “wise man” are shredding our planet for paper. Worse still, it’s now imaginary paper, and we know that it will lose in value each year.

By now, it should be abundantly clear that we are not going to save the planet. In the memorable words of Agent Smith, “Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet.” We will grow uncontrolled in our home until we consume it whole. How Western and quaint this whole idea is of man stepping in and saving what we’re destroying. It’s a bit like if the mice in your house would all of a sudden band together to repair the holes in your kitchen cabinet. A sudden wave of consciousness and caring would wash over them like some mind-control experiment in the Totally Spies universe and off they’d go to merrily like Christmas Elves repair the havoc forgetting themselves altogether. We have always made, and we have always destroyed. Only, now, it is getting out of hand because there are so many of us, and we’ve gotten so good at it. It is human to make, to want, to busy oneself with the accumulation of things; lets accept this. It is naive to assume we’ll all of a sudden go on a stuff diet. Who would wish something like that upon us? Constant hunger pangs for things we can’t have? There is a better way, and this is the combination of mass customization and 3D printing, leading to a more well made better fitting world. I’ll tell you much more next time, but there’s a sale on, and I have to buy a sweater I don’t need.

Rob Lee, Johan Neven, Vangelis Kalampalikis, Alfred Grupstra.

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Interview with Len Wagner of Deer Valley Ventures

Len Wanger

Len Wagner

Len Wagner is Chief Technology Manager at Impossible Objects, Inc. He is also currently a Managing Partner at Deer Valley Ventures, investing in early stage advanced and additive manufacturing companies. He gives good insight into both the technical world as well as the financial realm within additive manufacturing. He also is involved as a chairman of the FabLab Association for the Museum of Science and Industry.

What has lead you to this point?

I started my career in computer graphics. I was focused on the software that produced the images. I did a lot of graphics simulations. This lead to CAD and finite element analysis. In 1992 I was a researcher and was able to work on one of the first 3D printers. I was able to help researchers to visualize their data. Later on I was able to work on the financial side as I run a fund. I sit between these two things. I am also involved in a lot of STEM education as well and it has been important for me to give back. It took a while, but I figured out I had a skill of explaining the technical side to the business side. It took a while to realize that was important.

What kind of developments have recently disrupted this marketplace?

We have seen a big movement in the industry. We have moved from prototyping to manufacturing. We are at the very beginning stages of this. Customers and vendors are doing things to make this transition. It is a very different set of requirements from making prototypes to actual production levels. We at Impossible Objects are somewhat betting on this. The word disruption is funny. It is a slow methodical process to move in this field. Manufacturing moves very conservatively and methodically. More parts are moving toward digital manufacturing and additive manufacturing. If you talk to a large aircraft manufacturer like Boeing, a modern aircraft has hundreds of parts. A small percentage of these parts are continuously being made with additive manufacturing. Good steady progress is important. The full life cycle of material properties is important to understand.

Can you explain your work and day to day operations for Impossible Objects?

I run the engineering group as the Chief Technology Manager. The main function we have is designing and building new machines. We want to improve the process with new materials and machinery. We work on process development and I also help to make an automated machine that may assist with these types of process developments. I also work with customers for them to work with machines.

Impossible Objects

You have an interesting mix of skills in terms of venture capital as well as engineering. Can you give some insight into how you operate within both worlds?

It really comes down to building teams and having communication skills. It is important to build the communication skills. It’s important to translate the cultures. Engineers have a certain way of speaking and it is important to be able to explain things in terms of the business side and that realm of communication.

I feel the future of the additive sector lies within the precision of 3 dimensional imaging techniques. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it is important to measure the quality control of a product. 3D optical scanning at a cheap rate is not really on the market just yet and I think there is a great market need for it. Why is there not an open source package that is oriented towards this?

Fab Lab Association

People compare the additive manufacturing industry to the early days of computers. Do you agree or disagree and why?

I largely agree but it is not a perfect analogy. I agree that the transformation for being able to do manufacturing cheaper and faster at a small scale is similar to how programming costs went down extremely over time. Authoring is hard to do in 3D. Thinking in 3D is difficult. I also do not think there is a Moore’s law of Additive Manufacturing. I do think the ability to change the manufacturing sector is large.

Museum of Science and Industry Fab Lab

Can you explain some of the work you do as chairman of the FabLab Association for the Museum of Science and Industry?

With the FabLab Network, I am an advisor to the board of the MIT FabLab Network. The Museum of Science and Industry has a FabLab and it is great to expose people to one aspect of the maker movement. Schools and organizations are allowed some exposure and experience to this environment. There is an educational aspect of the Museum as well. This also invigorates people. It sparks the interest in people as well. I help to raise funds and I advise the lab. The equipment has become relatively cheap so schools can have access to these items. It is important for us to teach educators how to use these types of machines. It is important to give people access as well as give people mentorship.

What are some key points that companies should be focusing on in terms of the additive manufacturing strategies?

We must focus on material properties. It also is important to know the speed of prints. It is also important to have the economics down pat as well. Lastly, I think these machines have to work within your larger manufacturing environments. We are adding a camera to slice every image of all levels that have been printed. It is also to take advantage of digital manufacturing and mass customization.

Fast Things 7: On Demand Manufacturing, Float Like a Butterfly

“Insurers receive premiums upfront and pay claims later….This collect-now, pay-later model leaves us holding large sums…money we call “float” …that will eventually go to others. Meanwhile, we get to invest this float for Berkshire’s benefit.” Warren Buffet

Float like a butterfly sting like a bee…his hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.” Muhammad Ali

If things are to be produced quickly, on demand is the final goal. Sneakers or headphones, while you wait, would be wonderful for 3D Printing. Now we can only really make very tiny things limited in usability and finish while people stood by. Even the most patient would not be able to deal with the excruciatingly slow print times of current 3D printers. I think our technology would be seen as a lot less magical if someone would have told the muggles that it takes us between four and twenty-four hours to 3D print an iPhone case. Happily, we jump skipped and missed telling them this, so they still think we’re some whizz-bang wish fulfillment technology. If we’re realistic, however, we must admit that it will take us some time to improve our surface finish and quality for many goods. We can do a lot now, but we need to cherry pick the right applications for the technology to make sense.

If we do look at marble to volleyball sized objects out of polymers that are relatively valuable because they need a custom shape or texture, there is a world for us to explore. Insoles, soles, sunglasses, headphones, golf club handles, any other sports equipment handles, steering wheels, any hats or helmets, goggles, prosthetics, braces, jewelry, Bijoux, and toys are already large categories that are each worth many billions more than our entire industry. Making a dent in any of them would validate our technology. On the one hand, we can outperform by enabling the implementation of true mass customization for relatively low-cost items worldwide. We will cover this in another article in this series. A much less hype sounding thing can be done simultaneously as well: on-demand production. Producing on demand has some apparent advantages that benefit businesses.

Faster to market. You can go from an idea to a product in a day with 3D Printing. That means that your design teams can get products in stores faster. Quicker response to trends and wishes means that your offering can be more compelling and more on point. Beat your competition by being available before they’ve even made a deal with a supplier.

Agile Engineering. You can also develop products through agile engineering, whereby more iterations lead to more testing and better end products. Other teams in your company can provide data or feedback, which can lead to changes in the final design.

Feedback based tweaking. At the same time, you will change what “final design” means. With few items in store, you can quickly drop something that doesn’t work or print more if it does.  You can listen to your customers and tweak products day by bad based on their feedback. An SKU that would run for a year now lasts for a day, ever adapted ever better for the market and the prospect.

Perfect sizes. By producing on demand, you can in a short time have the perfect size available for each customer. Also, in terms of size, this means less stock and less unsold stock. If your production times were manageable, you could have one fitting unit per discrete size available. Or with other types of things may have one example product that can then be customized. One size fits all things.

Niche products. You can develop products for specific niches, even if they are ultra small. Is there a group of blues aficionados in your town? Perhaps make some earbud covers specifically tailored to this group, or design something around a particular type of person specific to your city.

Hyperlocal. Maybe the graffiti artist only active on your block wants to turn her work into a broche? Maybe your local middle school basketball team wants a cookie with their logo on it?

Customize. Maybe your next baby shower needs a personal touch. With a mother into cheese and unicycles and a baby named Brittney, we can make an ice cube mold for that specific party with those elements as an inspiration. Very touching things made for one can be created with this technology. A personalized cookie tin with cookies with your name on them or personalized cookies with JohnLovesBritney, SamLovesBritney etc. could also be made. Your steak restaurant can easily have their logo seared into their steak with 3D Printing. There are lots of things to explore.

Fail fast fail often. None of the above ideas have to make sense. The beauty of our technology is our ability to fail quickly and relatively inexpensively. You can try many different products with 3D Printing, and many can be happy failures. Start a lab in a big city that just makes ten products a day, every day. 

Get in the door products. You can also for a few bucks make products whose only purpose is to get people in the door. Do things that provoke, inspire, and amaze that no one will ever buy. No problem. I once had a frisbee made that we didn’t want to sell so we priced it so prohibitively that no one would buy. Meanwhile, we did get a lot of traffic from the announcement, and the high price.

Timely products. Raptors, win? Make a product. Raptors lose by 6 make a product referencing that. Raptors lose? Don’t end up stuck with a million championship shirts for a championship that never happens. As a side note, I learned from a friend that for NBA finals and Superbowls hundreds of thousands of t-shirts are ordered in advance with usually the same company ordering both team shirts. The winning shirt is sold while the losing shirt is sold overseas for scrap prices. On some level, this is a comfort; somewhere a person is walking around in a hat or t-shirt of the alternative universe where your team won that disastrous final. Super Bowl XXXVI St. Louis Rams World Champions. 

Less fashion risk. With 3D Printing, you have less fashion risk. You don’t have to anticipate two years in advance that you can sell 100,000 of something. If you don’t sell it, you don’t then have to dump it at a discount store. And you don’t have to overproduce just in case either. Changes in preference or style can be avoided by producing on demand.

More daring. You can also afford to be more daring overall by adding new things to your collection that pushes the envelope in terms of design. Bold designs can be used to create buzz, garner attention, or engage with people who are perhaps a bit too fashion forward for much of your stuff. With lower upfront costs, you can design more daring things that do not have to do well.

No stock. Companies tie up tens of millions of dollars in stock. By having no stock apart from the needed raw materials, you can deploy your cash more efficiently. Freeing up cash for investment, advertising, or R&D, can be hugely advantageous to firms, especially in declining or difficult markets. One firm breaking the status quo could tip the balance in closely fought industries. Free free cash flow can be massive for firms, but the fact that the capital is not all tied up in stock also gives management a chance to be more daring, responsive, and proactive.

Float. In on-demand markets, your customer pays you first. Yes, you do have the employee, space, printer, and material, but they pay you when they order a product. You then turn around and make it for them. Rely on outsourced production? It gets even more beautiful with you paying the outsourcing firm end of the month plus 15 while your customer paid you 26 days before. In these scenarios, you don’t have to buy something on January 1, 2017, and pay half for it so you can sell it in 2019. Or your supplier doesn’t have to finance this same similar step. For the finished product, you get your money up front and then make the person what they need. This improves the fundamentals of 3D printing businesses to the point that it can be used to outcompete those with more difficult access to money or with damaging payment terms. Few seem to really get how float and better capital utilization specifically will have huge impacts on 3D printing competitiveness.

Through agile engineering, 3D printing and on-demand production companies can outcompete through more accurate product development and more efficient deployment of cash in the business. Don’t get into 3D Printing because it is cute, cool or fun. Get in 3D Printing before someone annihilates you using it.

Images: Jan Timmons, Formlabs, ESA.

Twikit Showcases Mass Customized Braces and Automotive Parts at Rapid 2019

Belgian mass customization software company Twikit showcased a number of mass customization cases and applications at RAPID + TCT 2019. The Twikit team was able to show BMW Group’s Mini customized products, customized motorcycle parts and unique braces.

Twikit is really the only firm that has specialized individualization software that can readily mass customize unique parts for 3D printing. Whereas you could go to other firms to build custom digital supply chains to tie into your 3D printing workflow or you could cobble together half a dozen software tools to do the same in an improvised way Twikit’s is a dedicated tool. It was built from the ground up to enable the rapid parametrization of new geometries that could then made with 3D printing. Mass customization is usually a wonderful subject for conferences but most corporates shy away from actually implementing the technology. Too complex, ruffling the feathers of the supply chain and manufacturing guys and a perception that it would be hard to implement scare companies off. Whereas I’m usually very skeptical of startups I’m very optimistic about Twikit’s prospects and their tooling. The company has spent a long time pioneering deep in the darkest woods and the world has finally caught up with it.

The BMW mass customization case is, of course, the one that caught all the headlines. Thanks to Twikit Mini owners can now use an online tool to mass customize decorative items on their cars. The software connects with BMW’s internal workflow and existing management software to give a traceable manufacturable solution to the German luxury auto giant.

Twikit also worked together with OEM Formlabs to create customized motorcycle handles for startup Tarform. The handlebar is a central element in your control, contact with and experience with the motorcycle. I’ve personally long believed that handles for tennis rackets, golf clubs, steering wheels and all manner of things are a huge applications so I love this implementation.

“In the Twikit software platform, the customer can make his desired adjustments until he’s satisfied with the final design. This customization experience can be experienced on both smartphone and desktop. The desired and final product is saved as a 3D file and will be exported within the cloud to an stl. file which will be sent afterward to Formlabs’ 3D printer. To become the final product, Formlabs makes use of flexible resin, which allows bendable/compressible parts to be printed. Now the actual production process can be set in motion.”

I love the idea that through 3D printing you could achieve better ergonomics, or perhaps have a more comfortable ride or better control over the bike. The user’s increased satisfaction with the bike because they designed part of it will also help. You can see a video here of the process.

The application with the most far-reaching implications, however, was one where Twikit’s software was used to make customized braces. Through Twikit 3D scan data could be turned into a unique orthotic or prosthetic. Here the software was used to obtain a precise comfortable fit to the human body. In applications such as postoperative braces, braces and across the spectrum in orthotics and prosthetics, the need for something like this is huge.  Twikit has created a key bit of technology that can really accelerate the adoption of mass customization and 3D printing. With the right partners this could be pushed out to millions of parts worldwide.

Casting New Light on Killer Applications

If there’s one constant throughout my career in both 2D and 3D printing, it’s that the key to growth lies in the ability to uncover and exploit “killer applications.” Nowadays people tend to think of software when they hear that term. They’re so used to thinking about apps on their phones and other devices. For them, a killer app is one that has a billion or more downloads.

But killer applications exist with many different technologies. For example the connected home seems like it will be one of the killer applications for the Internet of Things. People are buying all kinds of devices, from smart kitchen appliances to voice activated speakers and video doorbells, all in an effort to improve life in and around their living space.

While 3D printing is a 30+ year old business, the technology is just now becoming good enough, fast enough and cheap enough for killer applications to percolate. Most people in the industry believe those will evolve in key markets like automotive, aerospace and consumer products, among others. They certainly are moving in that direction, but arguably the industry with the fastest acceleration thus far is medical devices.

There’s plenty of examples out there. The hearing aid industry migrated entirely to additive manufacturing in less than 500 days. If you’re in that business now, parts of your product are most likely 3D printed. Invisible teeth aligners are another example. A scan is taken at the beginning of treatment and an algorithm determines each progression. Molds are then manufactured and the clear plastic aligners are formed around them. Often it can require a dozen or more stages to completely straighten a person’s teeth. With that much customization it’s hard to imagine the product could even exist without 3D scanning and printing technology.

Another application that seems to be booming is the manufacture of custom orthotics and prosthetics. Like hearing aids and invisible aligners, the ability to scan and print based on unique physical requirements creates a competitive advantage that other production methods can’t match. Digital technologies enable mass customization.

But it’s not only a matter of producing a better product. The environmental impact can also be profound.

”iOrthotics produces custom orthotics for the medical industry,” says Founder and General Manager, Dean Hartley. “Subtractive manufacturing is the ‘old school’ method. When orthotics are made that way, approximately 1.4 kilograms of material goes in the waste bin. With additive manufacturing, the parts comes out completely finished, saving a lot of time and skilled labor. But waste is the biggest component. With 3D printing we only have about 30 or 40 grams of waste per pair. In a facility where you’re making 10,000 pairs of orthotics per year, using the traditional method you’d be throwing about 15 tons of wasted plastic into a landfill yearly. With additive, we essentially save all that waste.”

Market Size Matters

In each of those examples, one of the big reasons for success is the size of the market. Approximately 48 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. That number only increases as our population ages. Another 30 million have dental issues that are severe enough to require some degree of orthodontic intervention. Over the past 50 years having braces have become so common that it’s now estimated that 50% of children end up wearing them before reaching adulthood. The orthotics and prosthetics industry is also far from small, estimated at $8 billion in annual revenue.

Life Enabled’s Prosthetics Being Fit.

But there are other areas of medicine that are ripe for digital disruption. Consider the market for casts and splints. It’s estimated that in the U.S. alone, 6 million people suffer a fracture each year. Other research puts the numbers much higher suggesting that hospitals, emergency rooms and physicians offices actually treat more like 20 to 30 million fractures annually. Of those, more than half are of the upper extremities, including the upper arm, forearm, wrist and fingers. Lower limb fractures including hip, upper leg, lower leg, ankle, foot and toes are reported in slightly lower numbers.  

Of the totals, it’s possible that upper arm, lower arm and wrist fractures (which usually require a splint, cast, or both) happen 10 million times per year. With lower extremities, let’s assume the addressable part of the market (upper leg, lower leg, ankle and foot) happens another 5 million times per year. If so, the total market size is maybe 15 million units annually. If all of that is true, then the market could be worth $3.5 billion or more.

How Casts Are Made Now

There are basically two ways casts are made today. Both involve wrapping the body part in a sleeve and a padded middle payer. Then either plaster or fiberglass is wrapped around, forming an exterior layer. While the materials are cheap and easy to acquire, the traditional approach offers several downsides. In fact, anyone who’s ever had to wear a traditional cast will tell you how much they suck.

Both options are bulky and add significant weight for the wearer, although fiberglass is definitely the lighter of the two options. Neither option is water resistant, making bathing difficult. They also aren’t breathable, so they end up being itchy, stuffy and smelly. The plaster versions can also be difficult to x-ray, creating instances where the cast must be removed and reapplied.

Who Makes It?

In most cases a cast isn’t made by a doctor or nurse. An orthopedic cast technician is the person who actually immobilizes a broken bone by straightening the limb and setting it in a cast, typically under the direction of a doctor or surgeon. The technician also removes the cast once the surgeon has determined the bone has healed completely.

Often hospitals and other medical facilities have a dedicated lab where casts are made and removed.

How Could the Industry be Disrupted?

With the prevalence of digital imaging technology, it’s not that difficult or expensive to get a three dimensional image of the affected area. Just like with invisible aligners or orthotics, once the image is processed it can be used to manufacture a product that’s made specifically for the user.

Advancements in 3D printing make it possible to create a lightweight, plastic cast that provide a better fit with fewer downsides. First, because they mimic the scan they can be more anatomically accurate. But also because they can be made from nylon (or other durable plastics) they can be tough and strong enough to handle the rigors of daily life. They’re also waterproof and more hygenic. They can even be designed with a lattice type structure to reduce weight and greatly enhance breathability, creating a much more comfortable experience for the patient.

Barriers to Entry

One might think speed is the primary barrier to entry. After all, a plaster or fiberglass cast can be made on the spot, with little need for complex machinery or tooling. But that’s not always a challenge. Often, especially after surgery, a patient will be fitted with a splint for anywhere from 24 hours to a week, to allow swelling and other post-operative issues to subside. Whether it’s manufactured onsite or elsewhere, there’s typically time.

Cost is certainly a challenge. While 3D printing has gotten much cheaper in recent years, its difficult to compete with the cost of labor and raw materials involved with traditional casts. Orthopedic technicians make anywhere between $30 to $65,000 and the average cast takes 20 to 45 minutes to fit. In the case of either plaster or fiberglass, material costs are negligible.

Yet still, the average cost of a cast (excluding physician fees) is estimated at somewhere between $225 and $250. At some point 3D printing becomes just as affordable.

The Who and the Where

Like every killer application, it seems the bigger questions are, “who produces the product, and where?” In the orthotics business, companies like iOrthotics have landed on a model where they manufacture from a central facility and then deliver to podiatrists and clinics who resell their products. In the dental field, NivellMedical is following a similar approach towards selling and distributing invisible aligners.


Could the same strategy be used with casts and splints? At least one company thinks so. ActivArmor has developed a process where a scan is taken by one of their orthopedic clinical partners, creating a 3D model of the patient’s limb. They then use it to create a completely individualized and fitted splint based on the physician’s specific positioning and instructions. The ActivArmor™ device is then custom fabricated for the patient and shipped back to the clinic for installation and fitment.

Outsourcing Has Its Advantages

Of course this strategy makes a lot of sense for health care providers who don’t want to invest in the capital equipment and expertise it takes to produce custom casts and splints in house. For dedicated service providers, making these types of products is their core competency. Through decades of experience they’ve learned to optimize their operations and produce the best possible products. They invest in the people, processes and technology needed to manufacture high quality products as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.

But, as I’ve mentioned more than a few times in the past, any time customization is involved, friction is inevitable. Customers have to spend more time trying to articulate their needs and preferences.

Workflow is Key

In any environment where products are personalized a digital workflow is critical. You must give customers the ability to communicate their needs and submit all the information necessary to successfully complete each job. But in the medical industry it takes more than a slick front-end. Data must be locked down to protect patient confidentiality and meet other industry regulations. For this reason, service bureaus selling into that market need to work with software providers who can ensure the security of their processes and data.

Artificial Intelligence

Beyond quoting, order entry and job management, the company that successfully disrupts this market will also need robust software to convert a patient’s digital scan into a fully optimized plastic cast that can be additively manufactured as quickly and inexpensively as possible. I’ve been saying for years that the combination of multiple emerging “platform” technologies could create a lot of interesting new business opportunities. In this example, artificial intelligence and 3D printing could be combined to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Just Do It

But the good news is, companies are already doing it in plenty of related fields. Whether we’re talking hearing aids, invisible braces, or prosthetics, companies have built business models to that allow them to receive 3D scans and convert them into unique physical products. In some cases they’re fully automated. In others there’s someone behind the curtain pulling levers each time an order is placed. But even if they’re relying on labor today they know they must replace it with technology tomorrow. One is scalable, the other is not.

While splints and casts have the potential to become a “killer application” for 3D printing in the medical industry, they’re certainly not alone in that market or others. For existing companies and startups, the challenge is to find a need and better solve it. Those who do have the potential to own a niche. Those who wait for an application to be developed have little choice but to commoditize it. In a complex environment, that’s too often difficult to achieve and sustain.

John Hauer is the Founder and CEO of Get3DSmart, a consulting practice which helps companies understand and capitalize on BIG opportunities with 3D printing.

John’s original content has been featured on Forbes, TechCrunch, Futurism, QZ.com, and 3DPrint.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @Get3DJohn

3D Printing News Briefs: March 16, 2019

We’re starting with 3D software and medical 3D printing in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, and then moving on to stories about some cool 3D printed projects. Sinterit has updated the software for its SLS 3D printers, and Deutsche Bahn is increasing efficiency with software solutions by 3YOURMIND. Medical 3D printing is on the rise in Sri Lanka. A designer whose work we’ve previously covered used Carbon technology to 3D print a unique pair of heeled shoes, and an Indian company used 3D printing to reduce the production time for a 6 ft superhero.

Sinterit Releases New Software Update

Desktop SLS 3D printer manufacturer Sinterit just released a new update for its Studio software, which all Lisa and Lisa Pro 3D printer users will now be able to access for a better consumer experience. The update gives these users a lot of positive changes, including more detailed and precise 3D printing with its PA11 Onyx and TPU Flexa materials and optimized slicing, which makes it easier and faster to manipulate models, while also using less RAM.

Sinterit has also made it possible to stream video via WiFi from its 3D printers’ cameras, so users can keep an eye on their prints remotely. In addition, the 3D printers now have an easier step-by-step guide on the screen to make the startup procedure smoother, and a new “About” button on the menu is helpful for optimized model preparation inside Sinterit Studio.

Deutsche Bahn Using 3YOURMIND Software Solutions

German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) has been working hard over the last five years to continue developing its 3D printing division. Now, DB has joined industrial 3D printing software solutions provider 3YOURMIND in a strategic partnership in order to increase the efficiency of its 3D printing processes, and also determine possible 3D printing applications from around its company in order to assemble a digital spare parts warehouse. The Berlin-based company’s software platforms allow customers to exploit 3D printing potential with digital workflows, and 3YOURMIND supports DB’s ambition to expand its own additive manufacturing reach.

3YOURMIND’s software will give DB employees access to a simple digital interface so they’re able to quickly submit new ideas for 3D printable parts based on applications they encounter every day. Then, the platform provides an analysis and identifies uses cases with the highest production potential, before DB experts shine a spotlight on the employees and choose the best projects to send into production.

Medical 3D Printing in Sri Lanka

According to Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, the Health Minister for the South Asian island of Sri Lanka, 3D printing for health applications will now be available for the first time in the country beginning this month at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL). Minister Senaratne made this announcement in Colombo – the country’s largest city – at the 26th Annual Scientific sessions of the College of Medical Administrators, stating that doctors can provide more personalized care by using modern technology like 3D printing.

In conjunction with this announcement, RCS2 Technologies, the country’s sole 3D printer manufacturer with its Thrimána line, will be working with the country’s Ministry of Health to start up a 3D printed prosthetic manufacturing project.

3D Printed Generative Heels

Talented designer Masaharu Ono, currently working for Japan’s DiGITAL ARTISAN.inc, is well-known for his creative 3D printed projects in both the fashion and technology worlds. Now he’s back in the fashion world with a 3D printed pair of high heels that you’ve got to see to believe. On the artisanal project “Generative Heel – Formless” for DiGITAL ARTISAN, Ono worked with casting company Castem, chemical manufacturer JSR, and 3D printing company Carbon to create the sky-high heels.

“This is concept model for mass customization, but I just getting ready, I will sell it as soon as possible,” Ono told 3DPrint.com.

3D Printed Window Spiderman

An Indian manufacturing company by the name of STPL3D received an unusual order from a traditional fine arts manufacturer: an extremely detailed, 6-foot Spiderman sculpture for the opening of a new entertainment store. Typically, a project like this would take closer to two months, but STPL3D’s given deadline was just one week away. Using 3D printing, the company was able to complete it in just four days, which helped lower the cost and weight of the sculpture as well. Digital sculpting was used to modify an open source file to better fit the client’s needs.

“Our production team wanted to take full advantage of our array of 15 FDM machines so we could finish the project before the timeline, so we divided the 6 ft* 4 ft sculpture into 20 parts, then our post-processing team assembled the spiderman in 6-7 hours with plastic welding and glue to bring it in real shape that was required by the client,” Hardik Prajapati of STPL3D told 3DPrint.com.

“Post processing is always fun and all about teamwork. Our artistic and post-processing team played a major role in finishing the project that had matched our client’s expectation.”

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