provided by: 
In 1994 three high-school friends—two brothers, Corey and Donavan Weber, and Alex Fima—started a rapid prototyping company in Carlsbad, Calif. Early on it was just the three of them; today, the company has more than 100 employees and three profitable spin-off businesses: Directed Manufacturing, an aerospace business; Direct Orthopedics, serving the orthopedics market; and Prelude, an injection molding business with disposable tools.
Obviously, the three did something right.
Spearheading Forecast 3D, a National Tooling & Machining Association member company, Corey heads research and development, Donavan production management, while Alex directs strategic operations. Throughout the company's history they have focused on high technology. The company has large-format, high-resolution stereolithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) equipment to product complex 3D parts virtually overnight, for products ranging from cell phones to hip replacements. They also produce prototypes through high-speed machining, and boast prototype injection molding, casting technology and other services.
And as of December 2006, the company made another step to the cutting edge, with the purchase of an EOS M270 direct-metal laser sintering machine (DMLS).
The company made a conscious decision to push the technology boundary—something that has been part of Forecast 3D's success. However, Director of Operations Alex Fima concedes there have been major obstacles. The system has truly amazing potential, but he admits some logistical concerns can stand in the way.
Direct metal laser sintering, an emerging technology developed and refined for the past decade, uses a simple concept: build up, don't cut away. Instead of cutting away metal to make a part, DMLS uses a combination of a highly focused laser beam and powdered metal to build a part, quite literally, from the bottom up, nano-layer by nano-layer.
Fima says the process has enormous potential, not only for the rapid prototyping world but also for production. "Producing medical implants would make a very good home for this technology. But of course this process has to be completely evaluated and accepted to make parts that go into the body."
This brings up one of two principal hurdles common to any shop that brings in "bleeding edge" technology. The process represents uncharted territory; no standards exist, so every project must be proven, tested and then tested again to ensure specs are met.
"There are serious costs behind this effort to realize good quality parts," Fima explains, adding that DMLS' selling point isn't always cost savings; it's the fact that DMLS can make parts that no other process can and do so quite rapidly.
The learning curve, a second principal challenge, has been a steep one. "For the first three months, we were really struggling," says Fima. "At that time, we were building mostly bad parts."
Today, the company still sits on that DMLS learning curve, but matters have improved greatly. Proper part orientation and build parameters for the components during the process have been key. Often on difficult parts wall thicknesses are thin, cavities are long and deep; in many instances, it would be impossible to even fixture them onto a mill or lathe, let alone withstand forces from a cutting tool.
So why go through all the trouble? Some may call the company an altruistic early adopter, paving the way for others who may bring in the technology once it's more established. As Fima puts it, adopting the technology now can put his company ahead of the game from the get-go, though he admits he's taken significant risks when doing so.
Despite the risks, the company made the plunge into DMLS because the technology promoted a concept the company has stuck by since 1994—printing parts with the latest technologies available. He adds that this can also be a challenge, since product engineers and designers must essentially draw from a new set of design principles. Often DMLS benefits are realized when several easy components can be idealized in design to a single assembly; this yields overall cost savings and optimizes design.
Nevertheless, says Fima, new design represents the company's hope behind DMLS. It can, with patience and careful analysis, produce parts that couldn't be made otherwise—not just in a prototype setting but in production as well. That attribute alone can be a tremendous selling point to medical, aerospace and other high-tech growth markets in the United States.
"We're having fun building parts," Fima concludes. "Representatives from companies like Honeywell and Boeing have paid us a visit to learn about this new technology. Our next step is to leverage this new technology and co-develop applications with customers in certain markets."
He admits the new process has experienced some major, unexpected bumps during the past months. But the payoff potential in the coming years could make all those bumps worthwhile.
Editor's Note: For more information on Forecast 3D, visit www.forecast3d.com. For more on the DMLS system, visit www.eos.info.