Small Firms Get New Manufacturing Edge: 3-D Printing in the Cloud

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Steven Rosenbush.

Two powerful tech trends—3-D printing and cloud computing—are coming together. And that might make it a lot easier for small companies to get into the manufacturing game. There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about small companies rushing to adopt 3-D printing, taking advantage of the ability to turn computer-generated designs into physical objects.

Yet even though the technology can crank out items more cheaply than traditional manufacturing, for many small firms the investment is too big: Higher-end printers that produce finished products can cost thousands or even millions of dollars, and require specialized skills to use. Enter a new batch of cloud-based services—such as Shapeways, Cubify, i Materialize and Sculpteo—that offer to do the 3-D printing for small businesses…

Companies can work up a design and upload it to a cloud server, and the cloud business at the other end 3-D prints it. The cloud companies sometimes offer services such as packaging, shipping and billing as well—allowing small businesses to focus on core areas such as design…

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