United Utilities, the UK’s largest water company, contacted PrintCity for a feasibility study to identify technologies that could improve their core services. Creating On-Demand Replacement Parts with the Form 3 and Fusion 360 These research studies help answer fundamental questions about whether technology will have the intended outcome and integrate seamlessly into an organization. Mark will frequently offer to conduct a feasibility study to reduce the fear and risk associated with change. A team that has successfully relied on the same workflow for many years can often be hesitant to try something new. “Autodesk is always listening to their customers.”Īnother unique challenge arises when working with larger companies: Mark sometimes sees resistance to change.
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It’s cost-effective as well.” Chester commented that Autodesk is also consistently updating its software with new features and pushing those features to customers. “Fusion 360 has a shallow learning curve for clients who don’t have previous CAD experience. The same can be said for Chester’s CAD tool of choice, Fusion 360, which he uses for client and personal projects.
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We always need to do a cost-benefit analysis to see if adopting a certain technology will benefit your company.” The Form 3 fills a need for an approachable desktop solution that delivers professional results. “I think for all companies, one of the barriers is always money. In addition to physical outcomes, accessibility is also key. It’s cost-effective as well.” – Mark Chester, product development specialist at PrintCity The client specifically required a high-fidelity textured part in a high-strength material. In one recent example, Mark evaluated Rigid resin for a company that designs embossing rollers for impressing textures into paper media. However, an increasing number of clients are thinking about additive manufacturing for end-use. Many companies’ designs are destined for injection molding for mass production, and the Tough and Durable family of Formlabs resins can be a good mimic for end-use parts. To address this need, PrintCity staff can print same-day prototypes for a client on an FDM machine or Form 3 with Draft Resin, then later move to higher fidelity iterations with Formlabs Standard or Engineering Resins.
One common theme of Chester’s work is to break a problem down into smaller parts, so you can go through multiple iterations on the same day rather than taking a week or more. Although these companies differ in size and product category, he sees many common threads in their needs and the solutions that tools like Fusion 360 and the Form 3 bring to the table. So it’s important for us to share a wide spectrum of printers available.” Mark works with companies ranging from textile designers to sports equipment companies, to utility providers, to manufacturers. Chester says that “companies that come in to see us have sometimes never accessed 3D printing before, and they are completely new to this type of technology. PrintCity’s diverse fleet of 3D printers is always a starting point for discussing digital tools with clients. PrintCity Consults With Clients of All Sizes
In this article, we’ll take a special look at the UK’s largest water company, United Utilities as a case study. We recently spoke with PrintCity product development specialist Mark Chester to discuss how the company uses accessible tools like Fusion 360 and Formlabs Form 3 printer to help his clients embrace and leverage digital fabrication. The staff at PrintCity consults with companies of all sizes on which digital technologies they should adopt in their own organization and helps guide products through R+D and manufacturing stages. PrintCity currently has 65 printers of various types, representing FDM, SLA, and metal printing technology. PrintCity is also a campus fabrication space for students in the university’s MSc in Industrial Digitalization program. Based within Manchester Metropolitan University, the facility serves as an education and consulting hub for companies in Manchester and internationally. PrintCity is a 3D additive manufacturing and digital manufacturing facility based in Manchester, UK, a city with a rich industrial history. In this post, we take a deep dive into how they developed a scan to CAD workflow for United Utilities. PrintCity uses Fusion 360 and Formlabs’ Form 3 3D printer to provide custom additive manufacturing workflow and material solutions to customers.
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