Shapeways urgently needs a box for instruction

Mistakes and misunderstandings often happen because Shapeways does not allow you to write further instruction, questions or concerns at the time of placing an order. They really need to put a box to write more when placing an order.

If you see a need to pass detailed instructions to the production team, perhaps finding a local rapid prototyping business would be a better, if more expensive choice for you ?

I do not know if you work for Shapeways, but when I have made suggestions for imprevements to their service (or complained), I do not normally get a reply from a shop: "If you do not like it the way we do things here perhaps you would like to buy in the shop next door".

He doesn't work for Shapeways, nor do I but I think what he was trying to say is Shapeways is sort of like Walmart. HAHAHA! Your suggestion is a good one, and it would in fact cut down on a lot of problems, but Shapeways is taking orders on such a large scale that they would have to hire an army of workers to handle those kinds of intricate details of in order. Consequently, a 3D printing service bureau that's more like a mom-and-pop business could handle something like that. I am thinking that's what he was getting at.

To be honest, that does not make sense, you expect the quality you pay for and I am sure people are going to complain if the parts are wrong. Then they raise an enquiry and it becomes a nightmare for Shapeways with the exchange of messages. On a single issue, I can end up exchanging 10-20 messages. If they accept the quality is not good enough, they have to refund or make the part again. This could be cut down to a couple of messages on most things that could be discussed before making the parts.

It seems to make sense, because this and other request have been made multiple times over the years, and they have not implemented them. So they prefer the handle the fallout or have some kind of blindness that impedes seeing it's costing them resources, and even long term sales.

I suspect it is simply that adding enough personnel and changing their workflow to accomodate individual instructions or design discussions in the way of a "conventional" rapid prototyping service would be so expensive that they would have to charge as much as those. Which obviously would mean no more "affordable 3d printing for the masses" but yet another industrial service provider for industry.

"Please, try to get the best detail in the face of the doll" would not add much work, if at all (in some machine loadings, face or back of skull would be the same), while provide way better results, so happy customers. Or "the attached picture shows how the sculpture goes, so please remember when applying the glaze", for something that has no obvious bottom, should speed up decisions. Or "red is model, green is sprue, if that breaks, it is OK" could increase print ratio and reduce wasted material. While solving the issues and repriting is going to increase the operating costs, or taint the company as unreliable and thus lose customers.

BTW, a new campaign of free shipping. This time worldwide (except Russia?). Wanting customers?

This would appear to fall under "user-defined orientation", and shapeways just started a thread about that. So they are at least thinking about this, or acknowledging that we do. As far as I know, the competitor who offered this did it by basically renting out a large section of the printer volume for the designer to fill, so this appears to be non-trivial to do on a per-part basis. (And "try to get the best" could even mean "task your most experienced worker with this", which might be a relatively expensive business decision as well)

Does not sound like it would go well with a quick, streamlined process... least of all when this information has to be passed on to a "production partner" who does the actual work, and the result checked against this instruction as well.

And increase part count to be handled (and checked).
Mind you I am not saying I like everything they are doing, I am just trying to rationalize their approach.

Who wouldn't ? Perhaps they wanted to do this for some time, but had to wait for new funding. Who knows if they (and the others) are even profitable,or if we are watching just another bubble in the market...

mkroeker,

If I got those answers from Shapeways I would tell them they are nothing more (or less) than feeble excuses and a clear attempt to fob me off.

innovation8, rest assured you did not
I am just trying to make some sense of shapeways' business model and the way they go about implementing it. It could be however that it would make sense for you to develop a business relation with a local,"conventional", expensive rapid prototyping service (where you would ideally get minimal production times and production-oriented design assistance) for developing technically demanding projects, and still use the cheaper shapeways for small-scale production of the finished item, or for easier cases of prototyping

mkroeker,

Your speculation is getting out of hand. In the first place, not even Shapeways give me those excuses.
My 'techincally demanding' requirements are complaints about them not telling me they were not going to polish a model, Not being able to tell them, as I place the order, that they can feel free to open the model for the colour to spread evenly, etc.
How techincally complex is that?

How am I going to sell my products using a 'conventionally expensive' prototyping service?
More speculation

Shapeways IS supposed to be local to me, they send me the models from their plant down the road in Holland.
And in what way does the geographical location and distance matter? Are you saying I should go to their premises and watch them while they do my job to make sure it is done properly?
I provide design assistance to people half way around the world, they do not need to be next door to me. That is what something called the imternet is for.

Please stop the excuses about a company that is not even yours.

Alright, I'll hop out now. (Actually if you are just down the road from them, going there and watching them work, i.e. taking one of the monthly factory tours in Eindhoven, might not be a bad idea)

Russians are to blame, that the delivering into Russia canceled. They adopted the law on tax service, according to which now the buyer need to personally fill in the Declaration, without which the goods could not pass through customs and could not be delivered without problems.

If SW will reject models as it now know, customers will go to competitors.