EP 08: The Handshake Between Additive & Injection Molding

What if the biggest problem in plastics manufacturing isn’t technology—but the gap between them?

In Episode 8 of The Additive Advantage Podcast, we sit down with the team at Polymer Dynamics to unpack one of the most persistent challenges in product development: bridging the divide between additive manufacturing and injection molding.

For years, engineers have been forced into tradeoffs. Additive offers speed and flexibility, but not always production-grade performance. Injection molding delivers quality and scale—but requires significant upfront investment, time, and tooling. That disconnect slows innovation and limits how quickly companies can move from idea to production.

Polymer Dynamics is working to change that.

In this conversation, we explore what it really means to “democratize manufacturing,” how companies can close the gap between prototype and production, and why the future of manufacturing may not be about choosing one technology—but integrating the right ones.

We also dive into:

• How internal manufacturing capability changes the way teams design and innovate
• What happens when engineers gain control over production
• The evolving manufacturing toolkit—and how to choose the right process
• The role of microfactories and distributed manufacturing
• Why speed, cost, and innovation are more connected than most companies realize

This episode is a must-listen for anyone thinking about how to scale additive manufacturing, improve product development workflows, or build more resilient manufacturing strategies.

Listen to Episode 8 to learn how the “handshake” between additive manufacturing and injection molding is shaping the future of production.

About the Show
The Additive Advantage Podcast explores what it really takes to turn additive manufacturing into a scalable, performance-driven business capability. Hosted by Dani Mason and Shon Anderson, the show features real conversations with leaders accountable for outcomes — not hype.

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About the Hosts
Hosted by Dani Mason and Shon Anderson, industry leaders with deep experience in technology and additive manufacturing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The biggest thing that Brent and I were running into as medical device engineers is like the massive upfront resource needed to achieve like good speed and quality combined for making plasti small plastic components and like the lower volumes for development. You know, iterating is an expensive cost. And to try and do it fast with quality, you had to have a huge upfront investment. And so there seemed to be uh something missing.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Welcome to the Additive Advantage Podcast. I'm Sean Anderson here with my co-host Danny Mason. And on this show we talk about what actually works when it comes to additive manufacturing, how to move beyond pilots and RD and align strategy with execution at making innovation deliver real results. Thanks for listening. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Today's episode is about a shift that's happening quietly across manufacturing, and it's bigger than any single technology. For years, companies have treated prototyping and production as two separate worlds. You prototype with 3D printing, then you hand it off to traditional manufacturing and hope it works. But what if that gap didn't exist? Today we're talking with the team at Polymer Dynamics about how they're blending additive manufacturing with injection molding to create a faster, more accessible path from idea to production and what that means for how teams design, iterate, and bring products to market. Cameron and Brendan, it's so great for you to be able to join us. We're excited to have this conversation today. I think the best way to kick it off is can you briefly just share your name, your role, and a little bit about your company?

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah, sure. My name is Cameron Karamian. I'm the VP of operations at Polymer Dynamics. I'm also one of the co-founders. And uh we build benchtop injection molding machines.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Hello, and I'm Brendan O'Neill, co-founder as well and vice president of engineering, and we are Polymer Dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Excellent. So help us understand what problem in manufacturing motivated you to start Polymer Dynamics.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, uh the biggest thing that Brendan and I were running into as medical device engineers is like the massive upfront resource needed to achieve like good speed and quality combined for making small plastic components and like the lower volumes for development. You know, iterating is an expensive cost. And to try and do it fast with quality, you had to have a huge upfront investment. And so there seemed to be a something missing where you could get a desktop molder for cheap, but you really didn't get the controls you needed. And then you go to the massive industrial setup where you get the quality, but the speed and the cost just weren't there. So we felt there was a need that we can really solve for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Yeah, I love this idea of democratizing access to rapid prototyping and production. And cost is definitely a can be a barrier to that. Same with quality. What else do you mean in practice when you think about this democratization? I think a lot about some of our prior conversations around education and mold design, things that make it more accessible to folks who didn't grow up as a toolmaker. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah. Uh so we think it's lowering the barriers for those smaller companies, for startups, engineers, and even individuals that are interested in making their own products. We also see a interest in companies becoming more vertically integrated these days, whether for the purpose of capturing more of the value add or securing their supply chain risk. But bringing these capabilities in-house generally adds business risks in the form of workforce expertise and ultimately operational cost. So providing technologies allow more companies to access the processes used to produce their marketable products could be thought of as demography of manufacturing.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You know, this idea of vertical integration is so key. And I think a lot of folks think about a challenge or a gap between prototyping and production as, well, I'm going to use 3D printing and then eventually use molding. And you're making this available to be a hybrid solution or molding earlier in the process. Can you talk about what that gap looks like when your solution is molding and how your approach maybe changes the way teams move from concept to manufacturable product?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah. So like the biggest contributor to the gap is having to spend a lot of money and resource up front, like we were talking about previous. But the big thing is, oh, basically it's the cost of finding out of what you need to fix and what you need to change in your iteration process. And like you have the ever-growing evolution of 3D printing, which has dramatically lowered the cost of giving you a like a representative version of what your product wants to be, but it still doesn't give you that like injection-molded thermoplastic resin part that's like formed under heat and a contained cavity that gives you those like mechanical properties and the that really tight dimension uh that you're looking for. And so injection molding isn't really competing with 3D printing, and 3D printing is not really competing with injection molding. We believe that utilizing both uh advantages uh of the technologies is really what sets us sets us apart. Because you have basically what you can consider the hardware, which is the injection mold itself. And the subtractive manufacturing process of that is the majority of your burden. So by utilizing 3D printing for that portion of the manufacturing process and marrying it, that you still get your thermoplastic resin, the two of them together, is like the best of both worlds.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah. I love that approach. How have you seen that change maybe the way internal teams design or think about collaboration? Usually you'd have RD engineers or product development that are owning the additive space, and then there's this handoff into manufacturing, but you're really conflating the two. And you're saying, am I going to use the best of additive and the best of molding? What does that look like inside an organization when they adopt this solution?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

I think it gets um it gets more people involved in the overall manufacturing process, uh, allows, you know, the engineering side or the product developing side to understand more of the manufacturing process and and get involved, start speaking the same language between, you know, across those two that divide, so to speak. And once engineers and product developers are able to speak the language of manufacturing, it just makes them better suited to making products better and faster.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah, I think that's huge helping translate among those disciplines because what is valuable in one may look different in the other. You know, manufacturing is great, it works, never touch it again. Whereas if you're on the RD and product development side, it's like, how can I fail fast? I need to get to one. And so your point, your point, Brendan, about it's not just putting the two technologies together, it's being able to put teams together in a different way. And I think that's so critical for folks listening to this that are maybe trying to understand how I can better work with my team members that do not think or work or operate or are held to the same value points as I am. Are there any other trends like that you're seeing? I mean, you talked a little bit about, hey, I came from a medical device engineering world and I needed ways to capture the value of additive, but be the actual material. Or another trend is this idea of teams working together differently. What else are you seeing? Anything supply chain, this whole made in America, give the audience a flavor from what you're hearing from customers in terms of their manufacturing strategies.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, you kind of nailed it a little bit there. The biggest trend, like I'm seeing, and I'm sure Brendan has seen also is customers are wanting to fail faster. That's the biggest thing. Like speed is the is the most highest value leg right now of all of everyone's process right now. Like the faster they can iterate, the faster they can get their product to market and the faster they can get a return, and the faster they can move on to developing the next iteration of it. And that seems to be the biggest thing that that we're seeing right now. Just how can I how can I set up my system to be very quick and nimble without having to spend all of that up front and wasting all my savings on the tail end by having a big specialty setup to iterate fast. And so they they want something quick, it's available now, and they're able to use it themselves. It doesn't require a specialist. And so speed seems to be the biggest thing right now that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, that's great. I think we we talk a lot with folks on you have to be able to frame up an ROI conversation in the way that your executive team might find valuable. And so some of that you're saying, well, this is this is really a speed play. But when people are trying to justify there may be a little bit of a capex involved because I'm having to bring in equipment, but I'm benefiting somewhat on the workforce. What other bits of that ROI conversation do you think maybe aren't being talked about that people should be considering or maybe focusing too narrowly on and missing kind of a total cost of ownership or total ROI?

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, everything eventually comes back to cost, right? So there needs to be a clear path on the uh return on investment, but that can be can be paid in both speed to execution and innovation of products, right? So if a a team correctly utilizes in-house molding, they can develop products faster and open up savings through operational efficiency. Perhaps they develop the know-how to innovate the way their products are produced and realize operational savings that way. But the most straightforward is shortening the length of the chain, meaning, you know, if you can cut out people in between and get closer to get your product closer to the actual manufacturing process, you can pay yourself that that difference, that money. Or you can lower the cost to the consumer, maybe do a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, wonderful. You know, we spent a lot of time talking about, I'll call it the return on investment and how you think about bringing this in-house. I want to dwell a little bit on kind of real world application. So maybe my first question is because we have people listening to this podcast, some of whom are 3D printing experts, some of whom are manufacturing experts, but rarely are they both. What would you say are some best practices when people are looking to do a hybrid toolkit, if you will, of these two technologies to be successful? Think people, technology, business, application, all of it's fair game, but what would be the key principles you would tell folks to consider?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, I I think what um so utilizing additive, what that gets you is it allows you to get away from doing purely additive additive technologies in the concept to design development phase. At some point, most people are gonna end up in molding in the long run. And so, and that's to achieve, you know, mechanical properties and and just having the marketable type engineering plastics that are available and expected on the market. But what what you can do with additive is we're developing prototypes quicker in getting into injection molded parts. And we do that through making tooling. That is, we can rapidly iterate within hours or days using additive technologies and start molding parts in in that time frame. And that gets us on the bench testing these parts in our application quicker, allows us to, as uh Cameron talked about earlier, fail faster and and and tweak the designs, iterate on those designs and and kind of close that loop. That way we're not spending money outsourcing to tooling manufacturers on designs that are still kind of fluid and and need more development. And we can we can do that iteration cycle in-house, and then once the design has matured, then we can start thinking about that higher cost tooling for injection molding.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, one thing I just want to add on there is is you know, the being the expert in, you know, manufacturing and 3D printing, it's like the best way is kind of to dip your feet in. And if you could go at it and uh go at it for uh without a lot of cost and a lot of time of of just trying and and kind of realizing, feeling uh what kind of feedback you get when you're like, oh, I designed it, I didn't think about this, I quickly printed it, I shot it, I talked my, I looked at my part and I'm like, uh, you know, this probably could have used a little bit more draft. And if you can figure that out in just a few hours versus spending thousands of dollars on a metal subtractive tool and then getting it in and then having to remodify it, you know, when you can just print it and feel it really quick and then just iterate to the next one, it adds a huge value. And then also, you know, some of these projects are product sensitive. You don't want to be sending your design out to someone outside of yourself. And so that's where it really lends itself to the development learning, is now the knowledge is now yours. You didn't go through it with an outside third party who learned all of your mistakes at your cost, and now they get to take the advantage of it from when a competitor comes along. So that's another plus as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah, I love that point, not only about a skill, I'll call it, of of iteration and trial and error, but not paying someone else double to learn from your mistakes as well as execute on that. What other skills would you say current engineers, future engineering workforce should have if manufacturing is going to be democratized and distributed like what you all are talking about?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Uh well, I like I like the fact that you can initially start with yourself in-house so that when you actually say you reach that mid-level of volumes, things get stable, and you do have you do decide to go to a third, a third party for economic reasons, that you actually understand what the process is happening. So when you're talking and communicating with them, you can you can let them know, hey, I I know what's going on here. And I when I see an issue, it's uh I've felt this issue before, and this could be the solution for my product. So you're not really going in blind, just being handed like, oh, well, uh, we'll give you this situation, it's gonna cost this much to fix it for you, and you have no clue of why that is. You're not really understanding the physics of it because you haven't experienced it yourself. And so when you get to play with all the levers and the knobs and the manufacturing process settings, you get a better feeling and understanding. So you can go with that knowledge and that tool set to that third party before it eventually reaches volumes that make sense to bring it back in-house. And there's no learning curve to bring it back in-house because you've already done it before.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah, there's there's a CAD design and then there's design for manufacturing. And I think sometimes bridging that gap and knowing how do I think about the tool I am using to produce this part as much as I do what this part needs to function as is so key. We get a lot of folks that are excited about what could be done and probably should think more about what should be done. What is the best way to make these parts? And so I think your point, Cameron, on being able to start there and then use your skills to progress versus pursuing avenues that may or may not be valuable is really important. Now, I'm curious, what kind of companies or industries do you two see already adopting this technology?

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Mainly we see the medical markets grabbing on really quick. And the advantages, well, in the medical workflow stream, you do your development and then there's a pause for a lot of testing. And so you don't want those massive specialty capital investments sitting in sitting in the corner waiting for you to get through all your testing before you turn it back on. So our system, because it's so small and modular, you kind of just roll it away. And then when it's ready to come out, you can pull it back out or just you know, lend it to another team to use while you're finishing out your project. It's it's pretty good for their cycle. And speed.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, and and just um other all companies that do product development, you know, that are are showing interest in this technology. It's kind of akin to having, you know, a CNC machine in your shop or or you know, 3D printing capabilities. So it just expands the ability for the development team to, you know, prototype out parts and iterate that design cycle.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah, that's fantastic. Do you have any customer stories? Maybe it's in medical device, maybe it's with a product development team where this technology unlocks something that that organization couldn't do before?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Uh yeah, we have one good customer story. Their multi-cavity production tool uh ended up needing repair. It ended up being damaged. And uh the the the lead time for repair was so high that they were able to justify getting a machine, getting it set up, and getting it running uh by the time the actual production cavity tool was repaired. So they were able to cover the entire cost plus still turn a profit during the downtime repair.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

That's super impressive. And it kind of leads to my next question where you know what unexpected ways are people starting to leverage this solution? And that's a great one, right? It's not necessarily I'm bringing a new product to market, but it was took so long and was so expensive for me to try to go repair my mold, I might as well start start from scratch. What other maybe surprising or unexpected applications are y'all seeing?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Well, uh another area that this does well in is like over-molding applications where you have high-cost components that have a low-cost amount of plastic material going on top of it. And being able to keep that molding in-house allows organizations to utilize their current quality control procedures. And they don't have to rely on sending out parts to a contract manufacturer that requires their setup and scrap susceptible to their scrap and manufacturing processes. So you benefit from knowing what to expect out of the out of the quality control system there. The other area or industry of interest is kind of like hobbyist level or you know, do-it-yourself maker types. They're definitely interested in the equipment, like because they, you know, at that level, they've seen the desktop versions of molding machines. Because you either have really low-cost molding machines, which is desktop, and or you have really high-cost molding operations, which you know are large machines that require full facilities and maintenance departments and as well as process engineers. So hobbyists are we s see our machine as the in-between and and they're excited about it, although maybe um maybe not priced quite as low as what they were expecting in a desktop. But that's because we're offering industrial level process control as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I think that that's a big deal. We see that a lot too, where can it be accessible to a business in terms of the ROI, but still offer that industrial great experience? And you touched on something, process control, which manufacturing audience is a forehead slapper. Sometimes talking to an additive manufacturing audience audience, that is a novel concept where yes, we do need to be able to think about that the same way. How have you coached people through process control? How to think about what is key to quality so that they can get the same results at their facility that you all are getting when you're going through that process with them the first time?

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yeah. So uh yeah, it's always been a daunting thing that's been scaring a lot of people uh from our customer standpoint of like uh the machine interface. It just seems so daunting on these industrial machines with like multiple pages and graphs and charts. And uh if you really just focus on the fundamentals of plastics and plastics rheology, you know, there's uh a simple few steps that really cover 90, 90 plus percent of most processes. And then that tail end is specific to your part. And that's where once you understand the basic principles, then you're making those finer adjustments on the tail end yourself. And we try to simplify that as much as possible. So we by lowering the barrier to entry, not only on cost and space, but the ability to use the machine in a simplistic fashion. We just have one main screen with all your settings. And I mean, we have customers who've never molded before in their in their life, and you know, we put their tool, their part in there, and within four hours, they're building their own process for their tool. So we, I don't want to say we dumb it down, but we just stick to the fundamentals and the basics of how plastic flows under the condition it's going through. And it kind of connects what you're telling the machine to do and then what the plastic is doing, and when you're looking at your part, what it's saying, hey, I tried to do this, but this is what I actually did. What what knob or what button, what number can you change to help me get the rest of what I'm looking for? And it it's it's pretty simple. And again, the more you play with it, the more you get to understand and feel it.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, I think that user experience is definitely underrated in terms of that accessibility as well. Price point could be one thing, but if it's too hard to use or you need a skilled technician to use it, you're right back where a lot of toolmakers are, which is that that profession, highly skilled individuals with a dwindling workforce, if you will. And so I think that's key that you brought that up. I kind of want to spend the last period of our time together being more future focused. And I'll I'll ask y'all some questions around that, and then you guys can pull the straw to see who wants to answer each one of them. But how do you see this relationship between additive manufacturing and molding evolving over the next, say, five years, five, 10 years?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

As I see the advancements of 3D printing technology developing, it's only gonna make it easier to manufacture an injection mold. I think, I think both of them go going forward together, just like we're innovation, innovating on the injection molding side with the equipment, same with 3D printing. And as I go forward, you know, the DFM portion. Is even going to get simpler with software.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

I love that. And I actually want to ask you too, what trends generally in manufacturing are you watching right now? Like you mentioned something about thinking about DFM and what is software going to do for that process. But I'd love both your perspectives on manufacturing trends that you guys are keeping an eye on.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Yeah. I I don't want to name drop the AI term, but you know, it is a real thing. You've noticed a lot of people are communicating verbally with AI. And, you know, we've seen videos. Soon it'll get to the 3D rendering realm. And once that hurdle is crossed, uh, you're going to need a lot more physical real life equipment to handle that influx of design. The more people can create, the better. It's going to make all of our lives simpler, easier, smoother, sustainable. And so once that starts to progress more and more, you're going to want to have the physical equipment to start taking those ideas from the from the software and putting it into reality.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I think there's there's so much there. There's the product development side, there's the project management side, there's process development. And so to your point, seeing the interface of the technology and people and what that will affect in terms of getting a product to market will be pretty interesting to see how that unfolds in the next few years. I always like to end on kind of a practical, tactical takeaway for people. So if a company is looking at wanting to build, call it a faster, more resilient manufacturing or supply strategy, and they're looking at this, where should they even start? Think I haven't done this at all before. So I need to figure out application, workforce, equipment. Give some takeaways on for companies to say, okay, here's the top five things or the first couple steps that I should take if I'm looking at doing something like this.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Yeah. I mean, hopefully they have a product that meets a market need right off the bat. Uh that's great. Yeah, you can make the coolest thing ever, but if nobody needs it, it doesn't really sell very well. From our standpoint of how we work with our customers, we tell them, hey, show us what you have. Let's do this first round together type deal. So we can de-risk any kind of thoughts and processes you guys might have in your head of what's the unknown hurdle. So we could wash that all away and say, hey, will this system work for your application? It's if it's best suited for sure. But if it's not, like let's not let's not lead you down a path that's gonna hurt. And really it's like, so is my part big? Is it small? You know, do I need a big system, a small system? Volume-wise, is a bigger system gonna be better investment versus a small. But either way, finding out just that litmus test of the feedback of is my product gonna do what I hope it's gonna do, is that first, first level that we start to work with.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's great, Cameron. Wonderful. Well, I appreciate you both being on today and giving people a peek behind the curtain of how they might be able to use additive differently than they have been so far and really have this hybrid approach with molding that makes it more accessible to be vertically integrated and bring products to market the way you think they should be with the materials you know will work. So it's been wonderful talking with you all today. And I think our audience will look forward to hearing the takeaways.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Awesome, really appreciate it. Some amazing insights in that episode. Uh, I love the focus on, you know, it's not the technology, but it's how fast can you iterate? How can you get those products to market faster? At the end of the day, it's something we've talked so much about on additive advantage. It's back to business outcomes, not getting just hung up on the technology. I'm curious though, what stood out most to you in terms of this combination of injection molding and additive manufacturing, as opposed to one versus the other?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, I think with a lot of folks, they see it as a handoff. Well, I'm gonna use additive manufacturing until I hit a certain volume threshold, and then I'll switch over to injection molding. And they really take the approach that if we're gonna democratize manufacturing and accessibility to be able to get in products the way you want them, you have to look at it as a hybrid solution. Um, and being able to see this as not a handoff, but a handshake, where how can I leverage all of the benefits of additive in terms of speed and cost and being able to move quickly, but do it with materials that I know will pass regulatory and meet mechanical requirements. And I think it's a, it's not necessarily brand new to think about 3D printed tooling, but I do believe it's brand new to think about how I can make this whole solution accessible, where a long for a long time, toolmakers are highly skilled individuals and that workforce is a challenge. And so they're looking at this holistically and saying, well, 3D printing has really democratized access to product development and being able to iterate faster. How can I take that same mindset and apply it to molding and be able to propagate that as a dual solution to these companies around the world?

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Yeah, I love the the big picture focus. Again, rather than viewing it silo by silo, how do we look at the whole workflow? Another thing that was a hot topic was speed. Yes. What was your takeaway around, you know, you hear the phrase all the time, fail faster. What did that mean in a manufacturing context based on what you heard in that episode?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah, at first it's a misnomer because you talk to production folks and it they think, well, if it's working, please never touch this again. And so being able to take that fail fast mentality, not only I'll call it speed of iteration and speed of innovation, but one of the points they brought up was a lot of times when you're outsourcing that portion, not only are you paying to get a product, but you're paying someone else to learn from your mistakes. And so they're trying to think about how do I also increase my speed of learning? How do I vertically integrate knowledge, not just the capability to produce parts and be able to do that internally so that the whole organization learns how to fail fast, not just the product engineers as it relates to a part. And I thought that was a pretty key way of looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Well, I'd love to we could come back and do an entire episode on that because any executive, your role is to hit the objectives and goals of today while making your organization more capable of delivering on the goals and objectives of tomorrow. And so that, you know, building that capability is so important. The other thing that I'd love to get your take on is how leaders should think about ROI, given this focus on speed, iteration, and not just thinking about, well, we're gonna save X number of cents or we're gonna save X number of dollars on cutting a tool. What's your take?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah. You know, a lot of times, um, to your point, when they're thinking about ROI, it's okay, what's my capex and what's my per unit cost and how much is this gonna cost me on materials? And they're trying to come up with a calculation. And Polymer really posited, you need to think about time to revenue. You need to think about the value of faster product market fit, better iterations, better outcomes, and taking this and saying cost is half of the equation, but value is the other part. And if you're thinking about ROI, you have to be able to put those two things together or you're not making the right decision for your business. And I think that's a lesson, whether you're doing molding, printing. Frankly, if you're in business of any kind, that's probably valuable to be able to think about both halves of that.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

For sure. I want to go a little bit different direction now. So we just got back from Amug in Reno, Nevada, or for everyone who got through the blizzard and managed to actually get there. Something about blizzards and additive manufacturing events this year have not gone well. Um I'm just curious, what did you see and hear there, particularly as it relates to recurring themes here on the additive advantage?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah, I had a couple big takeaways. One was we talk so much, ad nauseum, maybe for some of our folks listening to this podcast, about the importance of repeatability, the importance of having this QA, QC tool set mindset, and being able to have process consistency in order to get the outcomes you're looking for. And that theme came out big. I mean, we were there talking about it. Worth was talking about it. I said it on several between defense and medical kind of cross-industry, where the panels were saying, you know what we really need to do next is actually make sure that this is a manufacturing process, additive notwithstanding. So I'd be I'd be curious, but that came out hard for me. I'd love your thoughts on that as well. It's a couple other themes that that came across is this idea of collaboration and partnership, where I have attended Amug for many, many years along with other shows. And you have a lot of people, I'll call it jockeying for the same position by touting what they're good at, um, not really looking across the industry and saying, what could we be great at if we actually worked together? And the number of talks I went to that weren't a single person speaking, but were here's my partnership, here's my collaboration, here's how we're thinking differently. And just the conversations over networking lunch that were around that nature was the highest I think it's ever been. The last one I would put in this kind of novel technologies that are application specific. So I've been to Amug where microprinting has been a topic. But really in the research realm, when I showed up this year, whether it was bioprinting, micro, et cetera, it was, well, but where does it add value? Like what is an application that I can apply this to? And let me show you proof of that versus this is a cool technology that we should explore. I'd even put AI in that category. That was a couple panels, but it wasn't generic. It was how can it add meaningful value today? And so I think as an industry, we've done some introspection and realize we need to be intentional about where things can provide benefit immediately, not a hype cycle that's a couple years away. What about you? You were there for a good chunk of it as well. What were your key takeaways?

SPEAKER_03 31:34

You know, I'm piggybacking a little bit on what you shared, but I love the way that the conversation, there's still a lot of conversation about I'll I'll use the term qualification, right? Of a given material or a given piece of equipment, or now it's the equipment and the material. But those are, you know, that's two parts of about 20 that it takes to actually get a consistent part that meets spec at scale. And so to the extent we can move beyond just qualification, and again, if you listen to this podcast, you hear this term all the time. But when we think about what is your approach to design quality in on the front end, not just to the part, but to the process you use to produce those parts so that you can get away from this just you know, brutal 100% inspection, measuring 12 different things on every part. And and if you're producing, you know, some metal aerospace part out of unobtainium, it'll tolerate that level of expenditure on the back end. But in polymer additive, you've got to have a QAQC strategy on the front end, or your ROI will just die on the hill of 100% inspection on the back end. And so moving beyond just qualification of the machine and material, I thought was excellent to see. Some of the other things that I thought were very interesting, you talk about the focus on applications, and I don't know if it was introspection or just people really looking at their income statement balance sheet, but I think you know, our industry is getting smarter about this. The other thing I thought was interesting is when you just walked through the what I'll call the trade show area, folks were a lot more conservative on their marketing spend, which I take as a good thing in an industry that's been known for giant trade show booths and you know, not a lot show on the back end. The other thing that jumped out at me is the number of people who wanted to talk about production. So it used to be, you know, you and I've been to a ton of these, it used to be it's hey, I'm trying to make this thing and I can't make it any other way. Or hey, I'm trying to make this thing, but the tooling's super expensive and whatever, you know. So it was a lot of times the desire for additive was driven around things that were very unique to additive. And I also loved it you brought it out of the polymer dynamics episode of you know, it's a combination of additive and traditional production, viewing additive as a phase, and a I love the handshake analogy that you used. That was a topic that came up in conversation over and over and over again. To me, that tells me we are moving in the right direction. Customers are definitely getting smarter about how to leverage additive for the things that it's good at, rather than you know, just the run some prototypes, get to market quickly, but oh crap, I cut a tool and I'm locked in on some things that it turns out my customers don't love. All of that was really encouraging to me. Um, I would say best amug I've been to. I think that was number six for me. And love Reno, in case anybody on the Amug board is listening, uh beats the heck out of a basement in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

And the food was fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

The food was was excellent. Uh yeah. Loved it.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Yeah, it was a great show. Well, if there's one theme that emerged from this conversation, it's this speed is the competitive advantage. The companies that win aren't just the ones with the best ideas. They're the ones that can iterate, test, and scale faster than everyone else. And what we're seeing is that the future of manufacturing isn't additive versus traditional, it's the combination of both. If you're thinking about how to build a more resilient, more agile manufacturing strategy, this is a space you need to be paying attention to.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Thanks again for joining. Follow us on Apple or Spotify Podcasts and watch this episode on YouTube at the Additive Advantage Podcast. If you enjoyed it, and we sure hope you did, please give us a five star review on Apple or five stars on Spotify. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for updates on new episodes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.