Metal 3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing

With all the hype surrounding the burgeoning production method, some beliefs have become wrongly entrenched.

            In the past 5 years, metal additive manufacturing has made great strides as a discipline. Thanks to significant breakthroughs and developments, media coverage and public consciousness of the field have exploded. The mania surrounding 3D printed organs, guns, and other hot-topic items are just recent symptoms of our society’s natural fascination with exciting 3D printing technologies.

Organizations considering dipping their toes into the waters of 3D printing should be aware of all the associated challenges.

            Much has been made of the potential of metal 3D printing to improve companies’ innovativeness, speed to market, and supply chain management. And all of that can make a big impact in manufacturing. These advantages are real, and manufacturers who ignore them as we move into 2019 and beyond do so at their peril. Still, discourse about how to best integrate metal AM into an existing business often oversimplifies the myriad of issues and challenges.

The time has come for engineers, plant managers and automation systems integrators to face the facts. Additive manufacturing (AM) will not—nor was it ever expected to—pre-empt traditional production systems. The truth is that not every production job should be 3D printed. The question, therefore, becomes: When is AM the most cost-effective means for a manufacturing application, and when are traditional production technologies like injection molding and machining the optimum choice?

Of all the promising technology breakthroughs – blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) – none are closer to bringing real change to the way we live and work than additive manufacturing (AM).

Founded in 2016 out of Gardena, California, 3DEO makes production metal components using proprietary metal 3D printers. The business model involves supplying low-cost parts directly to customers, and Mr. McCallum says that they’ve managed to integrate the finishing machining processes into their printers as part of their technology. They claim to be directly competitive with traditional manufacturing in terms of part pricing, material properties, and quantities. Given that we’ve seen some pretty sizable funding rounds going into “on demand manufacturing” firms like Xometry and Fictiv, they’re going to need to scale quickly to stay in the game.

We recently caught up with LA-based 3DEO for an update on the latest in metal 3D printing and the company’s celebration of a diverse workforce.

Similarly, 3DEO, a metal AM production company, is putting an emphasis on diversity in its team, not just to say it has, but to improve its business. The company’s President and Co-Founder Matt Sand also announced today 3DEO would be sponsoring an upcoming Wi3DP meetup in Los Angeles.

Metal 3D printing company 3DEO, Inc. has reported significant growth in 2018 and foresees greater growth in 2019. In fact, the California-based company plans to double its production capacity by the end of Q1 2019.

Metal 3D printing company 3DEO, Inc., based in Los Angeles and founded in 2016, grew a lot last year, having used its patented Intelligent Layering Technology to 3D print and ship over 30,000 paid parts to customers in multiple industries in 2018. It appears that this growth isn’t slowing down either, as the company is more than doubling its production capacity this quarter to meet customer demand with its proprietary metal 3D printers. It’s only the first day of March, and 3DEO has already locked down two more customer production orders that are scheduled for delivery this year, one for 24,000 pieces and another for 28,000.

Back in 2012, there were a lot of inflated expectations regarding the role that metal 3D printing would soon play in medical device manufacturing. Matt Sand is a product of that hype cycle because it was around that time that he, as an entrepreneur, started getting excited about the possibilities of 3D printing. Today, Sand is a co-founder and president of 3DEO.