I see that 3D Hubs is now offering “Managed Services” and I’m excited to hear how this will benefit the hubs that form the foundation of this platform. What will the process be for hubs to participate in these bulk orders? How will you be distributing this design & engineering work?
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Hi @MindFuLL
It is indeed exciting, this a new strategy to explore new services which we can eventually bring over to the self service checkout. When we fully understand the needs and requirements of these customers and how to best accommodate the workflow through the self service checkout we will begin moving it over.
The hubs are selected on a case-by-case basis, usually based on a combination of location, price and hub ranking.
Hope this answers your question,
George
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When are you guys going to stop wasting everyone’s time adding new stuff that doesn’t work or is useless to the current function of the hubs and fix the issues that are constantly being talked about but are being ignored?
You have a lot of hubs out here telling you what is wrong but nothing changes. We tell you what improvements would actually be a benefit but we get ignored. In the meantime you keep adding pointless features all the while we lose customers which means we and you lose money.
Until you address the current issues and fix them you still have a damaged product and throwing new graphs at it doesn’t fix the underlying issues.
The hubs are your customers and you are ignoring us. This type of business model will and is failing.
The managed services has been up for a while, its not new
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“It is indeed exciting, this a new strategy to explore new services…”
@Gfisherwils
It’s an answer but not really the one I was hoping for.
We were allowed to offer design services from almost day 1 but it was never promoted, fleshed out, or given a second thought despite many requests. I know many hubs are also interested in participating in bulk orders and while it’s not really my thing, it’s very much in the spirit of 3d hub’s original mission of distributed manufacturing. You are also offering metal casting which many of us have been doing for some time. We would love to participate (how do we get our hands on this polycast?) and be linked up with local foundries.
If these are the goals then I think it’s great but if these are separate projects (like HD) that only involve 3d hubs staff and your large industrial partners, which may or may not, someday trickle down to the rest of us then it’s salt in the wounds of all these other recent changes.
Can you elaborate or offer any transparency on the hub selection? How do you know their price on a bulk order if you don’t ask them?
Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any announcement, info, or anything released to the hubs about how this affects them in the present or future so I hope you understand my concerns. Still waiting on Q2 (should we start calling it Q3?) FDM materials revamp, along with updates and opportunity for input we were promised. Seems like we are an afterthought.
-Jesse
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for your questions.
Design services was something we found difficult building into the platform, so we’ve maintained our focus on trying to get the checkout and order process to the best level possible, before moving development into that area. We still see hubs getting design work, and adding as an additional cost but I appreciate this isn’t a perfect solution.
At the moment in regard to Polycast, we’re trialling the service with a few hubs local to the foundries we have based in the UK, US and China. As soon as we see uptake of the service we will begin expanding the network, similarly to how we did the Fairphone rollout to begin with.
The aim is always to offer materials or new offerings as a trial, see if there’s demand and then begin moving it into the checkout experience as best as we can. The bulk order process in terms of hub selection is usually based off initial prices quoted when we upload the files on the platform on behalf of the customer, this plus the capacity of the hub to deal with the order in regard to the deadline as well as the local vicinity to delivery/collection.
Completely appreciate your concerns, and I also understand that this could of been communicated better.
Best,
George
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