Looks like makerbot is giving up on American manufacturing.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11503360/makerbot-manufacturing-outsource-china-industry-city
Makerbot should take a lesson from companies like Printrbot and Lulzbot who are actually doing it right in America. Surprise surprise Lulzbot is outselling them AND still keeping it Reprap style AND still being in the US.
They used to lead the way. It’s a shame…
From what I get from it, They signed a 10yr lease on the new site in 2013, that doubled the production and that there is lots of room to expand again. Personally I think its the almighty dollar. The USA has loads of empty factories. Its just cheaper and easier to offload the production, plus a large savings on shipping cost overseas. Really they should of moved half to China for Asia/Europe and the other Half keep in the USA for North/South/Central America or moved it to Mexico.
Really not surprised to hear this, ever since they closed their source and were absorbed by stratasys it was an inevitability. Makerbot were one of the shining lights in the maker universe when they started but got very lost on the way and everything else aside, if you start selling a 3d printer as a consumer commodity the technology had to work 24/7 and if it doesn’t the backlash will level you.
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Makerbots ultimate problem has and always will be their ridiculous appetite for money…
Making bad decisions in hopes for more money, screwing the customer for every dollar they can, overpricing everything they make, and of course their overal money hungry attempt to make a premium consumer commodity out of Newly open sourced technology…
Dicks.
Maybe they’ll pull a Solidoodle and get screwed by their manufacturing partner and shipping woes.
@Mr_Bonce um, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Very few people that glom onto topics like these seem to hold the belief that you go into business to make money. MakerBot was/is no exception. Then, and here’s the really important thing, there’s a thing called fiduciary duty. It’s a legal (and ethical) responsibility to do what’s best for a specific entity as it pertains to money or assets. The management at MakerBot HAD to make this decision if it made the most sense based on their due diligence.
It’s rare to see fiduciary duty discussed with things like this, but it’s often the single most important consideration for the decisions being made.
Technology is only affordable when made by slave labour
@Taylor_Landry funny how “fiduciary duty” never extends to employees, who always seem to be the very last creditors to be considered.
I think responsibility for quality and potential customer lawsuits due to poor assembly is overlooked far too often. There is also the problem that if you deflate the economy of the country that you hope to sell to that there might not be enough money in a peron’s wallet to buy the good.
There is also a problem of our government taxing everyone to death, but that is not likely to be fixed very soon. One thing the US government could do is review the wisdom of the level of property tax on active plants in the USA. Too much tax overhead means the jobs move to another country.
What would be a happy middle ground? Take a decommisioned US navy carrier, park it off the US shore where there are no property taxes and then ferry workers to it. Of course then the way our idiotic government does things, they probably have a special property tax on boats. If so, what’s next? Maybe the piss tax of Rome? Seriously, they taxed pee because it was used in leather tanning.
Rant over…
Part of the reason for sending jobs overseas is a lack of though about how to maximize assembly efficiency.
When the US makes the cost of living in cities (where most manufacturing plants are) high, that is just idiotic. We need our manufacturing plants in rural areas or the city living to be as cheap as the small town living.
Pettis sold out. A good example of the behavior Douglas rushkoff critiques in his latest work…
@NathanielStenzel . It starts out like that but quickly changes as income increases, and more gets built around it.
@Griffin_Paquette Ultimaker is also producing in the US. Next to the Europe based factory. It makes senses from a quallity and support perspective to build in on the continent you sell on.
@NathanielStenzel most businesses get tax breaks to open manuf in cities. we arnt hardly taxed compared to our hey days of the 50’s many want us to go back to. and we are taxed less today then in the 80s under reagan. many forget these things. our problem today is the stock market and the shareholders. they dont care about anything other then their portfolio
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@Phillip_Ramirez yeah. I do not like the stock market. Selling company stock is like selling its soul is how I figure it.
Guess I wont be buying any of their products