GEFERTEC, a high-tech outfitter of the Smart Factory and inventor of the new 3DMP metal-printing process, implements 3YOURMIND software. Just 19 kilometers from the Charlottenburg Innovation Center (CHIC) is GEFERTEC’s brand-new Marzahn Application Center. Stephan Kuehr, the tech wizard of the 3YOURMIND team, makes it in 45 minutes. He knows it saves time - short distances in Berlin can actually take longer with a car or public transport.
Saving Time is at the Heart of his Mission
With the patented recipe they developed four years ago - their unique, first-of-its-kind software solution - 3YOURMIND can coordinate, optimize and automate all aspects of the additive manufacturing process, saving industry millions of euros, dollars and yen. He and his fellow-CEO Aleks Ciszek have mastered the infamous Zero-to-One step with flying colors. That puts them in good company with Georg Fischer and Tobias Röhrich, the two founding partners of "Generative Manufacturing Technology" - in short, GEFERTEC - whose technology invention is the modern version of the arc-welding process. All four are just over 30 and are among the most successful, visible and promising of Berlin’s entrepreneurs.
It’s a logical next step that the two companies shake hands and connect the entrepreneurial energy of their companies.
GEFERTEC's line of impressive 3D printers is already being put to active use by large players, even at a €400k-€1M price tag. Potential customers need to be convinced about the production quality - and convinced they were when the results of sample production runs were presented. Depending on the material or alloy, their metal near-net shaped blanks may cost €4-€200 (per kilo of wire) and are delivered by 3D print service providers using the GEFERTEC machines. To offer potential customers a simple way to prepare and optimize 3D models to be printed in this special process (from a variety of 3D service providers like Fit-AG, Rolf Lenk oder Flying Parts) requires sophisticated software...
And that is exactly what the partnership with 3YOURMIND offers. Marcus Ortloff, the young Sales Manager from GEFERTEC, is already bringing this added value into their customer experience.
Stephan Kuehr’s Lecture on Pricing for Additive Manufacturing Provokes the Curiosity of the High-Caliber GEFERTEC Forum Crowd
The first of what promises to be many 3DMP® forums was a true highlight for the industry. In the spirit of AM innovation, rather than token tidbits, the hosts laid out numerous genuine pearls of wisdom throughout the night. These included the speech from Kuehr on the premiere stage, which skipped over his achievements as a “leading software solutions provider for 3D printing” and instead talked about the pricing algorithm strategies for additive manufacturing (How to automate ordering, pricing and production of metal AM parts). This theme that managed to bring all stakeholders from 3D printing businesses under one roof - and indeed, what else could capture the ears of 200 AM professionals on a stormy, summer day - included key questions like How exactly can I develop a concept for accurate pricing? Which parameters should I focus on to perform best-practice calculations and support my business decisions? What obstacles and reservations do I need to account for? How can I create accurate formulas?
This is one of seven top-themes that 3YOURMIND identified from a survey of the 3D printing community as particularly pressing, so Stephan Kuehr’s expert team took it upon themselves to give it the attention it requires.
These and other questions that are repeatedly troubling the AM family will soon be developed into an expert series appearing on the 3YOURMIND blog.