Above: Stanley Black and Decker Partners with AstroPrint/Image Credit: AstroPrint
AstroPrint, a cloud platform and application marketplace, & Stanley Black & Decker are entering into a partnership to create a distributed network of 3D printers. The partnership will aim to connect, control and optimize Stanley Black & Decker’s global fleet of 3D printers across multiple facilities.
Leveraging AstroPrint’s Enterprise Cloud, Stanley Black & Decker will effortlessly automate their Additive Manufacturing systems and workflows on a single platform, ensuring that resources are properly shared and optimized, while gaining actionable intelligence on productivity and growth opportunities.
Connecting the Fleet of 3D Printers
Above: Stanley Black & Decker is connecting its global fleet of 3D printers/Image Credit: Stanley Black & Decker
Stanley Black & Decker is continuously investing in the 3D printing technology and with this, its fleet of 3D printers is growing, globally across its offices. As the scope of this fleet increases it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage all the 3D printers and the jobs on them.
There is an urgent need to connect all these 3D printers on a single platform, which brings the expertise of AstroPrint into the picture. This will be the first phase of the partnership.
The second phase will begin once the entire fleet of 3D printers is connected. With the connection, the Stanley engineers will get a sense of its fleet of 3D printers on a single dashboard. From this dashboard, they will be able to track, monitor and control them all. Additionally, they will be able to share resources, using any available 3D printer at any office around the world.
AstroPrint also offers control on permission basis and different permissions/access levels can be granted to different teams and different members within each team based on their roles and responsibilities. Access may also be granted to external contractors and consultants wherever in the world they may be.
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The engineers at Stanley Black and Decker will be focused on collecting important datasets from the integration. This data will be crucial to senior managers and business development teams to review the Returns on Investment (ROI) on each project, make accurate projections and budget planning, as well as create business cases on new areas of opportunities and growth.
Speaking on the partnership, Martin Guay, VP of Business Development at Stanley Black and Decker says, “Thanks to this partnership, we will gain visibility into ROI, uptime, value, resource optimization, and competence development in regards to 3D printer usage at Stanley Black and Decker. These are critical drivers for Additive Manufacturing success for every enterprise. We are confident that the AstroPrint software solution has a great deal of promise for us and for the industry.”
According to Drew Taylor, CEO of AstroPrint, “We’ve been in the 3D printing industry for a long time now and we are proud to have pioneered one of the first (and best) software systems to manage 3D Printers through the cloud. It’s now time for us to anticipate the needs and bottlenecks that large, multi-location companies, such as Stanley Black & Decker, will face as they invest significantly to grow their Additive Manufacturing programs.”
AstroPrint’s focus now is to scale out the AstroPrint Enterprise Cloud, bringing on more large manufacturers who need to connect, control, and optimize their 3D printer fleets.
About AstroPrint: AstroPrint is a cloud platform and application marketplace designed for consumer 3D printing by 3DaGoGo Inc., a private San Diego-based company. AstroPrint develops software to enable the management of desktop 3D printers from any web-enabled device, without requiring any technical expertise.
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