Forget “That’s How We’ve Always Made It” and Teach the Design Freedom of 3D Printing - Shon Anderson, CEO of B9Creations - The TechEd Podcast

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Matt Kirchner (00:08):
Matt securing the American Dream for the next
generation of STEM and workforcetalent. My name is Matt Kirk. I
am the host of The TechEdPodcast, if you tuned in a few
short weeks ago, when we hadDayton Horvath, the director of
emerging technologies for theAssociation for manufacturing
technology, on with us. You willrecall that he only mentioned

(00:28):
two additive manufacturingcompanies when he talked about
all the great things happeningacross manufacturing technology.
One of those two companies isbenign creations. Its CEO is
Sean Anderson. Sean is somebodywho I've gotten to know quite
well over the course of thisyear. He is my guest on this

(00:49):
episode. We are going to have agreat conversation around
additive manufacturing, how itrelates to manufacturing itself,
what we need to be doing ineducation in terms of additive
and it is my great pleasure towelcome to the studio of The
TechEd Podcast. Mr. SeanAnderson, CEO of benign
creations. Thank you so much,Matt. It's great to be here. And

(01:09):
you and I have spent a fairamount of time together over the
course of the last year, gettingto know each other. I've gotten
to know your company. Actually,we were introduced by a mutual
friend of ours, Brooks Jacobson,at Lake Area Technical College
in a state of South Dakota, thestate where you're in, you're on
the other end of the state, ofcourse, in Rapid City. But Ben
creation is doing just someamazing things in the world of

(01:31):
additive manufacturing and 3dprinting. We're going to get
into that in depth. It's awesometo have you on with us to talk
about this topic. Let's talk alittle bit, from the get go,
about 3d printing in general.
And when we hear from peoplethinking about additive,
thinking about 3d printing,maybe 1015, years ago, people
had no idea what it is. Nowthey're starting to get an idea.
But when people think ofadditive, what do they think of,

(01:53):
you

Shon Anderson (01:54):
know, it, it spans such a wide spectrum,
Matt, all the way from you know,you read articles about 3d
printing houses, to people hearabout things like 3d printed
wrenches on the InternationalSpace Station, to things that
are probably more of society isinteracted with, like, Hey, I
went to the dentist and I got asame day crown for benine
creations. Where we focus isthe, what we call Ultra

(02:18):
precision, end of that. So youknow, we're not trying to 3d
print football helmet pads ortennis shoe insoles. It's things
that go in medical devices andjet engines and other things
like that. But I mean, additivemanufacturing can be used in a
whole lot of ways. That's whatgets me excited about, you know,
this whole future of STEMeducation, because to make the
make use of that tool, we got tohave people that understand it

(02:40):
and know how to wield the tool.
So

it doesn't matter if I'm in the International
Space Station, if I'm in mydentist office, if I'm in any
really sector of the entireeconomy, additive manufacturing
in 3d printing, is going to bereal. It's going to be used. And
it's especially true, I think,in a lot of ways, in the world
of manufacturing is, you know,Sean, I spent almost my whole
career in manufacturing beforecoming over to education about

(03:04):
10 years ago. So let's talkabout manufacturing
specifically. Is it really able,is additive really able to solve
problems and challenges inmanufacturing, and is it really
capable of transforming anentire organization or business?

Absolutely. You know, the key to this is, like
any other good engineeringproject, it's picking the right
project. So if you have a verysimple plastic part or metal
part that you make today, andyou can injection mold that, and
you're not dealing with toolingconstraints or design
constraints, it's definitelygoing to be cheaper if you're
going to make a million of themto injection mold them. The use

(03:40):
case for additive has alwaysbeen around, you know,
prototyping or very low volumeproduction. And when you think
about injection molding, themost expensive part is always
part number one, because I haveto cut this piece of steel to
create a tool to get even thefirst part. What we're seeing
Matt, is that, whereas it usedto be additive made sense if you
need it, one, 210, 20. I mean,we have clients now that are are

(04:06):
using our technology to produce1000s of parts so that break
even point on cutting a tool orthe other business case, we hear
a lot. We're dealing with alarge company in the life
sciences space, who says, rightnow, they turn down a ton of
business because the customerwants less than their typical
minimum order quantity. And soyou have these companies saying,

(04:27):
Well, you know, normally, ifthey're not going to buy 10,000
parts, we don't do it, eventhough that could be some really
profitable business. And sowe're seeing additive fit those.
It's production, but it's not amillion parts, and the lead time
compression that comes from notcutting a tool combined with the
cost savings really makes thebusiness case work well. And I

(04:48):
was

just going to mention that, you know, all
those years that I spent inmanufacturing, whether it was
getting a die or a tool or amold manufactured that can take,
in some cases, weeks, if notmonths, maybe even longer.
Younger depending on where it'scoming from and how intricate it
is, which really stretches outinnovation. It really stretches
out lead times the part that Ihadn't thought of that you just
mentioned Sean, which is reallyinteresting to me as somebody

(05:10):
who worked in contractmanufacturing for a long, long
time, and for our listeners,when we say contract
manufacturing, we mean amanufacturing company that is
making a product for anothermanufacturing company.
Typically, a lot of times wedeal with those minimum values
for volumes, I should say so. Inother words, a customer wants to
send you apart. They wanted in alot size of 10. You're set up to

(05:31):
build it in a lot size of 1000you might have to charge them
for 1000 parts, even thoughthey're only looking for 10,
which really, for obviousreasons, can preclude the
economics of that particularproject. Now what I hear you
telling me is that if I've got aparticular part where the
minimum order quantity might be1000 and I only need 10, I can
use additive. I can use 3dprinting to 3d print that part,

(05:53):
we're going to get it donefaster than we might otherwise
would through a typical contractmanufacturing route, and more
economically, given thoseminimum order quantities that
aren't as big of a concern whenit comes to additive
manufacturing. So I learnedsomething that I hadn't thought
about before, and that really issuper interesting, but it's what
we're all about here at TheTechEd Podcast. Is learning
things. What I'd like to learnhere is this Sean, when we think

(06:14):
about manufacturing companiesimplementing additive
manufacturing, or 3d printing,what are some of the hurdles
they run into, and what shouldwe be doing about them? Well,
that's

a great question.
I would say they tend to fallinto three buckets. Matt, you've
got material capabilities, whichwhether you're speaking metal,
3d printing or polymer, which iswhere you know, b9 happens to
sit, but they're a metal 3dprinted part or a liquid photo
polymer. 3d printed part is notthe same thing. It's close, but
it's not the same thing as a6061, aluminum that might be

(06:45):
cast or forged or on thephotopolymer side, you may be
used to an ABS PC blend thatyour injection molding, your
liquid photopolymers are goingto be ABS PC like, but they're
not identical. So you got thatmaterial limitation. The second
thing I would say is you have tounderstand how set is the
design. And this is what we seeso often with clients. And

(07:08):
frankly, I've seen people thatyou cut a tool, and just after
you complete that first articleinspection, somebody has a
really good idea, and then youprobably slap that person around
a little bit because, you know,time for that idea would have
been before you cut the tool.
And with additive, you're notdealing with those constraints.
You ship the first batch ofparts, and the customer says,

(07:30):
Could we do this? Could we dothat? Could we move this hole,
or could we adjust that so youget this flexibility, you're not
stuck with this design. Theother big thing limitation that,
when you think about choosingprojects, is something where
you'd say, What do I want my endof life for this product? And I
know we're talking about, youknow, prototyping a beginning of

(07:51):
life, but you fast forward tothe end, and what are my
limitations around? How manyspare parts do I need for this
thing? Do I want to have to make100,000 extra and storm in my
warehouse for 10 years, becauseit might turn out and where
people oftentimes go wrong isthey only look at the upfront
cost, and they neglect Well, Ihave to over produce, and then
I'm going to store these partsforever, because I can't take a

(08:14):
chance that if I don't make anyfor five years, I can go back to
that supplier and get this partwell, with additive, I don't
need a whole lot of them in thewarehouse, because I can make
more pretty simply and easily.
That's really thinking lifecycle cost and not being so
focused on the front end that weneglect those back end impacts.

So when we think about those three, and
particularly, let's kind oftackle the first one. First, if
I'm a manufacturer, and let'ssay I'm using some form of an
injection molding process, andwhat I'm hearing is, if I switch
to additive, my materialproperties might not be exactly
the same as what I hadbeforehand. Did I understand
that? Right? And if so, how doyou work around that in terms of

(08:54):
qualifying new projects andmaterials? What we

found, Matt, is that you have a lot of engineers
that you know, let's say we'regoing to make a new part in the
engineer there's a set ofengineering plastics that
everyone's so used to workingwith that they'll call it, you
know, again, ABS, PC, blend,Delrin, you know, pick one. And
so from our side, our solutionsteam is going to be asking, you
know, tell us what your look isat heat, deflection, temp, what
are the key attributes here thatare driving that material? Call

(09:19):
out. And a lot of times theanswer is, I don't know, the
last 10 of these I've designed,I just use that, and it just
works, right? So sometimes it'schallenging because customers
have gotten so familiar. Andthis is, you know, I think, a
point we'll touch on later, butwe have multiple generations of
engineers now educated to designfor injection molding, if we're

(09:41):
picking on the plastic world fora minute, and they know the
engineering material set. Theyknow basic tooling things around
drafts and radius and all thisstuff. But there's an equivalent
set of experience to that thathas to get built into this next
generation of engineers aroundadditive so from back to our
material. Point, is this piecegoing to be exposed to UV light?

(10:03):
What kind of temperature rangeis it going to be potentially
dropped or, you know, you thinkabout something as simple as a
computer mouse. Well, I can 3dprint all those parts now, after
I after it's five years old andI knock it off the desk, it's
probably going to break if it'sa typical photo polymer. So all
those considerations oftentimeshave to be thought back through.

(10:25):
That oftentimes aren't becauseour engineers are so used again,
so used to saying abs, PC blend,or glass filled nylon, or those
common engineering plastics. Andso there does need to be some
planning. When you're thinkingabout trying to replace an
existing engineering plasticwith additive. You're

taking me back a little ways to my contract
manufacturing days in makingmaterial handling solutions for,
let's just say, a majormotorcycle manufacturer here in
the United States, in in all thefixtures on that were made out
of del Rin, by the way. So usedto that, right? I mean, that was
what every engineer wanted tospec, because that was a
material that they were familiarwith. I also think back to my
days of metal finishing andmetal plating, when the personal

(11:03):
exposure limits on hexavalentchromium came along, probably
1520, years ago, and we had toswitch some of the customers to
new solutions in that regard.
And it was exactly, in a lot ofcases, very similar properties.
But they were so used to sayingcopper nickel chrome, they were
so used to saying del Rin thatmaking the switch was a little
bit of a challenge, just interms of the psyche or the way
they thought about the product.

(11:24):
Let me flip the script on thatthough a little bit. And are we
into an age where, because ofthe flexibility we have in
materials with additive, wherewe could actually maybe inject
or include some materialproperties in a solution that
those engineers are thinkingover aren't aware of, but in the
end, would actually improve theapplication and the goals that
they're trying to meet, forsure.

And it's everything from sometimes it's a
basic material property, butother times Matt, it's more
complex, and it's like designedin flex in a part, sure, it's
very difficult to control withthe geometries and things that I
have available, let's say aninjection molding. I can't use
some kind of lattice infill, forinstance, to provide stiffness

(12:06):
or a prescribed amount of give.
I can't injection mold that, butI can 3d print a lattice in fill
and provide a different level ofstiffness and give. What I
always tell the engineer is, youknow, the printer doesn't care
about the cross section. Theprinter doesn't care about the
geometry. I don't need to beable to be able to get a tool in
there. It doesn't have to popout of a mold. That doesn't mean
that there are noconsiderations. There certainly

(12:27):
aren't designed for additiveconsiderations. But that design
freedom, the challenge is, whatcustomers usually bring to us
is, here's the part I maketoday. I just want to make this
exact same thing with additive,right? When you do that, you're
not leveraging the designfreedom. You're not leveraging a
whole bunch of stuff, becauseobviously, you already own a

(12:48):
tool, or you wouldn't have beenmaking it today. So those
projects and part of it, youknow, it's just retraining our
engineers. When they think everyengineer probably had to take
that engineering economicsclass, right? It's taken them
back to that engineeringeconomics class and getting them
to build some new variables inthe equation as they're choosing
projects Absolutely. Well,

you have somebody that comes to you and says, I
just want this part to look andfeel and work exactly the same
as it did with the otherprocess. And you're like, Well,
wait a minute, what if we couldprovide the same level of
strength and stiffness, but dothat at a third the weight,
because we use in full as a boyas opposed to a solid part.
Would you like that as just onethought? So there's all this
flexibility that we have withadditive manufacturing that we

(13:27):
may not have had with othertraditional manufacturing
methods, not that it's the beall and end all of
manufacturing, because everymethod finds its best solution,
and vice versa. But certainly,some of these advancements are
creating all kinds of reallysuccessful projects and
opportunities in manufacturing.
Are there certain things thatdifferentiate those successful
projects Sean from the ones thatmaybe don't go as well in
manufacturing? When you thinkabout 3d printing, there

are, and I'll tell you, it's a little bit
counter intuitive. Myexperience, though, is the
successful projects are moreabout the organization who's
implementing than they are aboutthe technology. And you know
that human factor cannot beunderstated. I'm going to paint
with a broad brush, and usuallywhen I do that, I regret it, but

(14:11):
I'm gonna do it anyway. Go forit. Almost any project you're
gonna do with additive will havesome different considerations,
even if it's not on the frontend, it may be post processing
or packaging or, you know,there's going to be a change
somewhere, and your wholeorganization needs to understand
that the reason for the change,what is it we're getting out of

(14:33):
this? And so, you know, I alwayssympathize with the one engineer
that got tasked to take this,you know, again, I'll pick on
the mouse, but hey, find us abetter way to make this part.
And so he looks at the materialsand looks at the design and all
the things, but he doesn't thinkabout, well, the procurement
department has to add a newvendor, and now we have to,
we're not ordering them inquantities of 50, and the

(14:55):
inventory system, everything wedo is on quantities of 50. And
you know, I'm throwing. Out whatsound like some kind of inane
things, you would be amazed athow many of these projects that
may have a good engineering orfinancial basis struggle for
adoption and long term successbecause of those human factors
or organizational factors.
Actually, I wouldn't be

surprised by that at all because, but somebody who
worked in manufacturing for 25years. I deal with that kind of
stuff all day long. And if youcan get it all the way through
manufacturing and procurementand customer service and the
customer than the accountingdepartment, and I'm a recovering
bean counter, so I can say thatwe'll come up with a reason not
to do it. So I certainlyrecognize what some of those
challenges are in terms ofdriving change in manufacturing.

(15:38):
And so I want to just come backreally quickly to what you said
in terms of the organization.
Does it really come down to theculture and how innovative and
progressive the organization is,and how holistic their view of
innovation and being progressiveis? Or what do you think are the
keys with regard to theorganizations that make these
projects work versus those thatdon't?

Well, again, I'll pay with a little bit of a broad
brush, but based on our sharedmanufacturing background, I
think I can say that someorganizations are just better at
change in innovation than othersbecause of what they have chosen
to reward and recognize andencourage in their culture. It
doesn't matter if you're talkingabout a new HR system or a new
production process, if yourorganization is good at change

(16:20):
and good at innovation, yourodds of success are much higher.
It's amazing to me, how manycompanies, if I went to them and
said, If you were going to setup a new production line and
you're going to switch frommolding these parts to milling,
what's your change managementprocess? And they would come to
me with a book, right? That'sthree inches thick. Yet when

(16:41):
they go to do something withadditive, they forget that they
have the you've already writtena process for how to do this.
Don't throw that out. Now, itdoesn't mean it's all word for
word going to be the same, butif you applied the same
discipline and the sameoftentimes, it's communication,
right? So these downstreambusiness partners understand
what's coming before it hitsthose muscles that as you

(17:04):
understand, Matt, if you buildthose into your organization,
any change goes better. Well,

in this day and age, when it comes to we change
innovation, Agility. I mean,those are going to be the names
of the game. You know, we Seanhad Barbara Hampton on the
podcast not too long ago. She,of course, is the Chief
Executive Officer of Siemens,USA, and we talked all about
change in manufacturing and justin our way of manufacturing
products globally. And there'sso many geopolitical things
going on now, course, postelection, with questions on

(17:31):
tariffs and questions oninternational trade and so on,
nobody knows for sure wherethose are going to go, but I
think it's safe to say we'regoing to see more and more
manufacturing getting closer andcloser to the point of use.
We're going to see moreflexibility. We're going to see
more consumer opportunities interms of choice and making
decisions about what exactlythey want. We're going to see
smaller, lot sizes, way moremix. It's going to be a

(17:52):
fascinating time to be inmanufacturing. But the truth of
the matter is that, at least, inmy opinion, if you're a company
that is good at change ininnovation and you're agile, as
you as you suggest, you're goingto be in a position to adopt
some of these technologies. Ifyou're not, you're not only not
going to be in position to adoptthese technologies. You're
probably not going to be in aposition to grow or even exist
five to 10 years from now. So Ithink some of these things we're

(18:14):
talking about, which are nice tohaves in manufacturing, are
going to be absolutely criticalgoing forward, the next five
years. This can be really,really fun to watch as we see
some of our companies, in fact,a lot of them across the United
States, finding ways to be moreinnovative, finding ways to be
better at change management andbe more agile. If you had a
couple of pieces of advice forthose companies, let's say I'm a

(18:35):
VP of Operations, or I'm a vicepresident of engineering, or I'm
even a president or CEO of asmall to mid sized manufacturing
company thinking aboutintegrating additive How can I
ensure that the additive worldand in the 3d printing
technology I'm adopting is goingto serve my business goals and
also integrate really well intomy overall process? That's

a great question, Matt, and one that I hope
everybody in manufacturinglistens to this podcast, because
they do everybody. It's aquestion not enough people ask.
And I would correlate it to, Ithink most people at that VP
level are probably familiar withthe whole make versus buy
conversation, sure of you know,Hey, should we make this or
should we outsource that? Peopleneed to think more about what

(19:16):
level of expertise aroundadditive. Is it realistic for us
to have internally and then picka strategy with how we're going
to tackle this project that youknow, again, if it's we're the
experts at everything we canafford to hire everybody we need
to hire, just give us theequipment and turn us loose.
Okay, I don't actually see thatwork very often, but okay, I

(19:38):
think if you think about thebreakdown of size of American
manufacturers, and this is partof why b9 has taken the approach
we've taken. There are a handfulof very large manufacturers, but
it's a handful the vastmajority, and frankly, you
probably know the numbers betterthan I do, but the vast majority
of manufacturing firms arereally in that mid size boat.

(19:59):
And it's not. Not realistic forthem to say, I'm going to
dedicate 10 people to thisadditive initiative, and we're
just going to go fumble aroundat this for a year trying to
make it work, and I'm going toburn half a million of CapEx and
another a million and a half Xbut in the end, we'll be able to
replace one part we used toinjection mold, right? Not
practical. So we'll be out ofbusiness before you get there,

(20:22):
absolutely or, you know, yourshareholders will have swapped
CEOs long before you get thatfigured out. So our approach has
been, rather than traditional 3dprinting world has been very
much distribution oriented, verymuch just product oriented. We
not that we don't dodistribution work, but we very
much focus on the consultativeservices it takes to get the

(20:45):
business outcome. We work hardwith our team internally. Our
definition of success is notthat you bought a printer. Our
definition of success is noteven that you got it to print
the part you wanted. We try tounderstand the business outcome
you're looking to drive and thenwrap the services and solutions
around the software, thehardware, the materials, etc.

(21:07):
Because ultimately, if we'rehonest about the additive
manufacturing industry, as muchas has a ton of potential, and
it is really changing the way alot of things are made. It's
also known for more hype thanresults, and we're on a crusade
to change that what mostcustomers want is to minimize
distraction so they can go begood at whatever they're trying

(21:28):
to be good at, right? And so ourapproach, in the very simplest
of terms, is, how can we be theadditive experts so that our
customers get the luxury of justit's hard enough to be good at
your business, they shouldn'thave to try to figure out how to
be good at our business. That'sexactly

right. And in every business that I'm in, we
talk all the time about focusingon highest and best use, or
maybe even going back to the JimCollins and good to great days,
or the lean manufacturing days.
What is it that your customerpays you to do? That's your ry
son, Dietrich, your reason forexistence. Let's focus on that
and let other experts worry andfigure out how to solve those
problems. You're right. First ofall, the world, it was the

(22:05):
United States is full of smallto mid sized companies. We had
Aza TASH potty is the managingdirector at the time. He's a
managing director North Americafor McKinsey and Company. Wrote
a book called The titaniumeconomy. He's since been
promoted to be there theirinternational had a strategy for
all of McKinsey, 45,000consulting employees around the
globe, one of the top threeconsulting companies by many

(22:27):
measures on the planet. And hewas on the podcast talking about
how, literally, 70% of allresearch and development and
innovation happen in theAmerican economy, happens in
small to mid sizedmanufacturing. So you think
about all of the R and D, all ofthe innovation that happens all
across the United States ofAmerica, 70% of that happens is
small to mid size manufacturing.

(22:50):
And so that is by and largewhere a lot of our innovation
takes place here in the UnitedStates. And of course, in the
same way that things like thespace program drive innovation
across all kinds of spaces, theinnovation that happens in
manufacturing pervadesmanufacturing into every space
within our economy, additivemanufacturing, you're right. It
would for a while, it wasn'tworth the hype. I was somebody

(23:10):
that for a long time, I think,as you know, was wondering what
we were doing in education, justputting all of these farms of 3d
printers into education andwatching students download STL
files to a 3d printer and printout a Yoda head, for example.
And it's like, well, that's kindof cool, but I'm not sure,
beyond, like, one of thoseinjection molding things you do
at the zoo, what the studentsare necessarily learning there.

(23:32):
And now here we have thisopportunity into things like
different technologies,different materials. We've got
way more applications foradditive, the prices are coming
down. The complexity the partsis going up. The usefulness of
the parts is going up. Really,really cool. Time to be in your
space and be nine creations.
Couldn't be in a better spot, Ithink, than you are right now. I
think one of the spots that alot of our employers are trying

(23:54):
to figure out to your earlierpoint is around talent, right?
It's not practical, probably foryour average $20 million
manufacturing company to hire aquarter million dollar a year
additive manufacturing engineer.
I'm making those numbers up, butI'm probably not too far off. So
if I'm a company that is lookingat the workforce side of it,
what do we have to do here inthe United States and beyond,

(24:17):
from a workforce standpoint,just thinking about what those
challenges are, and then howadditive can help manage through
some of those challenges? Well,I'll

respond to your question with two parts one
being where I think there's someopportunities to improve, but
then number two, where I thinkwe're seeing some real
encouraging signs. Awesome. PartOne of that would be, you
touched on it when 3d printingwas first adopted in the
education space. It's, well, youknow, what we need is 100 of
these. So we need to buy themcheap, right? And then within

(24:47):
six months of the 100 you bought10, still work, but the teacher
who used to run that program hasnow moved to a different
program. And you know, nownobody's left that knows how to
operate these things. You. Ithink the fascination with the
mechanical process of making thepart is good. And you know, the
mechanical engineering me gets alittle kick out of that. But

(25:10):
additive manufacturing, unlessyou're really you're the person
who's under the hood working inthe firmware of the machine,
it's a software process. So whatwe have to do on the education
side is think about, yes,ultimately, I think there's a
lot of value in the studentsbeing able to produce a part,
but understanding the designconsiderations and layout and

(25:31):
support and all of these thingsthat really can be experienced
through software, which isinfinitely more scalable than
hardware, and usually you do alot less maintenance on software
than hardware, right? Make amaybe the same investment in a
smaller volume of hardwareplatforms, but invest in
hardware that A is robust andthat B might even look like

(25:52):
something the students are goingto see in industry, right? You
know, instead of, I've printed aton of stuff on a $300 filament
printer, $1,000 filamentprinter, the parts are junk and
the surface finish is terribleand all that. But to your point,
at school, I got a Yoda head ifI had a student, when we
interview, whether it'sengineering or technician level,
if someone comes to be nine andapplies for a job and says, Hey,

(26:15):
I understand orientation inthree dimensions and layout and
support and designconsiderations around overhangs
and things like that. Give methat all day long over somebody
that says, Oh yeah, I bought aXYZ brand 3d printer, and I
leveled the build table all bymyself, and I controlled the
temperature, because a goodpiece of hardware is going to do
all that for you anyway. So parttwo of that, the only part one,

(26:38):
the part that was a littlediscouraging, is we saw a lot of
people throw a ton of money atfairly low quality hardware that
came with almost no support. Andso if you go anywhere in
education, there are a lot ofthose 3d printer manufacturers
need a partnership with Swiffer,because they mainly collect dust
after they've been there sixmonths. Right? The encouraging

(27:00):
part, though, is we are reallyseeing some creative things.
There are some innovative peoplewhen we think about people like
uplift education and some otherfolks in the space who are
moving well beyond that, if wewant to call it additive in
education, 1.0 well beyond that,in terms of how they think about
engaging students and realizing,you know, it's not just the

(27:24):
student that knows I want to bean engineer. It's the graph. You
know, people that in the pastwould have done graphic design
that was a very two dimensionalthing that now are thinking, how
do we teach them to think inthree dimensions? There's an
artistic component, a designcomponent, you know, a frankly,
sales and marketing, customerfeedback component. You know, I

(27:44):
know TechEd podcast is all aboutSTEM, but so often I find that
people have this very limitedview of STEM, and so, well, my
kid doesn't want to be anengineer, so I guess that
doesn't really apply, right? AndI try to be quick to show
examples of that. But where Iwas going, we're seeing these
really innovative partnershipsbetween a company like A b9 a
customer of A b9 and some namesthat I can use, you know, a

(28:07):
company like a Medtronic Sure,where they are partnering with
community colleges and othereducational institutions. So
that, you know, the educationinstitution is very difficult to
figure out. What does industryreally value if they're not
talking. And what I see that'sso encouraging to me is more and
more of our customer base on theindustrial side talking to more

(28:29):
and more of our customer base onthe educational side. And
frequently we get to be a partof the cool thing that happens
there.

That for sure, you do, and I've been a part of
a number of those as well. It'sbeen interesting to see the last
10 years how much more involvedso many of our large and even
small and mid sizedmanufacturing companies and
other companies involved in theSTEM space have engaged with
education, be it a technical orcommunity college, engineering
university, or probably myfavorite, those k 12 programs,
because there's, there's so muchopportunity there, I can think

(28:58):
back Shonda several years ago,10 plus years ago, when, when
additive was coming of age ineducation and walking into one
of our local educationalinstitutions before I was on the
education side myself, and theywanted to show me their
manufacturing program. And wewalked in to see the
manufacturing program. And ofcourse, they had like, you know,
to your point, 10 early stagefilaments and maybe one

(29:20):
computer. But I remember thesuperintendent of that school
district walking me in andsaying, Well, this is our
advanced manufacturing program.
And I said, Well, where? Andthey said, Well, you know, these
3d printers. And to that point,I had, literally, I had only
seen two, 3d printers inmanufacturing. One was at the
same manif motorcyclemanufacturing company that I
alluded to earlier, and that wasthree levels behind the front
desk security, like if you couldget all the way into their deep

(29:43):
R D program, if you had accessthere, you saw one. I also saw
one at a major marinemanufacturing company here in
the Midwest as well. Those arethe only two I had ever seen.
And the superintendent said,these are exactly the same
treaty printers thatmanufacturers are using in their
processes. And I said, Oh.
Really, who told you that? Sothey said, well, the person that
sold us the 3d printer. I'mlike, Well, yeah, of course they

(30:05):
did. Now we've seen in the last10 years, obviously, with the
advancements in the technology,so many applications in
education, I'm a huge, huge fanfor additive in education, when
it's done right and when you'reteaching the right competencies,
as you suggest it when you talkto and I know you spend a lot of
time around elementary schools,and you spend a lot of time
around K 12 and middle schoolsand so on. You talk to students.
You have them come tour yourfacilities. Are they starting to

(30:27):
understand the kind of careersthat are available in the world
of additive either as astandalone career, or how it
might affect where their careeris going, regardless of the
discipline that they choose topursue, and what are some of
those things that we can do evenbetter in terms of helping
students understand what all theopportunities

are. There's a lot of work to be done, in my
opinion, there, Matt, I mean,the needle is moving, but it's
moving slowly. In some ways,we're having a little fun at the
expense of engineers. And right?
That's okay. I'm married to one,by the way, so I can get away
with that, right? You and mywife could get together and
sympathize with each other. Havea support group. Tell me it the
good news is your wife Renee andI never miss the opportunity to

(31:05):
over analyze something,probably. But when we think
about education, so often,people tend to be focused in
their swim lane. So if I'm ascience educator, or if I am in
the K through 12 environment, orI am a math teacher, or if we
get to that community collegeenvironment, and I am a
electronics program or advancedmanufacturing program, there's a

(31:25):
lot of in the swim lanethinking. And I think what's
missing for kids, particularlyin K through 12. I mean, if you
ask most K through 12 students,and you said, What do you want
to be when you grow up? I mean,if you know, I had two kids, but
it went from like, so I had aboy and a girl. So it was
started out like astronautballerina, and then you get to

(31:46):
the professional athlete stage,and then you get beyond that,
and it's

like, I don't know, right during the
headlights, yeah,

this is more complicated than I thought. I
think where we missed the boatis, we've got a ton of thinking
that, and, you know, I get it.
We need tests, and we need toassess these students
capabilities, but I don't knowthat we're spending enough time
helping them figure out whatthey ought to do when they grow
up, right? So the good news is,I think as a and I'm mainly
going to speak about the US,because I'm a lot less

(32:17):
knowledgeable outside the US,but I think as a country, we're
waking up to the fact that, youknow what, college is a really
expensive place to figure outwhat you want to do if you grow
up. For sure, we should do moreof that earlier, not that you
have to pick one thing and do itforever. I still don't think
that's the career path. Youknow, that hasn't been the
career path even to the last 10None of

us did Right, right? Am I career number five
or six, I think at this point,yeah,

I don't think it's the career path of the
future, but I think it's, how dowe help our our young people
understand how to make somechoices that move you forward
and keep options open. I'll pickon myself growing up, I was that
kid. He always played withLegos, good at math, and
everybody's like, Oh, you shouldbe an engineer. And I, I really

(33:03):
thought when I was in juniorhigh, I just I wanted to be a
mechanical engineer, and Iwanted to work on the
aerodynamics for new Corvettes.
You know, that's every car nutkid's dream, right? And I went
to engineering school, I tookthis class called fluid
mechanics ed, and I did not getalong well together. And you
realize, you know, I had acouple of internships while I
was in engineering school, yourealize the guys that are doing

(33:25):
the things that I wanted to do,a, they're not wired like I am.
And B, they're a lot better atsome of those detailed, deep
dive computational analyticstypes things than I was. And so,
you know, I was a kid that Iwould have said, I know what I
want to do from the time I wasin about the sixth grade, but
when I got to the point Iactually got exposed to it, I

(33:47):
realized this actually isn'twhat I should do, right. What I
try to focus on now is, how dowe help people figure out what
they should do based on theirown gifts and talents, and then
use those gifts and talents tocreate value for themselves and
the world around them. And youknow, it sounds a little bit
esoteric, but one of thesmartest guys I ever worked for

(34:08):
used to use an example that forsome of your listeners, I
apologize that I'm going to usethis analogy, because if you
live in Texas, it's painful. Butwhen I first went to work for
this guys back in the 90s, andthe Dallas Cowboys were the
dominant team in the NFL, and heused to say Sean, if you had the
same team, so same talent, buttroyman played wide receiver,
Emmett Smith played quarterbackand Michael Irvin played running

(34:30):
back. How many games would theywin? Right? Yeah. And the answer
is, great, maybe a few, but awhole lot less. And again, I
apologize the Cowboys fans whoare still living through the
Super Bowl drought. But the sameis true of our young people,
helping them figure out, am I aquarterback, running back, wide
receiver. Will pick the analogythat works, but today, I don't

(34:52):
think we spend enough time andenergy on helping them
understand that aboutthemselves, and it's easy to get
excited. You know, additive inthe classroom and all that. But
I think we have to step back andtake that, you know, again, not
just in the swim lane view, butwe got to view these students as
people, right? They needexposure to different things and
experiences and the opportunityto make choices that still leave

(35:14):
options open in front of them.
And realize, I've had to tell myown kids this, sometimes the
most valuable lesson you canlearn is what you don't want to
do. And you take a job thatsounded cool, and you're like,
good, you know what? Actually,this is not my thing.

It's interesting as we record this, I just had
lunch this afternoon with the Iwon't name the university, but
with the provost, the ChiefAcademic Officer of an
engineering university, and wewere talking about the
importance of starting to morphthe engineering education
process into more hands onexperiential learning early on,
so we don't necessarily get toour junior year of an
engineering program that mightbe costing, you know, a student

(35:53):
or their parents or somecombination thereof, or somebody
else, for that matter, you know,40, 5060, $80,000, a year to
find out that this really isn'twhat I wanted to do, or maybe,
you know, calculus and physicsaren't my thing, and so we get
some of that hands onexperiential learning early on,
so they can really get a sensefor what it's like to work as an
engineer and maybe decide evensooner if that's not the right

(36:15):
path to your point, becausethat's as important as figuring
out what is and get on the rightone, and then driving that back
into high school and middleschool. We talk all the time on
the podcast about how the numberone influencer of a young
person's career pathway is theirown interest and experiences in
middle school and high school,and nothing else is even close.
It's not parents, it's notsocial media, it's not academic
advisors, it's not theirfriends, it's what they'd like

(36:38):
to do, it's what they'reinterested in. I'm a firm
believer that if we can figureout everybody has their own
special powers. They'redifferent for everybody, but if
you can figure out what yoursare, mine were always kind of
like economics and then thiscommunication thing, I could
always find my way through asentence. If you can find a way
to make a living doing what youlove do, then work becomes a lot
more fun. It becomes more of avocation. But we need to have

(37:00):
young people figure that outearlier, not that they have to
choose a career when they're 12or 13 years old. But understand
what you love to do, understandwhat interests you, and then try
and find a career somewherealong the way that you
absolutely love to do. Talkingabout, what are the things that
you mentioned, Sean, what was itaerodynamics on Corvettes? Was
that the was that the examplethat she used?

Yeah, that was my dream, until, like, crashed into
the reality of fluid mechanicsclass, right?

Exactly. I just want to tell this story when I
was growing up. I mean, that wasthe thing, right? Kids, you
worked on your cars and you, youknow, whether you're, you know,
you're just doing things liketinting windows, or you had the
entire engine block torn apartin your garage, or somewhere in
between, that was kind of thething to do. I was in Tokyo.
This goes back about five years,and I was with two engineers,
both of whom were working on amajor project around FANUC

(37:50):
robotics. So let's just kind ofkeep it that way, because they
were customers of FANUC that Iwas with, and they were talking
about integrating manufacturingtechnology in the same way that
people of our generation talkedabout, you know, like, souping
up their car in some really coolway. And they're like, oh, man,
you mean you and you integratedthat Bosch sensor with a Siemens
PLC and a Schneider Electricswitch. And, you know, I mean,

(38:11):
they're just like, having thisconversation. And, you know, you
had this cool VFD that was doingsuch and such, talking about
integrating manufacturingtechnology the same way that we
used to talk about puttingtogether really, really cool
things on our cars. And so Itell people, you know, of our
generation, maybe a little bityounger, if you think about the
way that we used to talk aboutwhat we did with cars, that's
the same way that students andyoung people can talk about

(38:32):
integrating manufacturingtechnology. Certainly, additive
is a huge, huge part of that.
And so bringing additive toeducation in the right way.
Sean, I think really, reallyimportant in delivering it in
the right way. And we've alreadytalked about the fact that it's
not just 20 filament printers,you know, all printing the same
thing that some studentdownloaded from the Internet,
but it is the software side.

(38:54):
It's the integration side, it'smaterials. It's designed for
additive all these other things.
When you're talking toeducators, whether that's a high
school teacher, a CTE director,maybe a dean at a college or a
university, where is educationfalling short when it comes to
teaching additive? I mean,

that's a complex answer, because it's a little
different for everyorganization, but what I would
love to see, based on the folksI've talked to, is more focus on
where it can take you than onadditive itself. And maybe
that's heresy for a CEO of the3d printing company to say, but
I think if you want to engagethese kids, you know, yes, there

(39:33):
are going to be some that aregoing to say, oh my gosh, I can
i 3d printed a holder for myiPhone so I can clip it onto my
mountain bike or whatever. Butthere are a whole lot of kids
that they're smart enough toknow, hey, the world I am headed
into additive manufacturing isgoing to be a disruptive force.
But where can it take me?
Because maybe I'm not the kidthat wants to design the part.

(39:55):
Maybe I'm not the kid that wantsto write the code. So how can I
do something with this, or dosomething around this? And for
instance, I'll call outsomething that if you know,
we've been talking about thislearning curve of how we haven't
generations of engineers knowhow to design for molding. Now
we got to teach a generationengineers how to design for
additive. What if your passionwas teaching and training? And I

(40:17):
don't mean that you have to gobecome a PhD in a university and
teach that dang fluid mechanicsclass that scared me out of
aerodynamics. But what if yourpassion is teaching and
training? Maybe in a corporateenvironment where it's much more
about the application of thetechnology than how to write the
code that moves the parts of theprinter up and down. There's

(40:39):
opportunities all the way aroundthis, Matt, but we've got to go
from the fascination with thetechnology itself back to where
can it take you. I'll saysomething a little
controversial. We lovecontroversial. Go ahead. A bunch
of people will probably missHear what I'm about to say. But
if you think about your kidsschool, if you have kids in

(41:00):
school, or back when I was inschool, the dinosaurs had just
died off. You look at the amountof organizational bandwidth and
money and energy that we putinto something like athletics,
and don't mishear me. I'm notagainst athletics. I ran track,
run cross country, all that goodstuff. And there are a lot of
good lessons that the handful ofkids who are in that can learn

(41:22):
from it. But how are we helpingthese kids understand how
additive manufacturing, AI, someof these other macro forces can
create opportunity for them?
Because I've met with those CTEdirectors that have been set
there with, I mean, you know,these poor men and women, it's
like, hey, at least David had aslingshot, right? Some of these

(41:45):
people, you know, you got thebasketball coach, he's hauling
people around on the bus. He'sgot a huge budget. And the poor
CTE director is the one man bandwho's supposed to mobilize a
bunch of people who kind of aremotivated to just do their job
and not let him distract them,right? And then we wonder why
some of this isn't gettingtraction. So I think we have to

(42:06):
take a step back, back to youryou know, it's like the hedgehog
concept from good to great,right, right? What is it we can
be the best in the world at ineducation, and if our goal is
create, you know, I would callthem young adults, which might
not be the right word, but youngadults who are who understand
the world they're coming intoand how to find their way in it.

(42:26):
If that's the goal, we need alot more resource around how do
we help them with selfawareness? How do we help
identify gifts and talents, andthen how do we show them how to
connect those gifts and talentsinto the career fields that are
emerging in the world ahead ofus. So that was a wide ranging
answer around education, aroundadditive but let's get beyond

(42:48):
the programming, the mechanicalmovements. And let's get beyond
the engineering, the part. Andlet's talk to the broader swath
of kids. Because again, if ourgoal is to make the majority of
kids into software engineers.
That's a long thought. We'renever going to get there. Now,
if we say our goal is excitekids about technology and help
them figure out, based on theirgifts and talents, what should

(43:12):
they do around that? That's agame I think we can win. That's
a

game we can win, for sure. And in as much as we
put You're right. All kinds ofmoney into referendums, for
example, to build new sportsstadiums and in new new gyms and
so on. And again, I'm the sameway. I'm a product of high
school athletics, you know? Soare my kids. Certainly wouldn't
say anything bad about that. Andif we made the same kind of
investments in STEM and learningcenters as we do in athletic

(43:38):
facilities and so on, not takinganything away from the ladder.
Think about how much furtherahead we might be. I think
that's a really, really good wayof looking at it, and then
thinking about how we educatethe whole student around all of
the opportunities that might bestanding in front of them. We've
got time for one more questionwith Sean Anderson, the CEO of
b9 creations, and Sean thatquestion's a question that's

(43:58):
going to lead right off of thelast discussion around how we
inspire young people into theright career pathways and give
them the right competencies andskills to get on the right
track, and that is taking youall the way back to your high
school days. Let's say, forinstance, that you are a 15 year
old sophomore in high school. Ifyou could give that young man
one piece of advice, what wouldyou tell him?

Well, this may sound a little bit cliche, but
for me, it would have been,don't worry about failure, I
think oftentimes, and I'mstereotyping a little bit, but
the people that lean more towardengineering tend to be more
motivated around finding theright answer. And then you
realize when you get out ofschool that most questions in

(44:42):
life don't have one rightanswer, right? And so I would
have told myself, take morerisks faster. Take

more risks faster. I love it. We have
saying around here that saysPerfection is the enemy of
progress. We have another one,by the way, that says that come
that comes a time in everyproject where you shoot the
engineers and release the.
Product that's that's anotherone that I'm sure you can relate
to really, really well. I'veenjoyed relating to all the
things Sean that we talked abouthere on The TechEd Podcast.
You're doing amazing things atbeing on creations. I know our
listeners are going to beinterested in learning more.

(45:12):
We'll drop some things in theshow notes about your company
and all the great things you'redoing. But can't thank you
enough for being with me on TheTechEd Podcast.

Thank you, Matt.
It's been a blast, and just wantto encourage you keep fighting
the good fight around STEMeducation and enabling that next
generation of workforce.

We had so much fun fighting the good fight with
Sean Anderson here on thisepisode of The TechEd Podcast. I
hope you enjoyed it as much as Idid. We certainly and I knew
this is how it was going to go.
We would talk a little bit aboutit, additive manufacturing and
3d printing and the careers andthe opportunities available. But
we also got deep into what weneed to be doing in education,
how we need to be thinkingdifferently about different
technologies in manufacturing.

(45:51):
Covered so much ground with Seanand I had a wonderful time. I
know you enjoyed this episode aswell. We have all kinds of
things to link up in the shownotes, so check them out. We
have the best show notes in thebusiness, by the way, those show
notes will be at TechEdpodcast.com/sean. That's TechEd
podcast.com/s. H O N, my name isMatt Kirk nerd. Thank you so

(46:14):
much for being with us. We'llsee you next week on The TechEd
Podcast. You

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Forget “That’s How We’ve Always Made It” and Teach the Design Freedom of 3D Printing - Shon Anderson, CEO of B9Creations

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Forget “That’s How We’ve Always Made It” and Teach the Design Freedom of 3D Printing - Shon Anderson, CEO of B9Creations