Summary
With a history in traditional manufacturing, a backbone in modern manufacturing, and product design in its DNA, AmPd Labs sees 3D printers simply as manufacturing tools. Founded in 2019, the company provides a hands-on approach to additive manufacturing, helping transform the mindset of companies away from the limitations of traditional production to solve industrial applications with the most efficient manufacturing methods possible.
“Additive Manufacturing isn’t just about the machines,” says Sean Harkins, President and Co-Founder of AmPd Labs Llc. “It’s how to think about parts that you’re printing. It’s how to think about the application’s purpose and what we’re trying to accomplish with the part and then designing the parts for those goals.
Launching a manufacturing service company just as the global COVID-19 pandemic was shutting down countries around the world solidified the business case for additive manufacturing at AmPd Labs. Utilizing additive manufacturing alongside other traditional manufacturing technologies gave the company a unique business opportunity.
During the early stages of the pandemic AmPd Labs was able to use 3D printing to make molds and rapidly get a new manufacturing process for respirators set up in partnership with a large global company’s innovation hub in Texas. “3D printing coupled with traditional mold making provided a solution to that problem, and once a company of that scale was behind the use of additive, it validated it for other companies,” Harkins said.
