I’m reading about an interesting angle to make use of 3D printing for small-scale manufacturing.
A report in the Dubuque, Iowa Telegraph-Herald about a local operation that is leveraging 3D printers to produce “rare” parts.
Snap Manufacturing has found a market niche that could very well be used by many other 3D printer operators.
Here’s the concept: manufacturing a part domestically typically is quite costly, mostly due to the expense of setting up the tooling to make the part. By contrast, overseas manufacturers have invested huge amounts to create production lines capable of mass manufacturing. The huge number of parts produced on these lines means the cost to produce each is very low. Far lower than the domestic manufacturing cost.
Because of that cost difference, the parts are simply sourced overseas: it’s way cheaper to do so.
But here’s the twist: what happens when that overseas production line shuts down? There is no longer a stream of inexpensive parts for buyers, and prices rise for any that can be found.
This is where Snap Manufacturing steps in. They find discontinued products and make them locally. This is nowhere near the scale of the original part manufacturers, but addresses the long tail of part buyers.
In fact, the large production line could have shut down because the expected sales were insufficient to pay for the cost of the line itself. Why run the line if it’s not going to make any money? However, there are still residual buyers that will pay for parts.
This could be a case of the overseas producers being too big — they may not be able to find a financially viable approach to address the smaller scale of production.
There are countless possibilities for this approach: how many discontinued parts exist? The issue might be in finding those parts and reaching their smaller market.
But that’s just the type of work small entrepreneurs using 3D printing like to do.
Via Telegraph-Herald and Snap Manufacturing
https://www.telegraphherald.com/news/tri-state/article_074a1f4c-64c6-458a-ab9f-fb3675b033c5.html
https://snapmanufacturing.com
