3-D Printer MakerBot Opens New Factory in New York

MakerBot says the opening of the new factory reinforces the company’s commitment to manufacturing in Brooklyn and is an important step in preparing the company for growth in the 3D printing market.

(Jaglom had worked at Stratasys for over a decade before taking over as MakerBot CEO earlier this year.) It’s not all bad news though: As a subsidiary of Stratasys, MakerBot now has easy access to its parent company’s more advanced research and development apparatus, a perk that Jaglom says will pay off as research into new 3-D printing materials trickles down from the mothership. But more recently Makerbot has been struggling with a few issues laying off 20 percent of their workforce back in April and this month being accused by an anonymous employee of knowingly shipping 3D printers with faulty extruders.

The new Sunset Park space occupies 170,000 square feet over three floors, in a building across the street from the future home of the Brooklyn Nets’ training facility and very near the company’s existing manufacturing facility.

The factory’s grand opening took place Wednesday morning in a ribbon-cutting ceremony with Borough President Eric Adams, MakerBot CEO Jonathan Jaglom and education officials.

Mr. Adams noted in a statement that “MakerBot is bound to thrive in their new expanded factory in Industry City, innovating solutions to everyday real-world challenges in the marketplace”. “We are witnessing the growth and evolution of 3D printing technology in our borough, a rapidly growing industry with infinite potential”, he said. The space also has a larger machine shop, and 3D-printing capabilities for manufacturing and R&D.

MakerBot has a 10-year lease on its new facility, and we expect wondrous things to come out of this factory in the years to come.

“MakerBot is more than a 3-D printer; it’s an entire ecosystem”, said Mr. Jaglom. Plant manager Diana Pincus explains that because robotic manufacturing machinery is created for one goal – and because MakerBot is constantly creating new types of bots – investing in such devices would be simply useless. Evidently, Makerbot-which was purchased by 3-D printing giant Stratasys in 2013-sees a much brighter future in serving the education market than in being a brick-and-mortar retailer. Founded in 2009, MakerBot sells desktop 3D printers to innovative and industry-leading customers worldwide, including engineers, architects, designers, educators and consumers. The company called the space “the industry’s largest Quality Assurance operation”. To learn more about MakerBot, visit: www.makerbot.com. Due to risks and uncertainties associated with MakerBot’s business, actual results could differ materially from those projected or implied by these forward-looking statements.