3D Systems Acquires 3D Printer Maker botObjects and Introduces CubePro C Full-Color 3D Printer

3D Systems Acquires 3D Printer Maker botObjects and Introduces CubePro C Full-Color 3D Printer

Strengthens 3DS consumer and prosumer product portfolio

First affordable, desktop, full-color plastic 3D printing capabilities

Sets new standards at 25-micron resolution and 175 mm/sec speed

New CubePro C will be on display at International CES 2015

ROCK HILL, South Carolina, January 5, 2015 – 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced today that it acquired U.K. based 3D printer maker botObjects and plans to launch the CubePro^®C, a new desktop full-color 3D printer powered by botObjects’ technology. The company did not disclose the terms of the transaction, but expects it to be accretive to its 2015 results. The company invites International CES 2015 attendees to experience its revolutionary CubePro C for the first time this week at the 3DS booth, located at the Sands Expo, booth 72225.

botObjects pioneered the first 3D desktop printer using PlasticJet Printing (PJP) that offers true full-color 3D printing, significantly expanding the palette of possibilities for what designers, artists and engineers create, from prototypes to products. botObjects also invented a proprietary 5-color CMYKW cartridge system, capable of mixing primary printing colors on the fly to generate vibrant color combinations and gradient transitions.

The botObjects ProDesk3D will immediately be folded into 3DS’s new CubePro C printer family and deliver a true full-color experience at the affordable price of $4,990, with greater accuracy and speed than any comparable desktop 3D printer on the market today. The new CubePro C is capable of printing down to 25-microns layers at deposition speeds of up to 175 millimeters per second using durable PLA and ABS print materials with PVA support material.

“Joining the winning team at 3DS couldn’t have come at a better time as orders for our revolutionary full-color desktop printer continue to outstrip our resources,” said Martin Warner, co-founder and CEO, botObjects. “Together we can bring this powerful technology to more users faster.”

“We are thrilled to add groundbreaking full-color with ultra thin-layer and high-speed technology from botObjects to our expanding consumer and prosumer 3D printing portfolio,” said Avi Reichental, President and CEO, 3DS. “We are even more excited to team up with botObjects founders, Martin Warner and Mike Duma, and together democratize the availability of this powerful 3D printer and accelerate its adoption globally.”

Under the capable and experienced leadership of Martin Warner, who was named Vice President, General Manager botObjects for 3DS, the company plans to fulfill all of its current backorders for the recently introduced ProDesk3D as it concurrently transitions to the new CubePro C line and substantially expands its desktop reach globally. Until the company expands its manufacturing capacity, the CubePro C will be available in a limited release, with plans to expand distribution later in 2015.  The CubePro C line joins 3DS’ desktop portfolio that includes the CubePro and Cube line of 3D printers and Sense 3D scanning products, which are ideal for a variety of professional desktops from engineers to designers and architects, as well as users at home and students at school.

Those who are not attending CES 2015 can join 3DS’ President and CEO, Avi Reichental, for a broadcast of 3DS’ extensive showing at CES 2015 by visiting http://www.3dsystems.com/ces and clicking on the link to view the broadcast starting at 4:00 PM EST on Tuesday, January 6, 2015. For more details on 3DS’ 3D printed lifestyle consumer showcase at CES 2015, please visit www.3dsystems.com/ces.   

Learn more about 3DS’ commitment to manufacturing the future today at www.3dsystems.com and its consumer offerings at www.cubify.com.

About 3D Systems

3D Systems is pioneering 3D printing for everyone. 3DS provides the most advanced and comprehensive 3D design-to-manufacturing solutions including 3D printers, print materials and cloud sourced custom parts. Its powerful digital thread empowers professionals and consumers everywhere to bring their ideas to life in material choices including plastics, metals, ceramics and edibles. 3DS' leading healthcare solutions include end-to-end simulation, training and integrated 3D planning and printing for personalized surgery and patient specific medical and dental devices. Its democratized 3D design and inspection products embody the latest perceptual, capture and touch technology. Its products and services replace and complement traditional methods with improved results and reduced time to outcomes. These solutions are used to rapidly design, create, communicate, plan, guide, prototype or produce functional parts, devices and assemblies, empowering customers to manufacture the future.

PDM: Not Just for the Big Boys Anymore

Product data management software (PDM), championed for years by large companies, has recently dropped in price, making it available for the first time to many small and mid-sized firms. In addition to its affordability, PDM also has a slew of new functions to consider.

Product data management (PDM) has, until recently, been utilized exclusively by larger manufacturers, an imbalance of implementation due, for the most part, to its traditionally prohibitive cost. While continually retooling the software that has been used by these larger firms, PDM vendors have developed its capabilities to greater and greater degrees and, in the process, brought the cost of their packages lower and lower. There are currently PDM solutions being offered by vendors that are inexpensive enough to be put to use in small and mid-sized companies. In addition to its affordability, the state of PDM technology is at a high point in its development, with a new crop of features that were previously unavailable and a market full of vendors to choose from. So many, in fact, that the market borders on being congested.

Companies typically look to PDM for a variety of reasons, their only commonality being to increase the effectiveness of their operations. For some companies, this means coordinating manufacturing and service facilities in distant locations. There is PDM software available that not only aids companies in this respect by allowing employees to input data from disparate job sites using laptops, but also by managing the data throughout the entire product life cycle. From its initial conceptual stage through design and production, up to operation, the software provides remote access to product data through a relatively simple web interface. This process has eventually come to encompass computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), simulation, analysis, and enterprise-resource planning systems (ERP).

Some PDM platforms enable their users to improve their bill-of-material (BOM) procedures by consolidating their production data into a single system, allowing these companies to respond with greater speed in meeting customer requests that affect production. Other firms use PDM platforms to interface with purchasers and establish real-time communication across the company. Still others utilize the technology to decrease the engineering change cycle time. As one can see, PDM wears many hats. For a company to get the most out of their software, they need to first decide upon the set of capabilities that best suits them and then put together a software package with that specific vision in mind.

With a proliferation of startup vendors rushing to the PDM market with supposedly unique solutions to companies' production challenges, well-established PDM vendors are starting to feel the squeeze. Adding to the market's confusion is the fact that the functionalities of some types of software are starting to butt up against one another and, in some cases, even overlap each other, leading to an ever-more tangled web of product choices for prospective users to become stuck in. Some of PDM software's traditional territory, such as engineering change and document management, has even been wandered into by the latest ERP vendors.

Perhaps to give customers some means of distinguishing their products, a handful of PDM vendors have begun equipping their software with a diverse range of third-party components such as, user-interface packages, view and markup tools, workflow engines, document vaults and configuration management entities. As PDM evolves, a trend that is becoming more apparent is the move towards more of an overall software integrator, combining and blending other platforms into a cohesive PDM solution. As a result, PDM's impact is not relegated simply to one or two departments within a company, but is rather spread across the entire enterprise.

Another trait becoming more and more available within PDM software is the inclusion of a relatively simple Web browser that brings together a vast hive of automated activities into one easy-to-view format. Since most companies have internally developed web connections for their PDM systems, they are putting pressure on vendors to produce software with browser technology.

As for what PDM has to offer the design department, a new wave of PDM tools has been created for the express purpose of integrating multiple data sources from different CAD systems into one concise 3D model. This would provide engineers a more encompassing view of how a product's individual components fit together into a whole. PDM vendors are now incorporating virtual product mock-up technology into the software to offer users an integrated design management program, allowing them to import data from an assortment of sources, regardless of vendor or file format. The uses of virtual product mock-up technology extends beyond the design department. Quality engineers can use the mock-up models to gauge specifications while technical writers can use the models as the basis for their descriptions and illustrations. Even graphic stylists can make use of the technology to evaluate the mocked-up product's style of design in relation to their company's overall image and corporate identity.

PDM has already proven itself useful to a multitude of company types, regardless of their industrial niche. Now the move to ensure availability across the board, no matter the company size, is a reality.

Enterprise zone on track to being world class performer

Enterprise zone on track to being world class performer

With almost 500 hectares of prime development land, the equivalent in area to 780 football pitches, the Humber Enterprise Zone is the biggest and most ambitious nationwide.

Set up in 2012 as a partnership between the private sector and local authorities to boost business and create jobs, the Humber Enterprise Zone is a vital component of the work to stimulate growth across the Humber, stretching from Brough to Paull to Grimsby with portside sites on both banks of the estuary which are proving successful in spearheading recovery and building economic optimism locally.

Its unique geographical position, together with the progress made in securing better infrastructure connectivity via road, rail and super-fast broadband has enabled the Humber Enterprise Zone to be the location of choice for blue chip companies, including Siemens, Eon, and CLS Offshore with more to come, positioning the area as the national centre for the off-shore wind sector.

Currently, there is more than £822.5m investment planned and 5,850 jobs are expected for the zone.

A key success in building the Energy Estuary is Siemens’ commitment to site its wind turbine assembly, blade manufacturing and shipping facilities at Hull’s Alexandra Dock, creating 1,000 jobs.

Last week the company announced the blade manufacturing operation will be optimised to increase capacity and provide for exports.

This £310m investment is a major milestone for the Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP) vision for the Humber becoming an internationally renowned centre for renewable energy and the catalyst to attract more investment.

The South Humber Bank is set to be transformed by the development of a £450m Marine Energy Park by Able UK which plans to create around 4,000 jobs.

It is the largest site available for port-related developments in Europe.

Along the proposed 1,289m quay will be latest purpose-built facilities for the manufacture, assembly and installation of offshore renewable technologies. Preparatory work is already under way, funded by a £14.9m grant secured by the LEP and North Lincolnshire Council.

In Grimsby, port land has been dedicated to the development of the operations and maintenance support services for off-shore wind farms. Eon Energy was one of the first to locate on the former fish dock, investing £4m and creating 30 jobs.

The onshore facility will support the teams working on the 73 turbines at its 219MW Humber Gateway offshore wind farm. The facility is a model of energy efficiency with its own solar array, roof-top wind turbines and charging points for electric vehicles.

Progress is being made on enterprise zone sites all around the estuary and is not limited to offshore wind.

An outstanding success is the Marfleet Environmental Technology Park on Hedon Road in Hull. The former site of the well-known model kit company Humbrol hosts chemical firm Nippon Gohsei, hauliers Middlegate Shipping and Neill and Brown Global Logistics and several other small businesses who collectively have invested £10m and are currently employing around 100 people.

Thanks to the commitment and innovation of our partners, we’ve seen the Marfleet site go from an empty, crumbling factory to a state-of-the-art technology centre which is fully occupied ahead of schedule. There’s already considerable interest in neighbouring Burma Drive.

Plots released for the first phase have sold well and the phase two enterprise zone plots will be ready for occupiers from April 2015.

Being part of the Hedon Road corridor, we expect demand to be buoyant as Burma Drive is so close to the main Siemens Green Port Hull site at Alexandra Dock. All the plots will have a highway frontage and provision for all services.

New companies have also moved on to the Humber Enterprise Park at Brough, taking over from some of the space vacated by BAE Systems.

There with a skilled workforce and modern facilities on hand, the site is now home to manufacturers such as Cablescan, Blackcat Homes and aerospace components firm Supercraft, building on the area’s reputation for engineering and manufacturing.

Having the largest Enterprise Zone in England on our patch is a huge challenge and responsibility, and we have made considerable progress. Due to the strength of the partnership among members of the LEP Humber-wide, we have together established the area as an increasingly attractive location.

All partners are committed to building on the momentum created and transforming the Humber into a world class powerhouse for energy and industry.