Free The Fortus Podcast

Speaker 1 (00:00):

In this journey, Free the Fortus, now we have access to push the buttons, to print the materials that we need to print that solve the problems our clients are asking us to solve. We are a global partner for Stratasys on the OpenAM. We’re early in the phase, so we’re learning, Stratasys is learning, and we’re doing it together.

Speaker 2 (00:18):

It’s exciting for us to be on the cutting edge of this program, pulling the doors off, so to speak.

Tom Leach (00:24):

This is awesome. It’s like nothing we’ve ever done before.

Speaker 2 (00:28):

We created this because it is complicated. We see a lot of significance here and we want to share our journey as we’re helping our customers solve problems because we feel like there’s a lot of learning that will take place. So as we go through the podcast, we’ll have series to talk about why Stratasys opened up the platform, why they created OpenAM, and why they selected DI Labs as a beta partner. We’ll talk about the benefits of FDM, advancements of materials, especially those that Stratasys is opening up with a new system. And then we’ll talk about projects that we’re leveraging these materials for. And then finally we’ll share some of our experiences, the successes and some of the challenges. And our intent here is to share knowledge and to help others learn through our experiences. But it’ll be a lot of fun and we’re looking forward to freeing the Fortus.

(01:25):

Well Tom, I’m super excited to be here with you and we’re really excited to start this OpenAM program with Stratasys. And working with you especially is a treat.

Tom Leach (01:40):

I appreciate that. I couldn’t be more excited about where we are today and working with DI Labs on this beta program and bringing this product to market. It’s been a long time coming and we’re finally here. It’s just right around the corner, a couple more days and it’s real. It’s real. Here we are.

Speaker 2 (02:00):

Right on. So Tom Leach is the commercial leader for the industrial business unit of America’s for Stratasys. Tom is leading a lot of the critical business initiatives at Stratasys, and it’s exciting for us to be on the cutting edge of this program, and we see it as a real advantage for our business in helping our customers solve really important problems that aren’t easily solved if they are even solvable using other technologies. We’re really looking forward to pulling the doors off, so to speak. The Fortus 450 and really allowing it to stretch its legs. We’re honored to have you as our first guest, and this will be the first of many that we’re going to do on a weekly basis. So why do you think folks should tune into this?

Tom Leach (02:52):

Oh, because it’s the journey. There’s going to be challenges. There’s going to be tips and tricks. How are you guys successful? What are you doing that’s different? I see this as a podcast, but also as potential training to say, look what DI Labs has done. Look at the challenges they have overcome. You’re going to have challenges. We are not hiding that and it’s not going to be perfect and we’re going to learn. But to really see this as it’s unfolding.

(03:28):

So it’s like something we’ve never done before. I mean, in my time here, I’ve done a lot of betas, a lot of alphas, a lot of great customers. But we’re taking a proactive approach here and we’re talking about it as it’s happening. And that never gets to happen, never gets to happen. And so it’s a whole new beta world that we’re in and a journey that other people get to go on. And usually people ask how betas are going and they have to hear it from my perspective, and that’s internal, not even external. And so now people get to learn what’s going on with the beta. How is DI Labs overcoming these challenges? How are they addressing customer needs? What are the applications they’re seeing? They get to be part of it all. It’s exciting and it’s going to be for everyone to view.

(04:23):

And if you have a specific application on the market today and there’s no way of achieving it or you’ve tried it with other 3D printers and different materials, this is an opportunity for people to listen in and then also contact DI Labs. And we could hear about that application on this podcast potentially. I guess I’m biased, but I am really, really looking forward to listening into this. And also the multiple speakers that are going to be on here. I mean, there’s going to be people from our material suppliers to engineers within Stratasys, potentially your customers. Who are you working with? What was the application? I mean, it could go a lot of different directions and that’s why people need to listen in. I know I will be, and I’m going to be eagerly waiting for every new episode to come out. And yeah, God, this is awesome. It’s like nothing we’ve ever done before. So yeah, it’s really cool.

Speaker 2 (05:29):

Well, thanks so much for that. We’re on that journey together. This is something we’ve never done before and we’re proud to be the first with Stratasys. This is an entirely new program for Stratasys. In the past, the machines are referred to as being closed, so you can only run materials that are available through Stratasys. Can you talk a little bit about where the company’s been and the change to this new OpenAM concept?

Tom Leach (06:02):

Absolutely. So since the beginning, Stratasys has a closed ecosystem. And through multiple, I mean 20 some years of working with different customers in multiple segments, from automotive to aerospace to education to CPG, consumer packaged goods and consumer electronics, the Department of Defense, DOE, Department of Energy, there has been a shift, a shift in what customers are asking for. And we still have a great, great customer base that loves Stratasys product for what we know today. And that is the most repeatable, reliable, accurate systems there are for FDM on the market. And you know that you are going to get the part that you put in and it’s going to work.

(06:50):

But as we move to manufacturing, having one source of material is a limitation. And what I mean by that is if you look at just manufacturing in general, if you only have one supplier and no backup suppliers, if you’re producing a product in manufacturing, that’s a risk. That’s a really big risk. So we hear that a lot for our customers that are doing end use production parts for flight parts, for aircraft, going to space, automotive, a variety of different industries, using it for end use production parts. And the biggest concern is, well, we only have one source and that can be problematic for many manufacturers and you need to have a backup source.

(07:35):

And then there is customers that… There’s unique applications that Stratasys, maybe from a commercialization standpoint, can’t bring to market because the market is only so big, but there’s absolutely a need in a business case. But because of the size of the market and the application, we can’t bring a product to market that would only address a certain type of customer. And unfortunately we wouldn’t make any money, we’d lose money. So we identify that and there’s an opportunity to where we can partner with chemical suppliers that have a lot of resources in developing new materials for those types of customers.

(08:17):

And then there’s another bracket of customer that is developing their own material for a specific application that’s only unique to them. And we want to enable them to be successful because in the past they’d have to go to other manufacturers because other manufacturers, OEMs of manufacturing machines or 3D printers or additive manufacturing systems, and we were essentially turning away customers that would’ve said, “We’d love to use your printer. We love the robustness and we want to be partnered with you.” And for a long time we just weren’t able to do that from a company standpoint.

(08:53):

But especially recently, in the last two years, especially with COVID, we had a lot of time to think, analyze. And with our new leadership from Yoav Zefe, our new CEO, he understands the manufacturing needs, and it’s really his leadership that enabled and empowered the organization and product team to move forward and R and D team to move forward with these initiatives.

(09:18):

There’s a lot of reasons why we’re getting here today. And we are shifting our focus from a prototyping company to a manufacturing company. And that’s how we see ourselves and that’s why we have to make these changes, make these changes for our customers so we can grow with our customers and our customers can grow with us. So this is customer driven and voice a customer. So we just couldn’t be more excited about DI Labs being a part of this. So that’s the journey that we’re on right now. And you guys are the tip of the spear.

Speaker 1 (09:53):

The switch from going from a closed system to an open system, that is a huge transition. And for having FDM out there in the market for so long, the mind shift, the foundational change in what has to occur within Stratasys to make that happen. Can you talk through some of the challenges that you’ve been faced with, with that massive transition?

Tom Leach (10:19):

We are making a decision to transition our business model and opening the system up because we are making a conscious decision to say you can go and purchase third party materials that’s not from Stratasys. That’s a huge mind shift from the business aspect of it. We risk losing revenue and we totally recognize that, but with that risk comes new opportunity and that means reaching customers that we wouldn’t have reached before. And the feedback that we’re having from the technical side, from the materials is, we understand that there’s a lot of material, I guess material companies out there, chemical companies out there that have a lot of resources and a lot of knowledge and a lot of know-how. And if you look at where the market’s going and the [inaudible 00:11:09] of growth that we’re expecting in this industry, it’s double digits growth year after year and it does not look like it’s slowing down anytime soon.

(11:17):

But technical challenges, there is going to be technical challenges in terms of supporting customers, especially with OpenAM. And we are going to have to learn and our new OpenAM software is going to be very intuitive. It’s going to help people be successful, it’s going to give them tips and tricks and the knowledge that we have to basically set them up for success. But that learning curve.

(11:42):

And on that topic, it’s a really great reason why we chose DI Labs to partner with because you guys have the knowledge, you have the experience, you’ve worked with other open systems, you’ve developed other 3D printer technology, you have multiple different technologies and post-processing equipment at your facility. And it’s really your knowledge, your industries that you target, your customers that you work with and the people that are within DI Labs that was so appealing for us to partner with. Because we understand there is going to be a learning curve, there is going to be challenges, and you guys rise to the occasion, are up for these challenges to learn with us and then go with us on this journey.

Speaker 2 (12:27):

And we’re excited to be a part of it and we’re taking it very seriously. And our next stop after this podcast is to go stand in front of that machine and work with the team. So we’re really excited for that as well.

Tom Leach (12:43):

Yeah, that’s a huge milestone. You’re the first printer outside of Stratasys to have an unlocked Fortus 450 OpenAM software with the validated materials and some of the best engineers at your facility. With your engineers, you’re really getting the coaching and education to be successful. We’ve been talking about this and scoping and doing tons of work, R and D, marketing, a product, everyone putting so much time into this and it’s here, it’s going on right now. Brings a smile to my face because it’s like I have so many words and so much energy and so much effort to get here. And we’re here and this is the beginning.

(13:27):

We’re adding these great new materials in November. We’re launching end of Q4 here, but we’re starting our beta next week. There is going to be material after material coming with our new material partners. And previously it would take us 18 months to launch one new material in FDM and now you see it, we’re launching five new validated materials with our material partners, actually six. And then Altem 985, 6 new colors. And then PC red, PC black and PCABS red. So it’s a lot of materials all at one time and what enabled that capability was having material suppliers working with us and participating in this and doing the development with us. And it enables customers like yourselves to take advantage of this. So it’s an exciting time. There it is again, exciting.

Speaker 2 (14:22):

There’s a lot of folks that look at the expense of the equipment or look at the expense of the material as the primary expense, but we’ve found that those are not cost savings opportunities. So in other words, purchasing a less expensive machine that is not as robust or sourcing less expensive materials, we found are actually much more costly from an operating standpoint. So we’re really diligent in running prime materials as we would call it, in this case it would be Stratasys’ materials. And our interest with this program isn’t so that we can find other material sources for the same materials we get from Stratasys, as much as it is to be able to run highly engineered materials. We just can’t afford to fool around with inconsistencies in material streams and uncontrolled quality variances that we don’t have control over.

Tom Leach (15:19):

Yeah. And thank you for sharing that because I do want to just kind clarify too on our paths because I think I jumped into it. We have three material paths and it is the Stratasys preferred material path. So that’s the Stratasys materials developed and tuned, fully tuned to work on Stratasys printers, and that’s the current path that we’ve been. Previously, it’s the Stratasys preferred path. Then we have this second path called the validated materials. And the validated materials is working with customers, sorry, working with our chemical suppliers, material suppliers like the Vitrex’s, like the Kimeo’s, Cavestro’s. And where we’re in conjunction working together using their materials and putting them on. And so we’re putting them on our printers and doing a validated path. So we’re validating that you’re going to get similar characteristics and similar performance from our path, but the preferred path is one step more.

(16:24):

And I want to say that our goal to start out with validated path is to get them to a certain point so they’re ready for the market. Now, if there is a need from the market to get them on the preferred path where we can fully tune them and do all that in-house, it takes a lot of time. It’s like 14,300 cubic inches of printing. It’s just a lot. And we are obviously doing that for the validated materials, but we can even take it one step further and bring validated materials. We can bring the Vitrex AM 200 material from a validated path to the preferred path and even get more performance out of it and more tuning.

(17:03):

And so things that start on the validated path will make its way to the preferred path. And then we have this third tier and this is the OpenAM software tier and it’s open materials and our software is called OpenAM. And that is materials that… There is highly engineered materials on the market that Stratasys does not make and that are really unique because it has a unique application. And we want to enable DI Labs, we want to enable our aerospace customers, our automotive customers to go out and purchase those other highly engineered materials for an application that maybe has a smaller market size but is a definite need to go and do that to utilize our printer.

(17:50):

And we did not do this, like you said, there is customers that want go and buy lower cost ASA material because ASA is a huge mover for Stratasys. We didn’t do this for that customer. Granted we know that customers are going to go and try to save money by purchasing lower cost ASA material and running it on our system. That’s going to happen. But it’s the quality of the material that’s what’s important, and the performance we get by having high quality on that material that makes our materials, and we can predict the repeatability, reliability. And customers are going to do it and that’s okay, but that was not our goal when we developed OpenAM and the validated materials path.

(18:40):

Our goal is to have highly engineered materials on the market available for customers and get them on there faster so that we can start having more applications, changing from traditional manufacturing to additive manufacturing and expand the market a lot faster. And that’s the driver behind all this. We want to enable our customers to be more successful. We’re going to get everyone doing a variety of different things. And really great to hear what’s motivating DI Labs to move forward with this. And that’s why we have our partnership today is because of what you’re doing and how you’re expanding the space and the applications.

Speaker 2 (19:23):

Well, it’s really great to hear all the work that goes on behind the scenes at Stratasys to validate and constantly improve both the processes and the materials. And that’s something that no other, I’m sure that no other FDM manufacturer does. They don’t have the capability of doing. And so we appreciate that as a Stratasys customer and it builds a lot of confidence for us and allows us to solve our customer’s problems even better. And I think that with the steps you’re taking with OpenAM, I think you’re going to find a big success in the marketplace where other companies are going to be able to use your machines for really unique challenging applications. So good move for Stratasys, there’s no doubt.

Speaker 1 (20:10):

This is the piece that I’m most excited about because we get to use whatever material we want and we can meet the specification given on a drawing and then we can prepare for production by fine-tuning all the parameters on the Fortus to meet whatever the specification is that our clients are asking for. So having that span of materials and approaches, it’s just going to give us a ton of capability.

Speaker 2 (20:35):

And then being able to focus on really just the process controls of the materials rather than all the environmental and hardware and firmware, G code issues, that’s going to take a big bottleneck out of the works for us from what we’ve been experiencing and trying to run some of those spec materials for projects.

(20:57):

It was interesting to hear your telling the story of why you made this change and thinking about our history in FDM. And we offer FDM printing of course, and we’ve only focused or primarily focused on highly engineered materials, so like Peak for example, which can be really challenging to run from a process standpoint. And our bottleneck has been the hardware and the software for that matter, the hardware and the systems, the firmware that’s running open source machines is really not robust nearly to the degree that the Fortus 450 is or any of the Stratasys lines.

(21:44):

And as we’ve been looking at purchasing new open source machines, we’ve always held back because our experiences have been underwhelming to say the least. And so the moment that we heard that Stratasys was offering this OpenAM program, was going to offer this, that changed the game for us because we’ve really appreciated the robustness of the Stratasys machines. They are probably the most consistent production machines that we have of all the technologies. They’re reliable. We can predict what the success is going to be and you can just count on it. And so we’ve really appreciated that.

(22:26):

So being able to offer these new materials and leverage that robustness, we see that being a game changer for us in solving our customer’s problems because we’re going to be transitioning the existing FDM work that we do to the Stratasys line, and that probably means… We’re looking to grow the FDM side of our business with Stratasys because of this new platform, and we can do that confidently because we know what to expect from the next 450 or the next 900. We know what to expect because it’s going to be the same as what we’re getting today.

Tom Leach (23:02):

On that note, I’m really happy you brought that up and you shared that because Stratasys takes pride in what we build and what we bring to the market and we have a standard that we feel that we have to hit. We’re really, I would say, conservative on getting products out to the market that aren’t, I would say, ready. There is a recent study done by the FDM product team. It was called the accuracy, repeatability and reliability study internally, and we took different systems that had two days worth of use to 2000 hours worth of use on the Fortus 450. We did this for the F900 and the 370 as well, the F123 platform 370.

(23:46):

And we took multiple systems, I believe it was seven off the top of my head, and they were in different locations, different locations, different ambient temperatures, different environments, different age in terms of it could be six years old, could be two years old, could be four years old, it could be a brand new machine right off our line that we manufacture, the Fortus 450 here in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. And we rode it through a test for a year. We did this accuracy, repeatability, reliability study to prove that these printers are repeatable, they are reliable, and they are accurate.

(24:25):

It doesn’t matter if you have serial number two, which serial number two F900 is still functioning today. It’s an extremely old system, but it’s still going strong because they’re built to last. But no matter what system you had, it’s going to be the same. You’re going to have the same experience. And so we published that study and I think that sets us apart from our competition because we do publish an accuracy spec. And then on top of that, we do share all of our data. We even go as far as characterizing for certain industries specific setups on the F900 to make sure that qualifying the printer to know that this product, the part that you’re putting on, not the part itself, but also the process is certified to go on flight parts. There’s confidence in our printers that these are flight parts that can go on airplanes.

(25:23):

And that’s what really sets us apart, I believe, from our competition, is that the systems that we build are really repeatable, reliable, and accurate, and we want to be completely open with that data. We want to publish it. And that’s why we did publish it. It was a really big push last year from the FDM product team to do that, and a lot of engineers spent a lot of time, an entire year printing over and over to publish that data so our customers could have that data and have the confidence in our systems.

(25:53):

And what you just touched on is exactly what Stratasys is trying to do and what our goals are. We want our customers to have good experiences. Now with this open materials, we are taking a little bit of variability, we’re adjusting the variability a little bit, because there’ll be running materials that we’ve not run before. So there is going to be some challenges and I acknowledge those challenges and we acknowledge them and we understand, but the machine itself is very sound. It’s a robust, it’s a solid, solid machine and it will give our customers and future customers and prospects the best opportunity for success to use our technology with multiple different materials or custom material or material we just don’t have yet available.

(26:45):

So I’m really happy you brought that up. It’s music to my ears when I hear that.

Speaker 1 (26:52):

We’ve run the Fortus since day one and our machine downtime because of equipment failure might be zero. I don’t think we’ve had any days we’ve been down. Then as we look at our open machines, I’d guess that we’d face once a quarter where we have unexpected downtime and we’re replacing significant components. Being able to utilize that Fortus equipment in that way, and we’re focused on the process controls and we’re focused on the output and we’re not focused on servicing the equipment.

Speaker 2 (27:21):

So no more long weekends rebuilding or engineering build platforms and designing hardware components for the machine. Now we can just operate it.

Speaker 1 (27:33):

Yeah, focus on the solution.

Tom Leach (27:35):

Yeah. Thanks guys. Thank you to your time, your dedication, your resources, and taking the knowledge and the experience that both of you have to do this. So just thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (27:49):

Likewise. Thank you, Tom. Well, this has been a really great session. Thanks again for all the insights, the energy. I feel like if it weren’t raining outside, I’d go run 10 miles to the office from here, but it is raining. But nonetheless, the energy you’ve given us is always great, so thank you for that. And we look forward to seeing how the setup is going here today.

Speaker 1 (28:14):

Going to go start pressing some buttons.

Tom Leach (28:16):

That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m probably going to call you later today just to find out myself. I don’t know if I can wait for the next one.

Speaker 2 (28:24):

Give us a call.

Tom Leach (28:26):

Will do, will do.

Speaker 2 (28:27):

Thanks so much for your time, Tom, and have a good rest of the day and we’ll talk to you real soon, this afternoon probably, huh.

Tom Leach (28:35):

Thank you. Yes, you’ll be hearing from me. Thanks again for setting this up and thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (28:42):

Thank you, Tom. Take care.

Speaker 1 (28:43):

Likewise, thanks. Thanks for joining us as we start our program here of Freeing the Fortus. And this is our first episode, so we look forward to the next ones. We’re going to be getting into really the meat and potatoes on the next few steps, or maybe just the potatoes, but we’ll see you on the next episode.

Speaker 2 (29:03):

Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 (29:04):

See you soon.