CRN Printer Week: Solution Providers Finding Opportunities In 3-D Printing

The fast-growing 3-D print market is proving to be a boon to many solution providers that have invested in the technology.

Whether they’re reselling the printers and associated products, providing 3-D design services, or offering 3-D printing or scanning as a service, solution providers are working with a customer base whose need for training and hand-holding makes 3-D a profitable business.

And it’s a business that has evolved rapidly in just the past three years, said Jon Formby, product manager at MatterHackers, a Lake Forest, Calif.-based seller of 3-D printers and related products.

[Related: CRN Printer Week: Vendors Double Down On Channel Push to Win Managed Print Services Deals With SMBs]

"Three years ago, vendors were reluctant to work with us," Formby told CRN. "They didn't understand the value of a value-added reseller. But over time, all vendors have grown to understand the value we bring. They know we reach 90,000 unique visitors a month on our website, and they understand our value-added experience."

Overall, the 3-D printing market, which includes printers, consumables and related products and services, is expected to reach $30.2 billion by 2022, with a cumulative annual growth rate of 28.5 percent between 2016 and 2022, according to analyst firm MarketsandMarkets.

Meanwhile, the 3-D printing materials market, worth about $500 million in 2014, is expected to grow at a CAGR topping 15 percent through 2020, when it’s expected to reach about $1.4 billion, according to analyst firm Zion Research.

The 3-D scanning market is also anticipated to grow quickly. Earlier this month, Allied Market Research said it expects worldwide 3-D scanning revenue to reach $5.7 billion by 2021, with a CAGR of 13.6 percent from 2016 to 2021.

That growth has caused several solution providers to make 3-D printers and 3-D printing, including sales of the hardware and materials and services, a big part of their business, with customers ranging from inventors to schools to chefs to the military.

Those products and services have given solution providers the opportunity to take part in the building of a variety of unique projects.

One such project was a perpetual motion machine.

There was no convincing the customer that the project, which used magnets as a source of power, would not work, said Jeff Zepp, owner of American 3D Printing, an Evergreen, Colo.-based solution provider.

"I realized he was violating the law of conservation of energy," Zepp told CRN. "I tried to talk him out of it. But in all fairness, I charged him half-price."

Another solution provider, Advantage Business Equipment of Temecula, Calif., worked with one customer, Van Nuys, Calif.-based Jetpack Aviation, to develop its new JB-9 Jetpack, shaving years and thousands of dollars off the development process, said Advantage owner John Rowan.

The 3-D market is one characterized by a wide range of printers and supplies to meet customers' needs.

Formby said his company sells 55 3-D printers and several hundred SKUs of materials from nearly 60 vendors.

Such a selection makes it important for customers to find a good solution provider to help make the best choice, Formby said.

"We'll help find the right printer,’ he said. ’There's so much hype in this market."

The 3-D printing technology is maturing, but it's far from being ready for everyone to have in their businesses, Formby said. The required software, for instance, is improving quickly, with ever fewer errors. "But it's not 100 percent yet," he said.

The big issue for customers is on the design side, Formby said. Most customers don’t have access to pre-made designs or experience in using CAD software such as the application SolidWorks from Waltham, Mass.-based Dassault Systemes.

"It's a struggle to get people to design parts and to get the designs to market," Formby said. "We have two designers with SolidWorks software experience. But be warned: The software is expensive, at about $1,500. But there are software applications that customers can use for free such as TinkerCAD and Autodesk Fusion 360 unless they are business users."

MatterHackers also develops its own software, MatterControl Desktop, to manage printers and allow some simple design capabilities, he said.

Innovations in the plastic filament used in 3-D printing are creating a wide range of opportunities for solution providers.

For instance, Rowan said, biodegradable filaments allow the printing of ecologically friendly products, while edible filaments let restaurants print certain types of food, or allow bakeries to print frosting at high resolutions to create gorgeous cakes.

Also, medical filaments allow the printing of complete organs, Rowan said. "Or someone can 3-D scan part of a trachea that was damaged by cancer to replace a part that was removed" during surgery, he said.

Changes are also rapid in the area of 3-D scanning, which allows an object to be scanned to develop the image file for 3-D printing, Rowan said.

He cited moves by Microsoft to develop 3-D scanning software using the company's Kinect sensor for its Xbox gaming console, as well as expectations that Apple will add dual lenses to future iPhones that can be used to generate 3-D scans.

Some solution providers have invested in offering 3-D printing as a service.

While American 3D Printing sells five brands of 3-D printers, the real money lies in printing as a service, Zepp said.

The company's customer base includes investors and entrepreneurs who need rapid prototyping and who may either come in with the 3-D files ready to go or with a 2-D drawing on paper that has yet to be designed for 3-D, he said.

Other customers include manufacturers looking for a way to produce parts at a low volume, he said.

American 3D Printing also sells 3-D scanners and offers 3-D scanning and 3-D design as services, Zepp said. "Design is a very important part of our service," he said. "Most people need help with 3-D software."

While MatterHackers sells one of the industry's widest range of 3-D printers and filaments, the company got out of the business of offering 3-D printing as a service about six months ago.

Doing 3-D printing as a service is difficult with consumer-grade printers, and really required the use of high-end equipment, Formby said. "Sometimes, a customer expects their finished product to have the kind of quality they might get from a high-end vendor like Shapeways, but it doesn't," he said.

Advantage Business Equipment looked at 3-D printing as a service, but found it to be a fast-evolving market, Rowan said.

"To make it work, you need to invest a couple hundred thousand dollars on the equipment," he said. "But that investment has to be amortized in a couple years because you know by then the equipment might be obsolete."

Printers do become obsolete, but can be used for years with care, Zepp said.

Education is still very much an important part of the business, because 3-D printing is still a scary topic for many potential customers, said Jean-Robert Barbette, CEO of Aspen, Colo.-based solution provider My 3D Concept, which sells 3-D printers and offers 3-D design services.

"These are $2,000 to $3,000 machines," he said. "People have a hard time buying them without training. It's not like using a coffee maker.

My 3D Concept provides training for the software, the hardware and the technical side, Barbette said. He said his company can charge $85 an hour for training after the sale.

"If you don't have the right knowledge, you can't do 3-D printing," he said. "So we offer step-by-step education. Nothing is as frustrating as thinking everything's going well, and then you press the button and nothing comes out."

The 3-D printers are actually easy to operate, but that is only part of the education process, Rowan said. "The main consideration is to have a good graphics person to handle the design requirements.’