How bout this. How about a research and development phase for products. Rather than trying to get the machines to perfectly match what the designers are instructing them to do with their CAD/CAM instructions, why not just make it clear to everyone what's to be expected until the ultimate design goal is finally achieved?
For example. Lets say an item prints successfully 5 times and then a problem occurs. Well, why not just document the problem with a description and maybe even photographs and then put that information right on the pertinent shop page? Make it so customers are informed of what may happen and that returns are not allowed for the product in its research and development stage.
Then, once a product has been printed numerous times successfully it can then be bumped up in status where it can have the benefit of allowing returns if not 100% satisfied. Yet, should it ever be found to have a problem, it would simply be demoted back down to research and development status.
That's how to deal with the customer aspect, but what about the designers? How do we keep everyone happy, including Shapeways employees, throughout the entire process? Simple, we just let everyone know what the machines will do and not do. A design rule checker that spots an error would simply inform the designer that for reasons A, B and C the machine will not print correctly and consequently there will be no returns or money back guarantee. The design would be put into research and development status. So if a designer for example wanted to order a box of polyamide dust that is supposed to be their 3D printed design, then so be it, just give them whatever comes out of the machine.
You could even have it set up where designers could pay a premium to have their model checked for errors. Or, if they felt confident with the design they could wave the check and pay for whatever came out of the machine regardless of what the machine turned out.
Design rule checkers would still check designs coming in, so as to hopefully spot anything that could compromise other designs, but they would only contact the designer if the a design would be suspected of possibly contaminating other orders, in which case the design would be given a possible contamination status and not printable until revised.
It would seem to me that a business model something like this would be a lot less stressful for everyone. The work load on the design rule checkers would be drastically reduced and therefore they could spend more time investigating each order that was specifically paid to have detailed checking. The designers would be happy because they would would be operating the machines almost as if they owned the machines and were operating the machines themselves. They would be free to push the envelope if they wanted and most importantly, they'd only rarely be confronted because they would only be shown their design flaws when they either paid for it or it could possibly corrupt other orders.
Keep in mind too that under the current system design checkers can be spending time on checking designs that aren't even REAL! I know it's a stretch, but it is entirely possible that a competitor or even multiple competitors could be uploading fake purposely erroneous designs just to throw a monkey wrench into Shapeways' core operating system. However, under a business model like I am proposing competitors wouldn't be able to cause artificial disruptions.
Finally, try to envision the future. Look at how things are developing. As the whole 3D printing movement exponentially gains more and more momentum we are going to see more people who know nothing about 3D modeling and design in how it intimately relates to 3D printing. Currently, I feel by taking in a sampling of the forums, that Shapeways is mostly getting highly talented designers who know quite a bit about what they are doing as it relates to 3D printing, however, what about when the masses start getting involved. Even though nerves are being tweaked between the design rule checkers and the designers we are all competent enough to keep under control enough to keep working it out as can be seen in this thread, though discussions have been a little heated we are still moving forward to a degree, yet the masses aren't going to be so understanding.
Changes are most definitely going to be made, but what kind of changes? Lets see!
