A combination of experience and service has seen 3Design once again win the Most Trusted 3D Printing in Tauranga accolade in the 2022 Most Trusted Business Awards, according to owners Chad Vorwerk and Jonathan Zyzalo.

Their company 3Design is a specialist in prototyping and Additive Manufacturing (or AM) technologies, offering great 3D printing services for plastic products.

A number of post-Covid effects, including soaring inflation and supply chain shortages, have forced manufacturers to explore reshoring production, say Chad and Jonathan.

'3Design has helped customers find components suitable for 3D printing in terms of function, quality, speed, cost and business agility.

'There is still a fair bit of company education around AM awareness needed despite the technology nearly being 40 years old.”

Chad and Jonathan are more than happy to help with finding the right AM solution with 30-plus years' industry experience between them.

'The key is finding areas where AM adds value – for example: weight saving, complexity, assembly consolidation, and digitisation of spare parts to name a few.”

The duo say AM can help with fast iterations of prototypes and bridge production from tens to thousands of units often with shorter lead times than traditional manufacturing.

'3Design often receive a part that's already been designed for injection molding. 3Design has the experience to match it closely with a similar material and AM technology that will meet the part specification closely.”

And with their skills in Design for AM (DfAM), they can also offer suggestions to a part design to optimise printing costs.