Shapeways and Materialise Expand Operations

Here at Rapid Ready, we do plenty of coverage of 3D printer manufacturers big (you can check out our company profiles for more on that) and small. What we haven’t covered quite as closely are additive manufacturing (AM) service providers.

A growing number of companies exist to provide AM services. Today we’ll look at how two of those companies are expanding their operations. Future AM service features will take a more in-depth look at service providers.

Shapeways is a Dutch company that has recently expanded operations to Queens, NY. The company’s first U.S. office is a 5,000 sq. ft. distribution space, with a 15,000 sq. ft. production facility still under construction. The expansion is due to the support of venture capitalists to the tune of $5.1 million and a loan of $1.2 million.

The company intends to use the new facilities to reduce costs and shipping times for their customers. Among the tech to be deployed at the production facility is a selective laser sintering machine and a ZCorp full color sandstone machine.

Belgium based Materialise is opening a new AM Automation and Control System center to help better manage flow of products. The center will offer all the services you’d expect from the Materialise site with an interactive focus and complete integration with the Magics AM software.

Customers will have access to real-time status updates of orders, linked CAD files and more hands-on data thanks to the centralized database. Build planning is expected to become easier through use of an integrated planning system that allows users to look up machine availability and plan future builds in advance based on materials, process and time required to fill an order.

More information about the new center will be revealed at the Materialise World Conference to be held April 18-20 in Leuven, Belgium.

Below you’ll find a video about Materialise.

Sources: Shapeways, Betabeat, TenLinks