Continuous Improvement and 3D Printing

February 19, 2013

Shapeways Operations Manager Hugo Ploegmakers shares his thoughts on how continuous improvement and Kaizen principles apply to 3D printing.

In our continuing challenge to improve the service we provide at Shapeways, to improve quality, lead-time and drive down cost (making 3D printing more affordable for our customers), we are fully embracing continuous improvement as a methodology. In short: continuous improvement means that you never accept the status-quo, everything can be improved, and everybody is involved in the improvement process.

Just recently, I read this Wired article on how improving 10x is easier than improving by 10%, about how reaching for the moon, which is a Bold Audacious Goal, opens possibilities you wouldn’t have seen when aiming for less.

How does this rhyme with the lean methodology, which we’ve embraced at Shapeways? Does this contradict with the small steps of ‘continuous improvement’? I don’t think it does. Bold Audacious Goals are a requirement to make lean a success!

Improvements come in two different shapes. One, a continuous stream of small improvements: the many changes we make to our production process each day in our factories in New York and Eindhoven. Two, the less frequent but huge breakthrough projects (e.g. our new back-end tool: Inshape). The picture clearly shows how the combination of continuous improvement processes and breakthrough projects makes us twice as fast! Only when successfully applying both, we can improve as quickly as needed and make our community happy.

Bold Audacious Goals trigger breakthrough, which is needed to remove the boundaries for continuous improvement before we reach them. They accelerate continuous improvement: it makes every tiny problem worth solving.

Are you a continuous improver? Or is ‘breakthrough’ your style? Can you do both? We continue to also look for new team members who want to join the teams in Eindhoven and NYC.