How we provide you with 3D printing quotes instantly thanks to our 3D printing software

Posted By Amandine Richardot on Aug 1, 2017 | 0 comments

Have you ever tried uploading a 3D model to our Sculpteo website? One of the features we’re most proud of is the fact that we’re able to provide you with 3D printing quotes instantly, right after receiving your model, giving you a price and an estimated delivery date. How do we do so? Discover it right now!

This blog post is part of our series on the 3D printing software tools we built in-house and use daily, which help us offering you the best 3D printing service. Take a look inside our 3D printing process and how we deal with the daily challenges related to the management of a fleet of 3D printers.

Find the other episodes here!

– How we optimize orientation of parts inside our 3D printers

– How we optimize our batch thanks to our Nesting tool

– How we manage your 3D printing jobs in 4 steps

Generating 3D printing quotes instantly: A major challenge

When it comes to running a fleet of 3D printers, there are many challenges that you need to face. One of them is generating 3D printing quotes. Why is it so complicated? Well, there are a few parameters that you have to take into account regarding this matter.

To estimate when you will be able to deliver the 3D printed part to your customer, and at which price, you need to find out which printer can be used for this 3D printing job. And doing so, you need to optimize the packing of your production batches. As explained in one of our previous blog posts, that’s why we developed in-house our nesting tool to optimize the packing of our 3D printers. Thanks to the precious help of this 3D printing software tool, we’re able to 3D print your part as fast as possible.

Also, knowing in which production batch your part is going to be 3D printed is essential to estimate the cost of your 3D printing: if the whole process is made in an almost empty 3D printer, it will be more costly. Thus, it all comes back to one thing: to give you the fairest 3D printing price, we need to find the optimal 3D printer available.

Fair enough, but as you might guess, having an operator choosing manually the right 3D printer takes time, with room for human error. And in many cases, you need to get your 3D printing quote instantly.

Building our in-house 3D printing software tool for Automatic Routing

At Sculpteo, we found a solution to that matter. We developed in-house a 3D printing software tool for Automatic Routing. It instantly finds room in a production batch for your order.

That’s why you can get a 3D printing quote instantly directly on our Sculpteo website, right after uploading your model. You will get the right price, as well as an estimated delivery date, in a matter of seconds.

Here’s what Alex Gryson, our Product Owner, and UX Lead says about how the team approached instant quoting and automatic routing:

“In mission critical cases, saying “between 3 and 5 weeks” is not good enough – our users need a precise and transparent view on when their parts will be available. Instant pricing and live production scheduling provide this transparency and allow our customers to get the logistical questions off the table so that they can focus on their design.”

Being customer-centric is one of our key focuses when it comes to designing our online 3D printing service. Get ready to discover this whole experience and upload your 3D model now to our website!

It will also be a great way to discover our various 3D printing software tools like our Repairing tools, our Optimization tools, and our Reviewing tools!

Finally, click here if you want to learn more about our 3D printing prices and delivery times.