After four years of helping customers manufacture parts locally, online printing community 3D Hubs announces making over a million parts.

3D Hubs began life as a group of friends in Amsterdam, their bicycles, and the latest technology. Four years ago the group, who all owned 3D printers, started delivering custom-made 3D printed parts to customers by bicycle.

“Our first order was handled by Ruben, a 13 year old running a printer out of his dining room,” explains co-founder Bram de Zwart. “He provided Ken, an avid snowboarder, with a gopro mount for his holiday that he couldn’t have got delivered in time when ordering online.”

“Our first order was handled by Ruben, a 13 year old running a printer out of his dining room. He provided Ken, an avid snowboarder, with a GoPro mount for his holiday that he couldn’t have got delivered in time when ordering online.”

Since their inception in 2013, 3D Hubs has announced that the company has now made 1 million parts. But even after four years of operation, the company’s manifesto remains very much the same. They hope to provide a “supportive infrastructure”, allowing people to manufacture parts locally.

Impressively, their reach has extended around the globe. They have 6,000 “hubs” or manufacturing services in over 140 countries. Below is the very first interview from 2013 with co-founders de Zwart and Brian Garret:

3D Hubs has Come a Long Way

One of the projects which has benefitted most from 3D Hubs is Fairphone. The Fairphone is the world’s first ethical smartphone and 3D Hubs is developing accessories to match. This means locally produced, on-demand accessories.

With so many hubs worldwide, the company has faced a few challenges when it comes to offering consistently high quality parts. But they’ve developed a few steps to ensure the standardization of parts.

For example, their Printability Analyzer helps designers and engineers make the right technology decision. Also, there are print quality guidelines which suppliers must opt-in to.

Finally, the pricing automation and Hub Ranking Algorithm features are likely the most helpful to customers. For example, the ranking algorithm helps customers decide which hub is best for their needs. It uses factors like repeat custom, print quality ratings and response time to build a ranking.

“The changes that have developed the 3D Hubs platform and evolved it into the 1,000,000 part producing platform it is today is down to the brilliant team members past and present behind it.”

“The changes that have developed the 3D Hubs platform and evolved it into the 1,000,000 part producing platform it is today,” says de Zwart, “is down to the brilliant team members past and present behind it, its passionate community of Hubs who never fail to provide insightful feedback at every turn, and it’s supportive investors.”

For the future, the company wants to offer customers custom parts in under 24 hours in all major digital manufacturing technologies. 3D printing was just the beginning, CNC is the next step!

Source: 3D Hubs