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 comes 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.

Plato once wrote, "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet." Perhaps had he known about 3D printing, he would have said, "With the touch of love, everyone becomes a designer."

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, love is surely in the air. We've seen amazing works of art and design inspired by love, including a 3D printed wedding ring, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. 3D printing is an incredible technology for custom wedding designs, from cake toppers to custom table settings to veils. 

We are running a contest to see what innovative new designs you can come up with for a 3D printed wedding!

We're joined by guest judge Kelly Phillips Badal, senior editor and the in-house crafter at Country Living magazine, specializing in crafts, design, and entertaining. Her writing has also appeared in Better Homes & Gardens, Seventeen, and Fitnessmagazine.com.

Here at Shapeways, we have been hard at work to make sure everyone receives their custom orders in time for the holidays. With the holiday spirit in mind, we wanted to remind our friends in the US and Europe: to ensure holiday shipping for faster materials, place your orders by 11:59pm EST tonight! 

We've outlined all the details in our holiday shipping calendar to help you prepare for all your gifting needs. Happy shaping!

A firefighter in Queens NY, where there was a fire on October 29th. (AP, via Atlantic Wire)

With so many in distress in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, including several members of our team who are recovering from damaged homes, our thoughts go out to everyone affected. We were very lucky to emerge relatively unscathed, but we know there are still many without power, food, and homes.

As people throughout the Northeast rebuild their lives, the Shapeways team and community felt passionate about doing our part to help with relief efforts.

This Thursday, we will donate 10% of our sales revenue to the American Red Cross' Sandy relief effort: $0.10 on every dollar anyone spends on Shapeways.com (excluding markup) will go to Sandy Relief.

Shop Owners, we hope you will join us in our efforts! We've heard that some of you would like to donate your markups to charity for the day (big thanks to Shapeways community member Michiel Cornelissen for starting the conversation). We invite you to join us on Thursday by pledging to donate your markups for the day to Sandy relief.

We will supercharge your efforts: by tagging your products Sandy Relief not only will you be pledging to donate your markups, you will secure a spot on the Shapeways homepage as we'll be featuring those products from Thursday to Sunday.

We know there is still a lot of work to be done, but we hope you will join us in doing what we can.

Take a look at some of the Shapeways shop owners pledging to donate their profits so far. 

What is the future of creativity, manufacturing, and design? How is the Shapeways community and 3D Printing enabling everyone to make their ideas real?

"It was this real desire to make real things..." explains Peter Knocke of Brooklyn-based GothamSmith, a four friend team who are "taking the benefits of digital and applying it to the physical world for something that's new and interesting." Carl Collins and Peter share how they stumbled into designing popular 3D Printed cufflinks and jewelry.

This is the third in our series of films about 3D printing, our creative community, and how this incredible technology is changing all of our lives.

We're back with the second in our series of Shop Owner tips to help you get your shop ready for the holiday season. 

1. Master the Basics: Making your shop shine
2. Function & Form: Which materials for which products?
3. Discovery: Getting found in search
4. Personalization: Put a name on it!
5. Merchandising: Design for the occasion
6. Promotion: Go where your audience is
7. Fan Engagement: Put down the bullhorn and have a conversation
8. Data is your Friend: Statistics, Tracking and Analytics
9. Pay for Play: An introduction to the advertising world

This week we'll be sharing suggestions on function and form, namely how to choose the right materials for your products. If you are making a product for yourself, it's great to have unlimited choice and to be able to experiment with various materials. But if someone is buying your product, you want to help them choose the best material for your product so they have the best experience possible. For example, your customer probably wouldn't want a ceramic iPhone case or a wedding ring in Frosted Ultra Detail...

To get started, when you upload your model to your shop, all materials are automatically enabled. It is important to check if all the materials are appropriate. Ask yourself:

1. Does my design meet the design rules for this material?
2. Would this product make sense in this material?
3. Do I have all materials selected still? If so, can I help customers decide by limiting the choices?

To select materials for your product, the easiest thing to do is to make a material selection when you are editing your product page for markup, description, or other details.

Overall, there are three things to keep in mind: design with the material in mind, use images that reflect the material options, and less is more.

Happy Friday everyone! And what a Friday it is...we're thrilled to be back online. For this week's Friday Finds, we have a selection of planetary 3D printed finds to remind us that some things still remain outside our control.

Moon with surface detail by Stefshop. NASA satellites got nothing on these details.

Earth Moon Mars to scale (50 mm / 2" globe) by jayfisher. A beautiful rendition that would have been perfect for all those science projects.

Orrery by Whystler, who explains that this orrery is a fully functional model of the 4 terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. He notes, "Ideal for planning your next interplanetary voyage on your star-galleon."

Happy Friday Shapies! For this week's Friday Finds, we have a few more ghostly and ghoulish products to get you in the mood for Halloween festivities.

The Emperor by Eragatory, an intricate bracelet revolving around "Memento Mori" and morbid symbolism.

Shapeways Director of Industrial Engineering Kegan Fisher (@keganfisher) shares our vision for the future of manufacturing as we cut the ribbon on our NYC Factory of the Future. 

What is the future of creativity, manufacturing, and design? How is the Shapeways community and 3D printing enabling everyone to make their ideas real?

Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg of Nervous System share how they grow products using computer programs, algorithms and 3D printing. The results are beautiful, organic pieces that reflect objects found in nature.

What is the future of creativity, manufacturing, and design? How is the Shapeways community and 3D printing enabling everyone to make their ideas real?

"I'm inspired by mess," says Dutch designer Michiel Cornelissen. He shares his story about how how brings order to everyday objects from cable wraps to pencil bowls.

This is the second in our series of films about 3D printing, our creative community, and how this incredible technology is changing all of our lives.

By Julian Kollataj, our Production Planning Summer Intern in the Eindhoven office, who returned to Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, Finland, where he's studying Plastics Engineering.

Who's moved my manufacturing?

So much has happened over the past three months, that I thought I'd like to share with you, the Shapeways Community, some reflections of my internship at Shapeways before those memories start losing their freshness.

I was wondering where to begin this blog. But then it clicked: first, I was in The Netherlands, the land of Gouda, Edam, and Leyden - and famous for their windmills, dikes, clogs, and bicycles! I've now added 3D Printing to this list of associations, because Shapeways is founded there, of course! Then, the thought of cheese led me to the book and parable about change, Who Moved My Cheese? The book came to mind because of the changes that have gone on within Shapeways and how they are positively affecting the manufacturing and consumer industry. It also came to mind because of the growth which I've had as well. (Hmm, thinking about cheese, I was wondering if they can do 3D printing in chocolate, what about cheese? And look what I found - printed cheese!).

So, the internship started at the end of May. I moved temporarily from Helsinki, Finland (currently the World Design Capital 2012), where I'm studying Plastics Engineering and coaching tennis, to join the Shapeways Production Planning Team. Before arriving, I had some ideas of what to expect, but nothing quite like what I was going to experience. In less than three months, I saw Shapeways grow with: more people joining the company; the launch of the new look and feel; a few new 3D printers installed to add greater capacity; and, the biggest change yet was the migration to a completely new software infrastructure for Shapeways' employees, partners, and you, the community members. I even got to be a part of celebrating Shapeways turning four years old, which was loads of fun!

While all of this was happening, I grew too: in understanding and having a deeper sense of appreciation for the behind-the-scenes processes of what it takes to get your idea (or rather, an STL file) to your doorstep; seeing all those amazing models come through and being inspired to take up more intricate 3D modelling myself; and, what I thought most valuable, getting a feel for what it means to be a part of such a dynamic group of motivated people coming together at a start-up company. As a side note, my foosball skills improved considerably thanks to the tough competition, though unfortunately I never made a 'klinker,' but did get to crawl (under the table after losing 10-0), twice!