As if Carol Hardy and I hadn’t filled our yearly quota of time spent in an Uber back in January (CES Las Vegas to LA - the road trip that never was), we decided to head back to the U.S. this past Summer, this time to Boston, where the Ubers are in abundance and 3D printing companies are aplenty.
Additive manufacturing is everywhere in Massachusetts (MA). Whether in industrial estates across its neighbouring towns, or in the window of a University of Boston lab, it’s almost as prevalent as Harvard paraphernalia and seafood restaurants (completely wasted on us, as my Wahlburgers receipts will testify).
Our first stop was Arcam, the metal additive manufacturing leader that made headlines last year thanks to a major 76% acquisition from GE as it laid the foundations for its new GE Additive vertical. Known for its Electron Beam Melting process, the Swedish-founded company has been around since 1997 and offers a range of metal systems specifically designed for the manufacture of end-use orthopaedic and aerospace components.
The transition for Arcam following the GE purchase is an ongoing process. We arrive at the facility shortly after Arcam reported the sale of ten of its systems to the company, further solidifying the engineering giant’s commitment. Arcam has recently undergone a rebrand, adopting GE blue, and together with Concept Laser, the other firm to be acquired by GE for a sum of $1.4 billion, will have one of the biggest spots on the show floor at formnext powered by tct this year.
Arcam truly is a global operation. In the space of an hour with Leslie Frost and Bruce Bradshaw, we cover activity in China, UK, Europe and the U.S, including China’s first certified orthopaedic part produced using EBM and the role Arcam is playing in the new GE Additive Engineering Services. Lots to keep a close watch on over the next year as the company ramps up its activity as a GE Company.
Outside Rize Inc. HQ.
Outside Rize Inc. HQ
Across the way is industry newbie Rize. The tech may be new but the team behind it boasts a level of experience most startups could only dream of. In January the company introduced the Rize One office-friendly printer promising true functional prototypes with limited post-processing thanks to a unique Augmented Polymer Deposition process that creates a layer between print and support, meaning supports can literally be popped off - it is an oddly satisfying process.
Here we caught up with Julie Reece and the company’s new President, Eugene Giller. As one of its founders, Eugene has temporarily taken the reigns following the departure of Frank Marangell (now President of BigRep America) in May while the company continues an executive search for a permanent CEO. We took a tour around the lab which houses several iterations of the machine, showing how it has evolved into a system that’s easy to operate and fits comfortably on a desk in your office.
Rize is purely interested in the industrial plastics space which it believes represents the bulk of the market at around 80%. Within that, it’s ideal for mechanical assemblies, spare parts, tooling and low volume custom parts. It could benefit a range of industries, particularly medical due to the safety of the material and process, and also applications where the printer would enable field-based on-demand manufacture for parts that can be labelled using its durable blue ink functionality.
Rize is busy building up its sales channels, focussing first on the U.S. and commencing its global effort at TCT Show where it began seeking partners. A closer look at the machine, and a quick peek behind the scenes, shows that the Rize One has been smartly built with room for upgrades. Rize clearly has a plan for where this technology could go next, whether that’s colour or possibly electronics due to its unique blend of FDM and inkjet, the roadmap for the near future is very open.
Watertight print sample from the Ultimaker 3.
In Cambridge, Dutch desktop printer manufacturer Ultimaker is putting its latest family of 3D printers through its paces with a range of functional materials. Ultimaker has only been in the U.S. for little over three years and the MA office, its third in the country, is manned by a small team of 12. We sat down with Ultimaker North America President, John Kawola to talk expansion, the Ultimaker 3 and its growing roster of industrial customers that are showing there is more to the desktop than trinkets and consumers.
The Ultimaker 3 line, launched towards the end of 2016, represents the biggest portion of the company’s sales and much of that is a result of this surge in industrial customers which Kawola says has made the desktop become a “serious contender” in the space (full interview in TCT Europe 25.5).
In contrast to the other companies we visit during our stay, family owned business, Armstrong Mold doesn't manufacture machines but it sure knows how to use them. We were met by Vice President, Paul Armstrong and Marjorie Finer, VP New Business, who took us on a whistle stop tour of Boston before we sat down to chat at the company’s new office in Hingham, MA.
Armstrong has a long history of craftsmanship behind it and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. Blending tradition with technology, it has never been adverse to trying new things in terms of the latest manufacturing technology. Paul tells us Armstrong was the first company in the state to buy an SLA system and now operates a close-to-100,000 square feet production facility at its New York headquarters for short-run manufacturing of metal and plastic components.
Original handcrafted wooden mould from Armstrong.
The evolution of the company can be seen in the examples of handcrafted wooden pieces, a highly-skilled process, which has now evolved to modern techniques having spent the 1990s primarily focusing on its rapid prototyping business. Now with multiple stereolithography technologies under its belt, it facilitates production for some major brands, all of which are kept on the quiet, including some in the Boston area. We will be covering more from Armstrong next year in honour of its milestone anniversary.
This was a trip of serious office envy and a visit to Formlabs had us ready to hand in our resumes thanks to an R2D2 at reception, staff polaroids on the fridge and cute dogs hanging around the office. The Formlabs’ building is huge with multiple levels of office space and a workshop on the ground floor where its new Fuse 1 selective laser sintering system was going through its final stages of development before it becomes available for general sale later this year.
After launching to the industry in June with a system that came as a complete surprise for the desktop stereolithography leader, it was great to see the machine in person and hear about the company’s plans to disrupt the industry all over again with an affordable and reliable SLS solution. Not content with just one product launch, announced at the same time was the new Form Cell, a compact manufacturing system that connects a cluster of Form 2 printers with the new Form Wash post processing unit via a robot gantry system. A robotic arm removes parts the printer into the wash and takes them to a tray to automate the entire 3D printing process for users looking to print larger volumes. It’s fast and can be scaled up to address user requirements, but the one running at Formlabs isn’t an imposing system (just five machines), showing that it’s possible to bring an automated production line into a small-medium sized business.
Formlabs parts decorate the walls of its Somerville HQ.
The Formlabs story is one of crowdfunding success. Just five years ago the little-known Somerville company launched its Form 1 printer, raising almost $3 million on Kickstarter and the story of its iteration decorates the walls of its current home where various development pieces of the Form 1 are displayed. Since then it has grown to become the producer of the world’s best selling stereolithography machines (based on units shipped) including its Form 1, Form 1 + and Form 2 models, used all over from dental labs to robotics manufacturers, and even acquiring 3D marketplace Pinshape along the way. Now it’s out to try something new and from the application examples we saw on our trip including a set of flexible headphones printed in nylon on the Fuse 1, it could lower the barriers to industrial 3D printing even further.
Office-envy round two arrived in the shape of Desktop Metal’s Burlington office where there’s a comprehensive production area and a stage for TED Talk-style presentations. This provides a good snapshot of the company itself (bold but with the goods to back it up) which for the last two years has been teasing its revolutionary new technology that would change the metal AM game, supported by serious investment - over $210 million to date - from the likes of GV, GE Ventures and BMW. Validating the hype is a team is made up of leaders and engineers from software to robotics and beyond, who have been working behind the scenes since 2015, to ensure that this technology lives up to its claims. On its launch at RAPID + TCT it certainly appeared to and our visit showed how much the company has grown substantially since then as it gets ready to start shipping machines.
Split between office space and a production facility for a team of around 150 people, the workshop tells a story of how Desktop Metal’s Studio and Production Systems came to be with everything from software to sintering equipment all in development under one roof. There are a row of machines, both desktop and industrial, that the team use to to test and prototype and a selection of beta Studio units which are used to test parts for potential customers, of which there is already a lengthy queue lining up to be the first to get their hands on the system. We took a look around the facility, from prototyping to rigorous testing, with Desktop Metal’s, JP Shipley and AJ Gosselin, who alluded that some of those customers may become clear soon. For a company that has only just unveiled its technology, and already has been named in the MIT Technology Review’s list of 50 Smartest Companies (and most recently, TCT Rising Star), it’s clearly doing something right and it will be interesting to see how those customers start implementing the technology when machines begin shipping.
New systems are all fair and good but some of the most interesting stories in the industry are of users applying these technologies in real world applications. A fantastic example and our last stop before we headed home was Reebok where of course there was a full scale running track circling its sprawling campus.
Reebok has been using rapid prototyping for two decades and at the helm of its Rapid Prototyping Lab is long-time friend of TCT, Gary Rabinovitz, alongside Rapid Prototyping Specialist, Carlos Bolanos. Carlos gave us an all access tour of the lab which is equipped with Z Corporation and Stratasys machines, and its latest installation the Carbon M1.
Rapid prototyping lab at Reebok.
The MA facility is purely focussed on prototyping whereas Reebok’s Liquid Factory 3D manufacturing process, which was introduced last year, is located in its high-tech Rhode Island lab. There is an entire room dedicated to just SLS powders, a visible reminder that the footwear which ends up in the store upstairs, started out in those boxes followed by a multi-year development process. Not every design makes the cut and there is a diverse compilation of prototypes on display in the lab that range from the experimental to the downright strange. But that’s the beauty of 3D printing in this environment, you can go a little crazy and for those designs that do make it, Carlos says it’s rewarding to see those shoes eventually go to retail.
The work here is not all about the general consumer and Reebok has had some interesting partnerships with string of famous names thanks to its former contract with the NFL and one that was a little more from the left field, a project with musician, Alicia Keys. The lab was involved in making a metal belt clip for the singer which was originally intended for direct metal printing. A quick run through the Objet machine followed by electroplating saved around 50% on production costs compared to a direct metal printed version. Plus we got a closer look at the the Reebok Checklight, an impact indicator worn on the head to provide a visible display of impact severity, which took around four-years of development, relying heavily on 3D printing to put prototypes through around 15,000 drop tests.
Custom 3D printed shoe at Reebok RP lab.
Reebok is in the process of moving its HQ to central Boston where it will have a rapid prototyping space including a room dedicated to powder technologies and another for resins. In terms of any future tech installations, Carlos says flexible multi-colour is high on the wish list.
Reflecting on the journey home, the university legacy in the area means it’s no surprise that Boston is a hotspot for innovation. In our last issue, John Hart, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, suggested that academic institutions have a critical role to play in driving the AM industry forward. MA is a model example of what happens when that is put into play with Desktop Metal, Formlabs and Voxel8, to name a few, coming out of colleges and establishing themselves as major players in the industry. There’s also the small fact that it’s where the concept of three-dimensional printing originated.
Our trip was merely a snapshot of the 3D activity happening here and that’s before you even begin looking at the software collective with the likes of SolidWorks and OnShape calling Massachusetts home. With big names gravitating to the area, and startups taking their first steps in MIT labs, that community can only continue to flourish.
