Among the many promises of 3D printing, in the realm of wide scale adoption, two stand above the rest: personalized manufacturing and distributed manufacturing. Sometimes the two are considered one and the same. In fact they are opposite sides of the same coin: one is about making many different things in one place, the other is about making any of those things in any place. 3D Hubs is about the second.
Although these two scenarios may advance along parallel lines, the distributed manufacturing revolution is probably a bit further ahead. First we need to learn to create personalized objects, then we will learn to delocalize and personalize the manufacturing aspect as well. The trend is unstoppable as it evolves with the booming person to person (P2P)/consumer to consumer (C2C) service arena, dominated by online apps such as Airbnb and Uber. 3D Hubs wants to be the Airbnb of manufacturing and to achieve that it seeks to create a global network of 3D printers.
This is my impression after meeting with Bram de Zwart, one of 3D Hubs’ co-founders, in their elegant Amsterdam office yesterday. “We now have over 6000 hubs and the number of users is growing exponentially,” Bram revealed. “We have the largest production network in the world and the recent deals that we signed with Autodesk and Fairphone have projected us toward a new level of distributed manufacturing.”
Autodesk is the largest 3D modelling software publisher and Faiphone is an environmentally friendly consumer smartphone brand, very popular in Germany. 3D Hubs selected Replicator and Ultimaker owners and certified them for manufacturing the personalized cases that will be sold along with the phones on Fairphone’s website.
After establishing 3D Hubs as a valid option for large companies that seek personalized and distributed manufacturing, the not yet announced — though strategically significant — partnership with UPS will help the company focus on further developing its manufacturing and delivery capabilities by transforming each one of the over 4000 North American and European hubs into shipping points.
“This partnership required many months of preparation,” Bram said. “It means that upon receiving an order any hub can simply 2D print out the label and have the package picked up and shipped.” In Bram’s vision the shipping will not have to go very far. Distances are pre-set at less than 25 miles but that option can be removed and one could theoretically order a part printed anywhere in the 80 countries where 3D Hubs is present. As we reported last month, that means that 3D Hubs has a 3D printer within 10 miles of over one billion people.
The key to go from a collection of 3D printers to a reliable global distributed 3D printing service is in the software. 3D Hubs is expanding its five person software/product development team to introduce – among API’s and other things – new algorithms that can calculate the cost of printing an STL file through other technologies as well as FDM. There are now 30 SLS machines and a few hundred SLA and DLP machines in the network.
“We have both consumer and a growing number of professional services registered with 3D Hubs,” Bram told me. “That does not mean that the consumer does a less professional job. In fact sometimes they are even more dedicated and our rating systems certifies that. We have even been contacted by some large 3D printing bureaus that are interested in joining our network”.
The dream of creating a delocalized distributed manufacturing network comes from afar. For Bram it was a natural evolution after having studying industrial design and learning about mass production dynamics in China. In this embryonic stage of distributed manufacturing, 3D Hubs could already be profitable but chooses to invest everything into its future growth.
That’s because Bram strongly believes distributed manufacturing will become a dominant means of production and if he is right the bet will pay off hundred(s)-fold. The transition will not be easy but 3D Hubs is probably the company that today is best positioned to accomplish this goal.
