This month 3DPRINTUK is ten years old, and we think that is something to celebrate.
It also provides a great opportunity to look back at what we have achieved and to plan for the next 10 years.
In this post we reflect on some of our major milestones along the way, invite you to join our celebrations with a 2-day flash SLS sale and look ahead to the next decade of 3D printing.
10 Year Review:
It was September 2011 when our founder and Managing Director, Nick Allen, officially opened the doors of 3DPRINTUK to provide a fast and efficient ‘rapid prototyping’ service. Back then, Rapid Prototyping — or RP — was the more widely recognised umbrella term for the range of additive, layer-by-layer processes that were slowly but surely penetrating into a range of industrial sectors as a way of speeding up product development. But Nick, who has always had his finger on the pulse, was convinced 3D printing was going to be an even bigger deal — both in terms of terminology and as a technology set for manufacturing — and he built it into our name, and our DNA.
The following year, in December 2012, with 3DPRINTUK as the parent company, Nick opened MAK3D, London’s first 3D printing co-working space in Brick Lane. MAK3D provided a range of 3D printing services and parts utilising an Objet (now Stratasys) PolyJet system.
MAK3D was London’s first 3D printing co-working space.
2013 had a few memorable highlights. In April of that year we moved to a new facility in Bermondsey, London and acquired our first industrial EOS Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer utilising Nylon material. That same month, Nick featured on the BBC’s One Show, sharing his knowledge of 3D printing to a much wider audience.
Nick in 2013 with our first EOS industrial SLS 3D printer.
The passion for sharing knowledge and raising awareness pragmatically has never dimmed, and in October 2013 Nick delivered a memorable TEDx Talk. We may be a little biased, but we still think it’s worth a watch and holds great value today.
A major milestone for us came in September 2014, when we printed our 100,000th part. We saw a notable trend as we started to scale up part volumes, with a wide range of applications. As Nick noted at the time, “We’ve sent stuff to the edge of space, to the bottom of the ocean and to the Dragons Den as well as many other places in-between.” This was only set to continue, and did.
The start of 2015 really saw Nick’s vision for 3D printing coming to fruition. With accumulated knowledge and experience we really started to focus in on what 3D printing is really good at — low volume batch production applications. We continued to provide the very best quality in prototyping services, and still do today, but the launch of our batch production service where we could demonstrate repeatability, on-demand manufacture, and tool-less manufacture of production parts opened up new business opportunities — for us, obviously, but also for our growing number of clients.
In 2016 we were on the move again. October saw us move into a new facility in Bow, London, allowing us to add more EOS SLS machines to our portfolio and to increase the capacity of our dedicated Nylon SLS service.
And just over 2 years from the time that we printed our 100,000th part, we were delighted to print our 1 millionth part in Nov 2016. This exponential growth of part volumes was significant, and is continuing year on year. It is not an accident, but rather comes from managing growth — and expectations — through acquiring knowledge, expertise, experience and, of course, more machines (capacity).
One interesting result of the knowledge vault at 3DPRINTUK came in October 2018, when 3DPRINTUK represented British manufacturing during the parliamentary review. This was an important step for us, and we were proud to be included in this important governmental review as an additive manufacturer, alongside some of the most successful companies in the UK.
In November 2019, just as the pandemic was about to hit, but before the world understood what it meant, 3DPRINTUK completed its final move of the decade. This was a big deal, as we expanded into new and dedicated premises at Unit D9, Leyton Industrial Village, London.
2020 was obviously the Covid Year. Nobody had it easy, but at 3DPRINTUK we adapted and forged ahead, taking the opportunity to complete a £1 million internal investment into new AM systems and processes, new materials and new post-processing equipment and capabilities. This involved the introduction of the MultiJet Fusion (MJF) process, flexible materials, a wide range of colours & shot peening. Our new dedicated facilities have enabled us to streamline our internal processes, further improving our quality, repeatability and traceability.
Then, earlier this year, in February we also made a strategic acquisition, as we merged with Additive (previously Digits2Widgets), another London-based service provider. With some alignment we have been able to extend our capacity even further. More recently, we participated in another UK initiative with the Business Reporter promoting the Best of British Business awards.
And for anyone interested in an update on that exponential growth — we have printed more than 1 million parts THIS YEAR alone!
That just about wraps it up, and so, we have been in business for 10 years.
SLS SALE Celebrations:
To celebrate with you — our friends and customers — without whom none of this would have been possible, we are running a 2-day flash SLS sale. The offer is for 20% off all SLS parts and will run from Wednesday 29thSeptember through to Thursday 30th September.
Looking Ahead:
Anniversaries are great for reflection, but also to place a stake in the ground for future planning. At 3DPRINTUK we already have some amazing plans set in motion to take us to the next level. None of them involve a move (thank goodness) – but who knows, there might be an extension. And our capacity / part volumes will almost certainly continue on their upward trajectory.
Thank YOU for being part of our history, here’s to the next 10 years…