3Dprinting has been a valid option for commercial O&P production for some years now. But making the change to 3D printing can bring forth issues that you may not be prepared for. We released a whitepaper where we discuss desktop vs “high end” 3DP.
Here’s some advice from the whitepaper that we would give to clinicians who want to get into 3D printing.
✔️ Do your research. Don’t just listen to one salesperson. Speak to several. Ask for samples and compare them. Try to speak to people who operate these machines. There are many different perspectives out there, and there are no shortcuts.
✔️ Build your own operational/cost model. Only you know all the factors relevant to your business. For example, do you want to manufacture in-house, or is sub-contracting an option? How much risk can you tolerate? How can an all-digital end-to-end process benefit you?
✔️ Think about where you want to spend your time and where it makes sense for you to spend it. For example, is it seeing patients, doing CAD, operating machines, post-production, or speaking to service providers?
✔️ Can you add value to the products through design, or do you wish to reproduce existing products with a different technology? Can this create new opportunities, better products, or address problems that you could not address before?
Thinking about these points will help you make the right decision regarding 3D printing. If you feel like you need some more information or inspiration, let us know!
