The impact of 3D printing on the printing industry.

By Erik Cagle

Corliss Weighs Pluses, Minuses of 3D Printing

Jim Corliss, owner of Braintree Printing in Braintree, MA, and one of the first printers to install a 3D printing device, offers his views on the compelling reasons in favor and against commercial and quick printers doing the same.

Pros of Installing a 3D Printer

• You already have the infrastructure in place. You have space, production people, salespeople, a phone system, a mailing list, a shipping department, etc. You are not an entrepreneur going out and getting space, hiring people and investing money to set up a 3D printing facility from scratch. You are already 90 percent there.

• The move from 2D printing (which is what we all do) to 3D printing is not a huge leap. We—and when I use the word we I mean all of us in the printing and graphics industry—are already comfortable with dealing with digital files. We all have mechanisms like FTP sites, etc., in place to receive files. We have a workflow. We have a system for archiving files. We have customer service people who can deal with inquiries and projects. You are already outputting files to plate makers, wide-format printers, to digital printers and copiers, and other devices.

So sending 3D files to a 3D printer is not a stretch. When we installed our first 3D printer, we were running projects two hours after they took the shrink wrap off. As one of my guys said, “Hey, it’s just another printer, no big deal.”

• The buzz for 3D printing is absolutely huge. In the last few months, The Economist, Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal have all mentioned 3D printing. It is all over the Internet. There are a number of YouTube videos featuring 3D printing and these videos have had zillions of viewings. In his State of the Union address, President Obama mentioned 3D printing and the national Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute.

When has a president ever mentioned envelopes, brochures or business cards in an address to the nation? In short, 3D printing is a topic that your current customers have been hearing about, are interested in and would like to talk to you about.

• 3D printing is a growth area. It has been growing by 30 percent a year and, by some estimates, will continue to grow at an accelerated rate. Printing, ink on paper, is still the biggest part of what most of us do. And putting ink on paper is not an industry looking at explosive growth going forward.

• The cost of getting into 3D printing is not overwhelming. Last year, Braintree Printing installed a five-color, 23x29˝ press. Our 3D printer cost us less than that press, a lot less. Keeping in mind that we all (hopefully) have the infrastructure and digital expertise in place, the move into 3D does not have to encumber the average company with mountains of debt.

Equipment is sold at various price points; the quick printer with four employees or the commercial printer with 45 employees can put a 3D device on their floor to fit their budgets.

Cons of Installing a 3D Printer

• The people we in the printing industry talk to, people in marketing, advertising, training, HR, etc ., never buy 3D printing. It is purchased by a completely different group—design engineers among others—than the typical print buying customer.

If you were to add promotional products, pocket folders, large format, variable data postcards or whatever, to your service offering, it’s a fit and a relatively easy sell. Your current customers probably buy many of those types of services and products. But 3D printing? None of the people that we in the printing industry talk to typically buy 3D printing.

• If you are like us here at Braintree Printing, you have never had a client ask you for a 3D project. Before we installed the Dimension 1200 by Stratasys we never, not even once, had a customer ask us about a 3D project. So why buy a piece of equipment to meet a demand that you don’t have?

If you want to fund an expansion into a new area, you would do much better to invest in a service or some equipment that meets a need that you currently have.

• 3D printing is not virgin territory. If you install this equipment, when you reach out and try to market it, your potential customers will probably already be using a 3D service. There are many 3D services, like Red Eye and Quick Parts, out there and they do a good job. The 3D service providers that you will be competing with are well-equipped. They offer many types of materials. They offer finishing. They can print in a variety of sizes and resolutions. They know what they are doing and they are entrenched.

And your potential 3D customer is already using them. So if you install 3D equipment, it may be unrealistic to expect the orders to come pouring in.

• Standard business advice (and standard common sense) is to go with what you know. Concentrate on your core business. You are offering a couple of things now that are working and hopefully making money for your company. Why go off on a tangent? Concentrate on what you know and are good at, and what is making money for you.

We entrepreneurs are all hard wired to make things better, to grow our businesses. That entrepreneurial effort would be better expended doing what you do now, and doing it better and more profitably.

What do Jim Corliss, Jay Leno and Barack Obama all have in common? All three, in their own way, have made a substantial commitment to the future of 3D printing.

Leno, the host of the "Tonight Show," may be the world's most famous owner of a 3D printer, using it to recreate obscure, esoteric and hard-to-find parts for his beloved classic cars. And President Obama made headlines back in May when he informed the nation that the White House wants to invest $200 million in 3D printing, an area he hopes would help spark growth in high-tech jobs.

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Commercial Printer Details Pros, Cons of 3D Printing