8. Made in the Future¹: Shapeways’ Manufacturing Model

¹Made in Future is the tagline featured in Shapeways’ packaging of delivered goods.

What is common among a father making a replacement for a broken part in his kid’s stroller, a woman starting a co-created toys’ business, a neuroscientist turning a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan into an earring and Victoria’s Secret garment design team? They are all customers of Shapeways. Peter Weijmarshausen, co-founder and CEO of Shapeways, figured out the potential of 3D printing for manufacturing and pitched it to Philips’ Lifestyle Incubator back in 2009. The technology already existed, as well as creative people skilled in computer-aided design who could leverage it, so Shapeways set out to build what was missing: the scaffold for a marketplace. The company moved from Eindhoven to New York in search for a risk-taking, tech-savvy, and creative environment to build a factory that launches products made in the future. Shapeways lives off of daring designers who only need to allow themselves break the rules about who decides what kind of products should be made and how they should be manufactured.

Shapeways is simultaneously a manufacturing service and a marketplace. It combines a digital platform and a 3D printing manufacturing hub, which enable anyone to turn a digital tridimensional model into a real product. In the digital platform, users can upload designs, order 3D-printed objects, and set up shops. Shapeways’ marketplace brings together designers and customers. A constellation of independent designers takes advantage of the company’s manufacturing and customer service capabilities that serve thousands of online designer shops hosted in the platform. Buyers can also customize the shape and size of products at the moment of purchase and have them manufactured on demand. Fuelled by 3D printing, Shapeways’ “Made in the Future” stands for on-demand manufacturing, zero inventory, customization, and design flexibility.

3D printing is fairly accessible nowadays. It is suitable for producing simple objects but mostly for manufacturing complex and sophisticated designs that are out of reach for injection mold-based traditional manufacturing. Early on in Shapeways, uploaded designs consisted of very basic shapes that populated the bestselling product categories including jewelry, smartphone cases, and miniatures. These relatively simple forms evolved toward sophisticated models that can be manipulated through complex algorithms. For instance, designer team Nervous System created jewelry pieces inspired by Nature, using software that recreates the growth of components of plants. The underwear brand Victoria’s Secret commissioned Shapeways to help create a 3D-printed garment for its popular annual runway show. The designer made an algorithm that generated a wearable piece made of textile-like flexible structures that were custom-made to the model’s body.

Shapeways started in 2009 in Eindhoven, Netherlands as a spin-off of Philips’ Lifestyle Incubator. Co-founder Peter Weijmarshausen had helped launch Blender, the first free 3D modeling software, which helped him realize the latent potential in 3D printing when a friend from Philips introduced it to him in 2006. At the time 3D printing was used for rapid prototyping, but not for producing real consumer products. Shapeways took off in 2007 with seed funding from Philips, founded by Weijmarshausen, Marleen Vogelaar, and Robert Schouwenburg. In 2010 Shapeways spun off as an independent company and established offices and manufacturing hubs in Eindhoven and New York, the latter becoming its “creative epicenter” close to important financing networks from which it raised venture capital. Nowadays, Shapeways operates with more than 140 employees from offices in New York and Seattle, and manufacturing hubs in Eindhoven and Long Island City, New York equipped with high-end industrial 3D printers.

Shapeways’ strategy is to offer a manufacturing service enabled by additive manufacturing technologies, powered by the creativity of its community of designers and supported by customers’ appeal for unique, customized products. The company’s assumption is that people are more likely to adopt 3D printing if they can avoid investment in machines and learning to work with the technology. In addition, Shapeways provides access to industrial machines—prohibitively expensive for the common user—to their high-quality printing and to varied range of materials. Since 3D modeling software is available for free in versions simplified for the laymen, 3D design and printing services became accessible to an increasing number of people. The distinctive features of Shapeways manufacturing model are an affordable service for manufacturing on demand, shorter time to market from concept to customer order, flexibility for iterating products, customization, and the lowering of barriers for small businesses.

An illustrative and rather surprising outcome of customization and on-demand manufacturing is people using Shapeways to create unique, bespoke engagement, and wedding rings. Jewellery is a top selling category and popular among designers.

“Jewelers also love that they don’t have to spend money on expensive machines or inventory. They can focus on their designs and let Shapeways take care of the rest.”

—Justine Trubey, VP of Supply Chain at Shapeways²

²Shapeways’ press release, July 26, 2014.

Shapeways offers the most common metals in jewelry, such as silver, gold, and platinum, and non-traditional materials such as flexible plastic and acrylic. According to the company, the quality of pieces is comparable to what is found in high-end jewelry shops at affordable prices. Metal jewelry is produced through a wax casting process in which the model is 3D printed in wax to create a cast that is filled with the metal, after which the final piece is hand-polished.

The price of products is calculated according to labor, materials, and use of machine space, to which Shapeways adds 3.5 percent to cover administrative costs. Designers add a mark-up over Shapeways’ price on their curated shops. For one-off products, the price is calculated at the time of order, while for products sold at the designers’ shops price is quoted ahead of order and remains fixed. Machine space contributes to over 50 percent of the average cost of products. It is challenging to calculate it for each piece because there is a diverse set of pieces of various sizes and geometries in every print run. Despite the variation across print runs, machine space component is based on the average space occupied by a product in the print chamber regardless of what else is printed at the same time.

In 2014 Shapeways reviewed its pricing structure after realizing it was losing money. After analyzing over 2.6 million parts manufactured over 9 months, it came up with a more reliable model that was also aligned with the degree of complexity of the whole production process. This gave an incentive to designers to make products as simple as possible for manufacturing, which would lower product costs. The new pricing structure resulted in lower prices to the majority of products made in a regular plastic and in steel.

“What the machines can do today is not wildly different from what they could do 5 years ago. It’s what people can come up with. And I think that is where the complexity of the things, the daring of our designers, our community, is growing and growing and growing. Sometimes that drives us mad because they come up with things that are so on the edge of what the machines can do . . . but I think, still, a lot of stuff that you can do conceptually with 3D printing is not done yet.”

—Peter Weijmarshausen, interviewed for TheVerge.com’s Small Empires show

For independent designers running small businesses, shorter time to market and unlimited iteration to meet customer demand are crucial for business development and survival. Designer Pekka Salokannel designed and launched an iPad case in 4 days, soon after the announcement of the iPad in 2010. An established fashion brand, Kimberly Ovitz, was able to put on sale a new jewelry collection immediately after its première on the runway show.

Designers create several versions of products and iterate on-the-fly along with customer feedback without bearing the risks and costs of mass production. Designer Christina Westbrook sells iPhone cases in her shop on Shapeways. Within 2 years, she released the 25^th iteration of her iPhone case based on user feedback that she continuously integrated into the design.

“No longer do we have to wait for a cast to come back and move through thousands or tens of thousands of pieces, only soon to realize that we might want to iterate on that and then have to throw way all of the excess product that we haven’t sold. All we’ve lost is the time that it takes to design a product.”

—Charlie Maddock, Director, Business Development, at SBS Seoul Digital Forum talk

“It’s a design system that’s very democratized . . . in 5 or 6 years, when all the designing software is simple enough, anyone will be able to make their own jewelry.”

—Jewelry designer with a shop in Shapeways³

³The New York Times, “New Technology Opens Horizons at a Lesser Cost,” May 15, 2013 (accessed online October 13, 2014).

So far, Shapeways generated a marketplace for 3D printed goods that features more than 14,000 designer shops that display the products and often allow buyers to customize their features. This marketplace built upon the digital manufacturing infrastructure supports the creation of consumer product businesses with low capital investment. Setting up a shop in Shapeways is free of charge. Thus, for the shop owner there are virtually no costs to manufacture, sell, and deliver a product. Before displaying a product for sale, designers get quotes from Shapeways and decide how much to mark it up. In addition, the company offers an end-to-end service that includes customer service on behalf of the shop owner.

“If it becomes a hit, that’s great. If it becomes popular then we get really busy and you just get your paycheck at the end of the month. If it doesn’t sell at all, no worries, you just go on and design something else.”

—Community manager Bart Veldhuizen⁴

⁴Interview published on YouTube on June 10, 2013 (accessed online October 13, 2014).

According to a Shapeways’ survey, in 2013, 8000 shop owners earned nearly $500,000 in profit, whereas a few managed to achieve reasonably high amounts. One of the latter is Michiel Cornelissen who created a simple iPad stand that made more than $30,000 in sales revenue.

Wayne Losey, a former employee of toy companies Hasbro and Kenner created his own line of toys, Modibot, posable characters that combine LEGO with action figures. Losey had previously failed to start up his own toy business due to poor retail sales in spite of a growing fan base. Shapeways enabled him to take another chance due to the possibilities of producing on demand and controlling the retail margins. Losey found that the creative process is faster than in toy companies and using mass manufacturing:

“It’s an extremely sustainable business model. There’s no over-purchase of inventory and subsequent mad rush to sell that inventory and invest it back into the next batch. Like many software businesses, it’s a constant beta mentality, where it’s tweaked until it works.”⁵

⁵Wired, Print-to-Order Service Helps 3-D Designer Revive Forgotten Figurines, January 23, 2013 (accessed online October 13, 2014).

Shapeways tries to augment the generative potential of this creative community. Duann Scott, the company’s designer evangelist, searches for shop owners with eye-catching products and exceptional skills in design and communication, and takes them under the spotlight as examples to the whole shop owners’ community. Shapeways also supports autodidacts who lack business, marketing, and design skills to make their ideas more appealing and grow the business. The company runs boot camps for shop owners on varied topics such as design concepts, branding, photography, reputation, and sales relationships, including a small business symposium hosted by venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. By boosting the potential of the creative community, Shapeways builds awareness of the market and attracts an increasing number of users.

Furthermore, the company created application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers to build their own creation apps and link them to Shapeways’ platform. The idea is to offer a digital to physical experience. An example is Crayon Creatures, an application that transforms children’s drawings in 3D models to become figurines that decorate parents’ homes. Another is Kinematics, an application developed by design team Nervous System to create custom-made foldable jewelry with complex forms.

Shapeways also supports existing businesses. For instance, it facilitates the replacement of spare parts. An employee of Shapeways made a 3D-printed replacement part for his baby stroller after asking the brand to send him CAD/CAM files of that part’s model. Teenage Engineering, a Swedish manufacturer of music workstations and synthesizers, released the digital files of their products’ spare parts on Shapeways. People can order it from Shapeways or download and 3D print them in a local hub. Teenage Engineering benefits from this arrangement because it avoids having an inventory of spare parts waiting for customers’ need to repair their devices. In addition, Shapeways helps communities of users to hack their products. Fans of GoPro cameras have come up with custom add-ons and accessories that allow them to use the cameras in unusual circumstances which diversified and expanded camera use.

Production capacity increased to follow a growing customer base. In 2012 Shapeways raised venture capital funding to set up a factory close to the main office so that production, design, and business development teams worked together to learn faster. In mid-2013, 11 large industrial 3D printers made 1000 to 12,000 products on a daily basis. Production facilities in New York hold capacity for 30 to 50 machines that can make 2 to 3 million products annually. This capacity increase was backed by another round of funding for future business development raised in October 2013. According to Chris Dixon of the prestigious venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, investors valued Shapeways’ creation of a strong community, a strong service model, and a factory footprint.

Shapeways foresees its development as driven toward a local manufacturing model in which products are manufactured as close as possible to where they will be delivered. According to plan, the more Shapeways factories are built globally, the faster iteration and delivery are, even at lower costs and with lower environmental impact. Weijmarshausen claims that, while the mass manufacturing model forces concern with the mass appeal of products, 3D printing flips this equation on its head. Additive manufacturing enables products to be made on demand, allows for customization at a very low cost and obviates the need for inventory. In addition, by using Shapeways, designers run product businesses with low costs, offer unique items, iterate their products faster in response to customer feedback, and can be more adaptive to trends and customer needs. Shapeways is not cracking a joke. It is shipping products made in the future as we write.

When I found Shapeways I started to think again about what 3D-printed designs should be like. What products would 3D printing be good at? First, I thought small personal products and that’s why I started by creating jewelry, which is very typical. Jewelry is the biggest hobbyist category of products that people create with 3D printing. Then I also started creating eyewear. I took it as a challenge. I was interested in it. The more I got into it, the more I realized how difficult it is to design good eyewear. It should fit many people, not only one person. However, I believe that in the future, maybe in 2 years, eyewear will evolve into bespoke, personalized products. We scan the face and the head and we get perfect fit. We are quite close to getting there. It’s just necessary that digital scanning becomes more reliable, as it is already cheap. 3D scanning is a little bit behind 3D printing. The big players are already investigating the field, for instance Apple which bought the sensor company who made Kinect or Google that has a project for scanning indoor spaces. Eyewear has become a major project for me because it’s challenging and because there’s not so much competition as in jewelry. There are thousands of people making jewelry. One kind of drowns in that mass, so I don’t see much potential there. I have also created lamps as well as wearable products.

I had been working on designing for 3D printing for a few years when I joined Tinkercad. Before, I used Shapeways for the 3D-printed products I designed in my free time and participated in design competitions. At Tinkercad I created tutorials for people using the software. I also did inspirational designs, a few of them ordered from Shapeways.

I have a couple of projects directly with Shapeways. Two years ago I did a business card case for them which they handed out in SXSW. Then I designed a ceramic vase. There had been a few problems with ceramic 3D-printing regarding delivery time. That’s why Shapeways started to look for alternative options and eventually created their own method. They create a mold from a nylon-based material and pour real porcelain onto the mold, which makes the product’s quality as good as a porcelain object bought in a high street shop. First it was not public and only available for designers applying to test the material with new designs in cooperation with Shapeways. I designed a flower vase, for this cooperation, in ceramics.

Shapeways announces the new materials and technologies in the blog and says that designers can only use them for their own designs. You can’t buy it as a consumer, only as a content creator. If you send the application (saying why you want to use it and what product you want to create with that material) then you provide the link to your shop so that Shapeways knows about the kind of designs you’re creating and check that you have potential to get into this trial program. They assess whether you have experience in a certain type of product or whether you are skilled enough to be part of the trial. In the beginning they’re doing research, for instance on how to set the price level. They assess how long it takes to print, how long it takes to clean an object in post-production . . . and these aspects influence the price point. There are usually a couple of months of trial period to evaluate, through designers and makers’ work, whether it’s feasible to go commercial, and whether there would be enough requests for certain materials. Ceramics is easy; there are nowadays specifications to use it, but when it comes to different plastics it is a lot more complex to understand what the best solutions are. It’s necessary to understand the material, the basic physics, and test whether it works in certain types of products.

About protecting my products, if some product would become a hit that I’d really make money of it—I mean they have been recognized but they haven’t sold thousands—then I could think about it. It’s the same thing for companies: they don’t want to sue anyone if they see that they’re not popular and are not making money with it. People tend to make replicas of things of which they’re fans. Kids, for instance, usually draw their heroes together with the logos like in Batman. In early days we drew these things on paper and perhaps offered the drawing to our parents or grandparents. No problem. Nowadays we can create a design and sell it right away. That becomes a problem. It’s natural that people copy, but in the sense of using combinations of existing things or following trends. Anyway companies typically don’t sue unless the product sells a lot. For instance, HBO owns the rights for the design of the King’s throne made of blades from Game of Thrones. It was used as an inspiration for an iPhone dock, which became popular as many blogs wrote about it and eventually a lot of people bought it. That was the problem, in a way. If things become popular and start to sell, companies start to be interested in taking legal action by asking the design to be taken down. It’s natural that people start copying things; when you’re not an artist that’s what you do. This will create more legal issues in the future. Although there are the Creative Commons licenses, the truth is that were still living in a Napster time if we compare it with music. It’s like the Wild West. There’s a lot of free content and people use free tools. It’s uncertain how it’s going to evolve, but, as digital content, the model might evolve toward subscription types of services, such as iTunes. There is already a streaming option for 3D printing digital content that streams the file in bits which allows people to 3D print remotely but avoids people having the complete file in their computer. The downside of it is that desktop 3D printers are not yet reliable enough.

Back in the early days of the hype about 3D printing, it was all about these incredible and almost impossible forms that could be created, although that is not so much the case nowadays. It is very typical to create complex designs for 3D printing, so there’s the possibility of failure, of doing something wrong, and the risk becomes higher. The good thing about 3D printing is that it is relatively affordable to get a prototype so you can test it out. You’re not creating concepts at the computer only, but you actually get a finished product and you can try it out.

The media don’t talk about those kinds of things anymore. The time has passed and now we are creating real products and real services. I see it has evolved in a similar way as the Internet. First, there was talk about the endless possibilities. In every new technology or new service, people get scared about new things but they get used to it. Slowly 3D printing has become a regular tool for people and companies. It just takes some time. Similarly, the earlier Internet-boom and overheating of the market might come also to 3D printing. I don’t see it as a bad thing at all. First, people don’t understand it or don’t know about it, and then investors see it as a good opportunity so they put money in it—perhaps too much money—and then it crashes down a little bit. Some people lose money, some people win, but it doesn’t matter in the end for the wider audience because things are just rolling and evolving further.

These are interesting times because many different companies are trying now new business models, but the whole business is evolving all the time. But that’s always the case with new technologies that they come to market too early. There’s not the need yet, consumers can’t find you yet, so business may be too small and die; but some survive and succeed. Like in the Internet business, in the 3D printing business the winners will be the ones who are just starting now, not the big companies that have a long history.