3D Printing Executive Overview

Pepperwood Partners© All Rights Reserved January 2013 Page 1

3D PRINTINGEXECUTIVE OVERVIEWby Chris Norman

and Patrick Seaman

January 2013

STRATEGIC WHITE PAPERSTRATEGIC

WHITE PAPER

3D PRINTING TAKEAWAYS

• It is the “Next Industrial Revolution”

• It Will Redefine The Supply Chain

• It is a Concept that is “Bigger than the Web”


Topics in this White Paper

First Industrial Revolution 3

Enter: 3D Printing 5

Skilled Labor 10

Energy and Materials Efficiency 12

The Perfect Storm 13

History of Additive Fabrication 14

Military Applications 20

Consumer Applications 23

Case Study: Kraftwurx / Digital Reality 25

Online 3D Printing Services 29

Industrial 3D Printing Hardware 33

Edge Manufacturing 31

Industrial 3D Printed Parts & Items 33

Digital Rights Management Issues 37

Future Developments 41

Summary & Conclusions 45

References 50

About the Authors 51

About Pepperwood Partners 53


First Industrial Revolution

Henry Ford established the model for the mass-manufacturing era of the Industrial Revolution when he created the assembly line. The assembly line promised to make products more affordable by producing many copies of identical parts. Most everything consumers buy today is produced in this manner, using large factories with lots of expensive machines and people to run them.


First Industrial Revolution

Products made in this manner are distributed to you through an enormously complicated global supply chain created to distribute the produced goods to far-away consumers. Global mass-manufacturing factories are spread across Asia, sending a never-ending stream of giant container ships to North American and European consumer markets. This complicated infrastructure stemmed from businesses chasing lower operating and labor costs, to bring products to you.


Enter: 3D Printing

Additive Fabrication or, as it has become more affectionately known by the public, 3D printing, recreates an object layer-by-layer. Using a 3-dimensional digital model (CAD model) as the “blueprint,” successive layers of material are precisely deposited by a computer controlled “printer”. The result is a precise “copy” of the object.


Enter: 3D Printing

The Economist asks, is this “the PC all over again?” Machines that turn digital objects (bits) into physical objects are

“Pioneering a whole new way of making things – one that could rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way

that the PC laid waste to traditional computing.” 1


Enter: 3D Printing

Today’s 3D Printing technologies make use of a wide variety of materials including plastics, metals, ceramics and even biological materials. Some companies are experimenting with composite materials such as combining plastic and cellulose for a wood-like result. By using multiple print heads, different materials can be deposited at different stages, changing the characteristics of the object.

Figure 2: 3D Printed Turbine Engine (© Kraftwurx)

Research about 3D Printing at major universities and private companies focuses primarily on materials. Attempts to print virtually everything are under way, including food products like chocolate or sugar.


Enter: 3D Printing

Figure 3: 3D Print a house (© Contour Construction)

On that larger scale, there are efforts to 3D Print with concrete, with the potential to “print” a house in hours or days .

Supported by USC, the US Military & NASA, this concept takes the 3D Printing concept to a new paradigm in both scale and utility.


Enter: 3D Printing

(of 3D Printers)

“They represent the next industrial revolution… It will be bigger than the web.”

-- Chris Anderson,

Former Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine


Skilled Labor

Although much hyped, 3D Printing has the potential to create the “perfect storm” for manufacturing. What used to require a highly skilled machinist with a deep background in many complex methods and techniques has been replaced by a computer controlled machine.

Following the basic tenet of the Industrial Revolution, removing the skilled labor needed to operate the machine to produce one-at-a-time items, removes much of the barrier to produce that item at affordable price points.


Skilled Labor

Often, a machinist cannot complete a part that has complex geometry without manipulating the object – such as flipping the part or object over to machine the other side. 3D Printing eliminates this burden because it removes the penalties of the complexity of a part by creating an object layer by layer.

3D Printers allow working assemblies to be printed with built-in hinges and other features. Parts can be combined in ways that traditional machining cannot accomplish, reducing part count in an assembled product.

Consider the example of a ship in a bottle: A 3D Printer can build this easily whereas a traditional machine cannot.


Energy and Materials Efficiency

3D Printing is an efficient manufacturing process. In contrast, traditional manufacturing is not. For example, machining / milling uses blocks of metal that will be machined; removing large portions of the block result in the desired part. An analogy to this would be how a sculptor chips away marble to create a statue. The chips, which also took energy to form, become scrap.

In this example, the scrap metal must be shipped back, re-smelted, and shipped out again, repeating the cycle.

In contrast, 3D Printing adds material, building-up the part layer by layer. Not only does this save material, but it also saves energy because the machine only uses the energy necessary to form the part, nothing more.

Figure 4: Traditional machining / milling is inefficient


The Perfect Storm

Suppose that a set of presentations and reports needed to be delivered to multiple locations around the country. By sending the electronic files to a service like Office Depot®, FedEx Office®, or Staples®, exact duplicates of the documents, including color, number of pages, binding methods, etc., are produced and delivered. In the same way, sending the electronic files for an object will result in the identical part or product being made, regardless of printer location. Note that Staples® has announced that it will begin a project to add 3D Printing services to its stores5.

Staples and Mcor have announced a new store-

pickup based 3-D printing service

called Staples Easy 3D


History of Additive Fabrication

“That allows designers to create both intricate internal structures to develop extremely strong parts …. For those very reasons the Navy is

already using “a number of printed parts such as air ducts” in F/A-18s.”

-- United States Naval Institute



3D Printing is arguably one of the least promoted revolutionary technologies of all time. After 3D Printing was invented in the early 1980’s, it was adopted by the aerospace industry to create prototypes. The fledgling industry became known as Rapid Prototyping due to its speed and ease of use. Later, the technology was adopted to create cast titanium parts for fighter jets including the FA-18 Super Hornet and later the F22 Raptor.



While first coined in the 1990’s, the term “3D Printing” was not widely used until around 2008, as marketing and the public began to embrace the technology. Other related terms used to describe the technology include:

• Direct Digital Manufacturing• Additive Manufacturing• Additive Free-form Fabrication• Solid Freeform Fabrication• Rapid Prototyping• Layered manufacturing



By the 2000’s, the technology had expanded well past prototyping parts. Research on the technology began to explore “Bio-Printing,” 3D Printing of biological materials such as blood vessels and experimental human organ components. This technology is still in early stages and most likely years from FDA approval in the United States. Blood vessels, orthodontic implants, bone replacements, and other simpler structures are becoming more common in 3D Printing. To date, there is at least one well documented organ implantation.

Figure 5: Developing: Printing Human Organs (© BBC)

Surgeon Anthony Atala successfully implanted an “engineered” 3D Printed bladder into patient Luke Massella .


Figure : Industrial 3D Printer (© 3D Systems)


Just as in the computer revolution, equipment that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and could only be afforded by large organizations has evolved into an ecosystem ranging from the industrial grade high end all the way down to consumer-grade desktop models costing a few hundred dollars. Analogous to higher dots-per-inch in ink or toner printers, the more expensive 3D Printers will create objects with higher resolution, often with multiple or difficult to use materials.

Cheaper 3D Printers will generally create objects with rougher edges and use cheaper raw materials.



In addition to the uses described above, the technology of 3D Printing is now used to create everything from custom prosthetic limbs12 to automobile components to aerial drones13 to custom gold and silver jewelry.

The US Army is testing 3D Printers14,15,16 with the idea to construct spare parts and components near the front lines, reducing the supply chain from weeks or even months, to days or hours.

Manufacturers around the globe utilize 3D Printing and related equipment to produce everything from oil field parts to jet engine components to an ever-expanding array of custom devices and components.

Illustration: 3D Printed prosthetic limb


Military Applications

Imagine that an Army tank breaks down and the nearest replacement part is misfiled at a supply depot, located somewhere in an endless sea of shipping containers. The next closest replacement part is thousands of miles away.

A 3D Manufacturing network could analyze the part, its destination, materials, and other factors required to produce the part and find an appropriate 3D Printing facility in a nearby NATO country and deliver it within a day. This is Edge Manufacturing.

This particular solution is already commercially available through software created by Kraftwurx parent company Digital Reality. That software, dubbed Digital Factory™ is currently being used for distributed Edge Manufacturing of consumer goods.



"With the right systems engineering, the remaining barriers for adoption can be removed so that out-of-stock parts can be deployed to units in the field well ahead of the current

supply chain. It will make it easier for military units to accomplish their missions. For fiscal year 2011, the

Operation & Maintenance portion of the DoD's total budget request comprises $283.1 billion. If these costs could be

reduced by one-tenth of one percent, that would account for $283 million in savings. "

-- James Barkley, MITRE

On Military Adoption of 3D Printing:



“The ability to replicate part quickly and cheaply is a huge benefit to the warfighter.

Instead of needing a massive manufacturing logistics chain, a device that generates

replacement parts is now small and light enough to be easily carried in a backpack or

on a truck.”

-- D Shannon Berry, Future Warfare Office


Consumer Applications

In recent years, the technology has found a home in the hobby market. These less capable but intriguing consumer-grade and DIY 3D Printers retail for several hundred to a few thousand dollars.

The consumer grade equipment has garnered much press coverage and a cottage industry of artisan created figurines, toys, jewelry and art. Leading the pack of the consumer 3D Printer hardware vendors is Makerbot, with competitors including 3D Systems’s low-end Cube, Solidoodle, uPrint, and many more.

Figure 7: Makerbot consumer-grade 3D Printer


Consumer Applications

These consumer grade machines have limited capabilities and are considered hobby grade equipment. However, the quality difference between the low cost machines and the high cost machines is narrowing. Although the consumer market is the hottest segment seeing growth, it is by far substantially lower in total revenue and accounts for a small fraction of the total industry, relegating it to hobbyist use.


Case Study: Kraftwurx / Digital Reality

Digital Reality, the parent company to Kraftwurx, first demonstrated their business model in 2006.

The company has patents and patents pending branded as Digital Factory™, which is designed to provide sales, manufacturing, and distribution for 3D Printing.

This Edge Manufacturing Platform as a Service (PaaS) provides the infrastructure necessary for any company wishing to take advantage of 3D Printing for their own business without spending the millions that some companies have spent to build their own platform. The system can be white labeled, so brands can use it as their own.



Kraftwurx provides its patented1 Edge Manufacturing network to its customers that includes more than 110 facilities worldwide. When a customer requests that an item be manufactured, the system polls Edge Manufacturers after analyzing the part, material, and end use category. The system then routes the orders to facilities in concentric circles around the customeruntil the optimal combination of price and time-to-deliver are reached. The item may likely be manufactured in the same city as the customer because it reduces shipping costs and potential customs fees and delays.

1. US Patent # 13/374,062



Kraftwurx recently produced two copies of a small product. The first product was made in Houston, Texas, and the information for the second product was sent electronically to China. The product made in Houston was physically shipped to China. The product arrived 14 days later at a shipping cost of $140.00. When the box was opened, the product was broken, and the box had been labeled “opened by customs”. The second product was produced in China, very close to the destination.

It took 3 days to send, print and deliver the product. Production costs were similar but shipping was $115 cheaper. Time and money were saved, as well as a few trees as no jet fuel or cargo ships were needed to deliver the part.



The platform affords small and medium businesses a means to go to market by either investing solely in the design of a 3D model of a product, or, alternatively, outsourcing the design to a growing network of design professionals.

By offering this platform, Kraftwurx hopes to spur an industrial revolution and reshape the global economy by equipping small businesses to compete worldwide.


Online 3D Printing Services

It is not necessary for professionals or hobbyists to buy and operate their own hardware because PaaS online services can take uploaded 3D designs and print and deliver them. These online services are offered by companies like Kraftwurx, Shapeways and Sculpteo.


Industrial 3D Printing Hardware

To get a sense of the growth of the overall 3D Printing market, it is helpful to look at the publicly traded stocks of two of the leading industrial 3D Printing hardware manufacturers, 3D Systems and Stratasys. Also note that in the past two years, 3D Systems acquired rival Z Corp18, and Stratasys merged with Objet19. Figure 9: Growth in 3D Printing Hardware Stocks (source: Yahoo)


Edge Manufacturing

Edge Manufacturing is an evolution of the supply chain model, where Manufacturing-On-Demand bureaus, such as those employing 3D Printing, are called upon to manufacture an item due to their proximity to the destination / customer. Note the example of Edge Manufacturing in the Kraftwurx case study, above.

The ramifications of Edge Manufacturing are enormous. It will affect the global economy in ways that governments cannot yet fully understand.


Edge Manufacturing

For example:

The design for an item originates in Texas and is showcased on the internet. A customer in Australia browses and buys the product. While the design for the item is in the USA, the item is Edge Manufactured in Australia, so there are no USA sales taxes, international shipping, or import/customs duties.

Suddenly, the US company is competitive in Australia.


Industrial Applications

In the US and Europe, many 3D Printing

bureaus have been operating the

technology for as long as 20 years

On Industrial 3D Printed Parts and Items:



While consumers are experimenting with entry-level hardware, the industrial applications are mature. In the US and Europe, many 3D printing bureaus have been operating the technology for as long as 20 years. Most are owned or operated by employees of the long forgotten DTM Corporation20, now known as 3D Systems. Many 3D Printing bureaus provide the technology as a service to clients who use it for their own competitive and speed to market advantage.

Figure 10: (left to right) Aircraft duct for Boeing 777, Turbine Parts, and Turbine Fuel Injector Ring



Examples of industrial parts created with 3D Printing:

Figure 11: (left to right) Lightweight aircraft door hinge, Knee implant and 10kt White Gold Jewelry



Examples of industrial parts created with 3D Printing:

Figure 12: Examples - miscellaneous custom parts


Digital Rights Management

If a 3D “blueprint” can be used to make just

about anything, who controls the design?

Who profits from it? Who decides?

On Digital Rights Management (DRM) for 3D Printed items:



When you consider that “objects” are another form of “content” – something to be used and consumed, the questions of copyright and trademark of the digital blueprint are sure to arise.

If a digital blueprint is made of an object,

Who controls that design?

Who profits from it?

If a ‘knock-off’ digital blueprint is made – how do brands prevent copies being 3D Printed that they don’t benefit from or control?

Who decides if a 3rd-party digital blueprint is an illegal copy or homage?



The traditional manufacturing cycle adds a significant amount of time to the equation, allowing some policing. However, once a brand creates a 3D digital blueprint today, it can be made, well… today. While this opens the door to new DRM challenges, it also changes the life cycle of products.

Now brands can potentially create new designs all the time, tying in to current events, trends and fashions on a global daily basis – macro – and also on a micro-geo scale, targeting specific product designs and customizations for micro-targeted campaigns. This can be done without inventory, and without months or year-long manufacturing and transoceanic shipping and national warehousing and distribution cycle.



When consumers are given the ability to personalize products themselves, more product diversity and a larger selection of products to choose from emerges, even with branding. Consumers suddenly drive their own designs and create new trends.

If brands cannot ultimately turn these new capabilities to their advantage against copyright violators, then perhaps these brands are destined for the scrapheap of obsolescence along with buggy whips and VCRs.


Future Developments

Just as the industrial revolution brought huge societal changes, what happens when we no longer

need factories and the people that run them?

What happens when machines build the machines?


Future Developments

3D Printing is the first step toward a major shift in society. Companies like Nanorex have created Computer software called Nano Engineer™, which allows for precise control of building objects at the atomic level. The control of materials at this scale sets the stage for something right out of Star Trek! Illustration: Molecular level fabrication


Future Developments

Scientists in the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have announced they have successfully teleported light. The next step is to teleport entire atoms…eventually! The 3D Printer may become the replicator from Star Trek, producing items from stored patterns (computer files).

Eventually, you may very well be able to print anything you want at home. What will become of a society when we no longer need factories and employees to create the things we need and want?

Illustration: “Star Trek Fabricator” © Paramount


Future Developments

Aldous Huxley wrote ‘A Brave New

World’ in 1931. What Brave New World

will the 3D Printing Revolution bring?


Summary & Conclusions

3D Printing will ultimately change the way that products are designed,

manufactured, and shared. “Edge Manufacturing” will create new

markets and transform (turn upside down) the global supply chain. In the

1980’s, Just-In-Time Manufacturing transformed manufacturing. 3D

Printing takes the idea even further with Edge Manufacturing. More

products will be made Just-As-Needed, manufactured only when they

are actually ordered, and will be manufactured geographically close to

the customer – reducing or eliminating much of the costs of shipping and

warehousing and reducing wastage from unused products.

3D Printing really is green.



eBay democratized the global marketplace, empowering anyone to buy

and sell to anyone else. 3D Printing is poised to democratize

manufacturing and empower anyone to create and sell or share products

with anyone else.

For the conceivable future the majority of consumer goods will continue

to be mass-produced. Over time, the best and smartest manufacturers

will find ways to turn their economies of scale to their advantage in the

evolving technological world. Indeed, China is concerned about the

impact of 3D Printing on its own future, and is looking to jump on the 3D

Printing bandwagon itself21.



Will brands and manufacturers sleep through

the next few years and awake to find

themselves in trouble, or, will they be part of

the solution?



The Economist asks, is this “the PC all over again?” Machines that turn digital objects (bits) into physical objects are

“Pioneering a whole new way of making things – one that could rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way

that the PC laid waste to traditional computing.1”



This is not a better widget. This is not continued incremental

improvement in existing processes and methods. This is, without

exaggeration, world changing.

Why I left Wired Magazine –

3D Printing Will Be Bigger Than The Web.23

-- Chris Anderson, former Wired Magazine Editor in Chief


References1. http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567201-difference-engine-just-computers-

make-it-easy-copy-music-3d-printers-will 2. http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/3d-printer-wood-filament/3. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-08/researcher-aims-print-3-d-print-entire-houses-out-

concrete-20-hours4. http://www.zdnet.com/chris-anderson-why-i-left-wired-3d-printing-will-be-bigger-than-the-web-

7000007535/ 5. http://www.fastcompany.com/3003509/staples-launches-easy-3d-printing-service-just-time-best-

holiday-parties-ever6. http://news.usni.org/news-analysis/news/3d-printers-are-here-are-sea-services-taking-advantage7. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-149468088. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120621-printing-a-human-kidney9. http://www.economist.com/node/1554368310.http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/12/reality-3d-printed-body-parts/45649/11.http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html12.http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/08/3d-printed-arms-help-give-little-girl-a-new-lease-of-life/13.http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-07/uk-engineers-print-and-fly-worlds-first-working-3-d-

printed-aircraft14.http://www.army.mil/article/88464/15.http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/new-army-arsenal/16.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-2026964517.http://www.mitre.org/news/digest/advanced_research/08_10/layer.htm18.http://www.3dsystems.com/press-releases/3d-systems-completes-acquisition-z-corp-and-vidar19.http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/12/03/merger-creates-worlds-largest-3d-print-

company.aspx20.http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=21795021.http://www.zdnet.com/cn/china-looks-to-3d-printing-for-manufacturing-edge-7000008931/22.http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567201-difference-engine-just-computers-

make-it-easy-copy-music-3d-printers-will23.http://www.zdnet.com/chris-anderson-why-i-left-wired-3d-printing-will-be-bigger-than-the-web-

7000007535/



About the Authors

Chris Norman is CEO of Kraftwurx and Digital Reality, the first and only B2B & B2C mass-customization system for 3D Printing. Mr. Norman is a member of the Direct Digital Manufacturing sub-committee to the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and 16 year member of SME. Mr. Norman earned his MBA in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix and a BS in Manufacturing Engineering from Texas A&M University. Contact Chris at [email protected], and www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-norman/b/7b0/b12.



About the Authors

Patrick Seaman is Chief Technology Advisor to Pepperwood Partners and COO of the social publishing platform company WhichBox Media. Seaman is the former COO of the video eCommerce company Cinsay, and former Director of Technology at Broadcast.com. Patrick serves on the Advisory Board of Kraftwurx Inc, and Qples, Inc. and on the UT Dallas School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics Advisory Council, and is an IEEE member. Contact Patrick at [email protected], [email protected] and www.linkedin.com/in/patrickseaman/.


About Pepperwood Partners

Pepperwood Partners is a boutique investment banking advisory firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Pepperwood provides a suite of investment banking advisory services to businesses in the technology, media, telecom, nanotechnology, energy and alternative asset sectors. With a strong focus on institutional relationships in the Russian, European, and CIS regions, Pepperwood works with businesses to achieve capitalization and growth objectives.


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