Is 3D Printing Needed in Your Company?

It probably depends on whom you ask.

Ask the visionary people designing your products and it’s a resounding YES! Ask the number crunchers, you’ll likely hear grumbles . . . until . . .

When traveling for business recently I got to chatting with a man who designs for a LED lighting company. They invested in 2 3D printers at a cost of about $300,000 total. How did they justify this?

The designers rallied for the technology and got to crunching numbers when accounting called for the numbers to justify the purchase.

In order to bring their designs to market, the lighting has to be tested. In the past they would send designs to a machine shop to have them prototyped.

Cost justification #1 – time spent procuring vendors and getting other shops to simply quote prototypes – at least one week!

Cost justification #2 – time spent submitting PO and lead-time on part – 2-6 weeks! Quicker turn -around means a lot more $$$

Cost justification #3 – well, 1 + 2 = 3  It would take nearly 2 months to go from design to prototype in hand.

With even a basic 3D Printer this team was able to go from design to working prototype in at least 1/4 of the time. That means 3/4 less money spent on salaries for designers and likely at least 1/4 of the savings on having a part made.

Let’s say that the payment for the initial, basic machine is $2000 monthly, and let’s assume in this case you have two designers on this project making $1500 per week. Perhaps a typical prototype from the machine shop was $2000 and now the cost of printing the part is $20.

In the old model this scenario would have cost from design to prototype about 8 weeks or $24,000 in salaries plus a $2000 prototype = $26,000 in two months for a “working” prototype.

In the new model the designers spend 2 weeks from design to “working” prototype which is $6000 in wages and, well, let’s add the whole machine payment plus the cost basic initial materials $200. You are at $6,200 in 2 weeks and can make revisions and have a final design by the end of the month = all together $12,000 wages + $2000 machine payment + $200 materials and electricity? = $14,200

In half the time one can have a working part and be heading to market much faster.

We are a (precision) machine shop, so why would be post and article like this?

We are about smart business! And we like to think we are a Smart Business

Not sure if 3D printing is right for you? We can help! BRD consulting “Opening Minds & Doors”

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