German injection molding leaders Arburg are leaving the 3D printing market.The company will continue to support its Freeformer systems with spare parts and service, but apart from this, the company will leave the industry at the end of this year.The company is also giving the 40 Arburg AM employees a chance to remain at the firm.
Arburg Advisory Board Chairman Armin Schmiedeberg said, “This business decision was made after careful evaluation and consideration of the current market situation and the current economic parameters. Although the Freeformer industrial manufacturing system and the associated Arburg Plastic Freeforming (APF) production process caused a stir throughout the industry following their market launch at K 2013 due to their unique technological features, it was not possible to realise the economic goals for this business segment in the long term, nor did the global 3D printing market develop as expected overall.The current economic situation also requires us to concentrate fully on our core business, injection moulding machine construction,” Fig.5: Flexible yet firm.
Using support material, a Freeformer processes thermoplastic polyester elastomer Hytrel (hardness 40 Shore) from Dupont into a flexible shoe sole that can be assembled from two parts.Arburg really tried to enter the 3D printing market.Its APF process was innovative and through the use of granulates, it made parts very affordable.
The machines were built like a tank, true industrial equipment made to last for years.The company also always ran good trade shows and engaged with its existing customer base.But from inception, APF parts looked a bit rough.
There were some interesting ideas around elastomeric materials as well.But, there really wasn’t a natural industry or application area that was ideal for the Freeformer.We didn’t see specialized shoe sole offerings, or a training plus leasing engagement for the orthotics industry, although some initial models and very exciting elastomers pointed towards this being a distinct possibility.
Its machines have build volumes of 54 x 134 x 230 mm, and later on 330 x 230 x 230 mm.Initially for a lot of products, the build volume was a real limitation.The 3D printing industry also needed to develop new thinking, new design optimizations, and new business models in response to the Freeformer.
We needed to think of how to optimize components to work well with the economics and esthetics of these machines.This really never happened very broadly.The socialization and education around the ways to take advantage of the system didn’t really occur.
Applying support materials in a grid structure allows complex geometries to be achieved with a short build time.This example shows an S-shaped pipe made from white PP with Armat 12 as the support material.Since its injection molding machines are suited for many industries and applications, application-specific development was potentially something that Arburg would underestimate.
Not enough application-specific examples inspired enough people to properly look at the system.We needed to be led by hand and new futures needed to be explained to both our industry and the existing Arburg client base.The company’s printers were expanded to four models across three machine generations.
The printers were refined, and innovations like a combination of hard and soft materials in one print tickled the imagination.An open materials strategy and a wide range of polymers were also compelling.But prices for the units were steep, starting at $75,000 and climbing to double that.
Once larger format gantry systems came along, the Freeformer systems looked expensive.All the time, the parts off regular Material Extrusion printers often looked better than Arburg parts.For me, I never discovered one thing for which the system was ideally suited.
I never needed it, and it was never on a short list.I can’t really see what the firm did wrong.It was a deep, committed, honest effort across 12 years.
The only thing I would have done differently, and this is with the benefit of hindsight, would be to look for two or three well-suited applications and make an ideal package for them; for example, a custom sports insole solution or an automotive seating solution.That may have worked, but sometimes product market fit is something that you can’t make happen retrospectively.Some solutions are a question of market timing, luck, and specific things not widely understood.
The Korean War pitted China against “the West.” The British colony of Hong Kong, long a gateway to the West for Chinese products, was cut off from Chinese trade.Hong Kong’s economy collapsed with most all of the colony’s economic output drying up in a matter of months.Desperate families turned to making inexpensive plastic toys, glasses, and famously plastic flowers.
Often making molds by hand and finishing products at home by hand, they produced injection molded products for the world.Economics, tariff structures, and a plastics revolution meant that Hong Kong’s bet on injection molded home goods and toys built the foundation of the current city’s wealth.Li Ka Shing, long Hong Kong’s most wealthy man, made his fortune in plastic flowers, while others developed the first plastic dolls, toy animals, and other stalwarts of the mass consumption era.
Mass manufacturing became truly global thanks to injection molding, a crisis, and Hong Kong.At first glance, 3D printing could be seen as a new digital form of injection molding.But, we lack the services that make files quickly and cheaply for us and our unit economics depend highly on the business case.
Where mass manufacturing and injection molding became a way to make millions of things for millions of people, we still lack the ability, and exigency, to do this well.Cheap dolls sold because they were the only bright toys at that price point, and a hyper Darwinian retail and importer buyer system brought the bestsellers to the fore and eliminated those who made the wrong molds.In additive, we’re working with clients to make key parts of their supply chain, and through long processes, these parts get designed and made.
This hyper Darwinian competition to create the perfect mold is not occurring, so we’re not quickly learning what the ideal component is that sells.We’re instead, bit by bit, sampling out the trying of critical, important, or expensive parts that work.Desperation, inventiveness, and gumption is what turned into fortune in Hong Kong; we lack that same kind of mechanism to find our own future.
Perhaps the Freeformer was just a technology made for a market that had it all figured out already, and we just simply haven’t.Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.Print Services Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.
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