S1E30 The Service & Hospitality Industry, HP 3D Printing, & Xometry | Greg Paulsen

Greg tells us about his eclectic background as he tries to “figure out what he wants to be when he grows up”. Starting off with an education in the service and hospitality industry, and coupled with a degree in science and technology, and finally topped off with a minor in chinese business studies, Greg navigated his way through government intelligence research, wineries, and manufacturing, ultimately landing at Xometry where he is the Director of Application Engineering. 

Pipeline Design & Engineering partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, or automation equipment but don’t have the bandwidth or resources internally to develop that equipment. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com 

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Transcript

Aaron Moncur: 0:13

Welcome to the Being An Engineer Podcast. Our guest today is Greg Paulsen, who is currently Director of Application Engineering at Xometry. That's X-O-M-E-T-RY, Xometry. But also has a very interesting background before his current role, which we will get into. Greg has been involved with 3D printing in particular for many years and frequently speaks as an expert on the topic. He, he joined Xometry, just a year after it was founded and has been a key member in building the company into the business It is today. So Greg, with that, welcome to the show.

Greg Paulsen: 0:49

That's flattering. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Aaron Moncur: 0:52

All right, so so we're gonna get into before we dive into Xometry, we're going to talk a little bit about your background. And it is always, eclectic. Would that be an accurate word to use to describe your background, eclectic?

Greg Paulsen: 1:08

I don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up. I am very happy to be an expert journalist. Yes.

Aaron Moncur: 1:15

Okay. All right. So I'm going to just read through a few things that I learned about your background and try not to smile too much as I do this. And then I'm going to ask you a question about it. And it's going to be a long question for me to get there. So feel free to take your time as you answer as well.

Greg Paulsen: 1:35

Okay.

Aaron Moncur: 1:35

All right. So you have degrees in hospitality and tourism, integrated science and technology, and a minor in Chinese business studies, which, if I stopped there, that would be interesting enough as it is, but, but wait, there's more. Okay, so one of your first jobs was as a sales manager at a winery and vineyard.

Greg Paulsen: 1:58

Uh-huh.

Aaron Moncur: 1:58

After the winery, you went back to university if I've had my timeline correct. First, as a research analyst, were you reviewed declassified intelligence reports to analyze US intelligence failures, wow. And then as a graduate assistant, where you designed and created prototypes for various grants, predominantly within the 3D printing space, and then you went back to yet another vineyard as a wine educator, managing staff and special events. Okay, so talk about eclectic. Help me understand what is going on here. This is craziness.

Greg Paulsen: 2:35

So a lot of this is happening in parallel, right? So think about this, I had a cool college job, where I worked in wineries, is, is, it's really good there. And it's helped me I, it has honestly helped me throughout my entire career. Because I think anybody who has experience in a service industry, regardless of your career, it makes you a better communicator, usually more patient, you're dealing with so many different people in different personalities, like I was the guy that did the wine tasting. So you go up to the winery, and you go in, and you want to try like the eight wines, I'd be the person talking to you about that. And you learn to read, read the room, understand where they're going. Look work on their pace, and it is significantly helped my career side, especially working for many businesses and many business opportunities. And it really been in that initial startup stage, where no matter what role you are, you're a salesperson, like, you because you're not a business if you can't sell the product. And so I'll say, I really enjoy that I still have, upstairs, I have Pollock wines in my cabinet. I

Aaron Moncur: 3:41

20 hours every weekend? So like 10 hours a day? go back there, several times a year to restock. So it's a, it's part of my life, and that's my weekend. So that was 20 hours every weekend for about four years or so between college and grad school

Greg Paulsen: 3:59

Give or take, yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 4:01

That is a busy weekend.

Greg Paulsen: 4:02

Yes. But it was a, it's a, it's a fun job right? It's one of those jobs where when you go home you're not taking it home with you. It's so you could go and study your butt off at school and and then have this as completely departed mentally. Even if it sounds like a lot it's it's it's something that you could just compartmentalize and have, have that and get some income for while you're at school. But yeah, I did study undergraduate business. And I even in that, I mean, I'm sure you guys be in college and and start off saying, 'Hey, I know exactly what I want to do.' But even that I start off in various different disciplines and and I ended up really enjoying business. And so Jase Massey University has a great BBA program there. And they have a very integrated program where you try different disciplines and sail or like from the marketing side, from the finance side, from management side, and I ended up really liking these professors, they just all happen to teach at the HTM program. So that's Hospitality Tourism Management. So I started taking their classes. And the first 60 credits of the Southern graduate, by the way, are just business classes. And then like you, then you have your focus, which is the which is the subject, whether it's like I said, whether it's finance or whatever it is going to be. And I ended up taking these Hospitality Tourism classes. And, and that's by, that's my undergrad and I, I also really enjoyed Chinese Business, I did a study abroad and spent three months in, in China and work Chinese business study, binder there.

Aaron Moncur: 5:46

Fascinating.

Greg Paulsen: 5:47

Like I said, I like stuff.

Aaron Moncur: 5:50

Really?

Greg Paulsen: 5:50

My model is constantly interested. So like, like a person is like, ooh, shiny object. I mean, that's me, and I just really enjoy it. Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 5:58

I love it. I love it. What were you like, as a kid? Was it the same? Where you're just bouncing back and forth from one hobby to the next? The next to the next?

Greg Paulsen: 6:07

Somewhat, yeah. I think I'm really, I've just always been very interested in things how and how things work. So regardless of the task at hand, I usually am trying to think about the mechanisms that make it happen. And, and so that's been big motivation for me, but yeah, as a kid, I was very interest. I was actually Scout, I'm an Eagle Scout. So I was involved with that did a lot of camping, hiking, outdoors activities. And I will also say this, what's really interesting is a we're gonna go into this, I'm in a highly technical engineering field down. But I was introduced to drafting and design and engineering in my junior and senior year of high school. So that was around 2000-2002 era. And I learned, we there's a class where you couldn't you couldn't touch the computer until you did basic drafting, right? So like your eighth inch tall lettering, and you're, you're on the angle desk and and your your rollers are outed. And so we we, we had that for for coursework, and then we started to learn at that time, that was Autodesk mechanical desktop, which is the bee's knees, because it was one of the first ones that you can actually do extrude extrude on

Aaron Moncur: 7:33

Whoa. Did you just say the bee's knees?

Greg Paulsen: 7:37

Boy howdy, I did. Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 7:39

Man, I love it.

Greg Paulsen: 7:41

But it was it was really, it was, it was one of the first CAD programs because Inventor wasn't out yet. It was a first CAD program that wasn't just like 2D like autoCAD, where you're doing your 2D lines. Although most of it, I guess, still basically you at that time, I can basically draw entire drawing with this text commands, like add 5 over 30, 30 degrees or something to just tell it line to keep on going. But the, I did, I was in Technology Student Association, I actually did like CAD competitions with that. And I did that for my again, my junior senior year. And it was really interesting. In fact, I actually won as one of these CAD competitions in the national competition. I was, I came in second place.

Aaron Moncur: 8:26

Wow.

Greg Paulsen: 8:27

And they and their award because it's down in Richmond, which was where Autodesk was, was like the first, a full copy of audit our audit Autodesk Inventor. And I got that. And then I went to college and started studying like Biology, Chemistry and Business ultimately, and I didn't touch CAD programming until I went into grad school where I happened to, I was working on integrated in science and technology. And and I was very interested in this big open building down in JMU. Like there's this center called ISAT, which is Integrated Science and Technology. And you can look down in this building. And I saw like every now and then I saw like somebody in the back sifting through piles of white powder, and I'm like, what the heck are they doing? And as I was getting a graduate assistantship ship there, I was helping out and I was down there and I saw somebody on SolidWorks trying to design something. And again, I hadn't touched CAD in over four years at this point. And I was like, can I try? Like I'm like I bet I could get that done in 20 in like 20 minutes and I I went and and I did this it was a I remember very clearly because it was a cooler seat for like if you go to like a baseball game that would you'd sit down on top on top of and it would hold like liquid inside cool and it had little cubby holes to like, throw a six pack inside. So it's like seat plus six pack holder plus cooler. And so we did a very quick mock up of that. So we could do that. And I started, I started actually transferring my assistantship, actually down to that that building to product realization lab, right learned selective laser sintering, which has been like one of my go to additive manufacturing processes. So that was, again, around between, '07-09. But that was where it really when I really moved into that additive and engineering manufacturing areas when I started that assistantship there and just snowballed.

Aaron Moncur: 10:39

Okay. Okay, so it's going to come together that that is just all the cat's meow there. Yeah, I can I can throw out these terms.

Greg Paulsen: 10:46

Here you go, here you go.

Aaron Moncur: 10:47

Yeah. Tell me about China. What was business like in China? How did it differ from business here in the US?

Greg Paulsen: 10:54

Yeah, it's, it's very interesting. So Chinese business, one of the things you have to learn is that there's this is, this is, this is something we talked about kind of rules are like rule based versus relationship based. How I saved business, the, in... Here, if you look a little stack of resumes, you're going to be looking at the attribute attributes of the application, the, how the person is qualified for that for the work, etc, etc. We look at resume says, cousin, or close family friend, it may not have as much weight as it may have in some of these relationship based businesses. So having a good relationship and, and preexisting trust is very, very important as this is 2006, we were, we were taking Chinese Chinese business. And, and we were learning a lot about that, and like this phrase,'guan xi,' right, this is this, like, building my building your relationship with people and like, it's almost like a level like your level of guanxi his relationship with your, with your business partners. And, and so it was very, very enlightening. And, honestly, I really enjoyed the time that I had over there traveling in China. But this is a great experience. And I'd like, I think, a very relevant minor tad on. Xometry, fast forward now we've, we've gone from a domestic organization, where we do on demand manufacturing, with all these different technologies. And we are actually now international. So we have a European branch, and then we have also manufacturing in in East Asia. And so it's where we are truly becoming a global organization. And I think it does help to have that worldview, because not the business in different areas is different. And that's okay. And it's understanding how to talk how to market and how they have those relationships with your different manufacturers, because they, they're not all the same. Like, if you try to treat everyone the same, you're not going to have a very good globalized mindset on how you're gonna how do you growth expand?

Aaron Moncur: 13:12

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I'm sure I gave you broadened perspective and just how to treat people or deal with people abroad. It's interesting that you talk about the relationship aspect. I think, clearly, relationship matters here in the US as well, right? People say it's not what you know, it's who you know, maybe the difference is, it's not really advertised here in the US, like you wouldn't put down,'Oh, my cousin is the CEO' on your resume, right? Like that would feel inappropriate. And I don't know if you put that on your resume and China either. But it sounds like it's just it's more accepted, maybe or more open the fact that relationships really matter. Whereas here in the US, people are gonna throw nepotism if you start dropping names like that.

Greg Paulsen: 14:02

Yeah, I think there's, it's, like I said, it's, we're more the same than we are different. Like

Aaron Moncur: 14:07

Sure, yeah.

Greg Paulsen: 14:08

You're right, like, same same things are happening here in the US. But it's, it's, it's just not as advertised. And, and some of that has to do with trust. It's also like, there's, unfortunately, like, I think a lot of this has, has matured and evolved, but there's still, they're still scamming and other things. So it's you know that that person that's closer to you, is less likely to do that to you. And so I think that's also a large portion of that relationship based business is building trust and rapport, like building trust through rapport versus trust through credentials, like what you say, like, like

Aaron Moncur: 14:46

Yeah

Greg Paulsen: 14:46

You know, does your resume say you do this, like if it says, you programming this language, I really expect you that on day one, you're going to be able to program in that language, and that's, I think that's a that's that's a big portion of it, too. So it's, it's all big system stuff, like, you know how, but I will say as we globalize, a lot of that's changed, there's there's companies have adopted, Western patent practices, I hate to say Western practices, but because their business is Western business and, and you're seeing almost like a seamless integration, and I've had some really, really good relationships and great experiences especially with some of our manufacturers in China, because it's not just dealing with relationship, it's also dealing with a 12 hour time difference just for communication. So, I, it's, I think, the world's a lot smaller than we think it is now.

Aaron Moncur: 15:37

I want to go back to a completely different comment you made earlier, this is one you were working to the vineyard and you mentioned that you learned how to read a room, identify the people and maybe how to interact with them. Communication is such a hugely important part of engineering, as it is just life or business in general. How can you share, if you can think of maybe a specific a story or an experience or two that you had at the vineyard where learning how to read the room, learning how to interact with people has helped you as a as a director of engineering or in your engineering role in general?

Greg Paulsen: 16:21

Every time I pick up the phone, as a, as application engineer, my experience all that at the tasting room has come forward, for sure. People come in for different reasons. So like, when you're bring it up to the tasting room, but when you're in the tasting room, like some people, they just, they, they want to try and go some people want to like talk half conversation, it's almost like being a bartender, right? Like you, you still have to make sure that there's pace, like, like, there is an end in sight. At the same time, you want to make sure the experience is just phenomenal. Like you want to make sure that you're bringing that stickiness to, to that customer, you want them to come back, you want them to really enjoy it. And whether it's like the small talk talking about where they're from, where they traveled to those basics to kind of get an understanding of that they've, they've definitely tasted before, like you can tell, like almost sometimes how someone holds their class or how they, how they're moving, or like how there's, how they're sniffing the wine. And you may bring up more details that that than you would for someone who's kind of like, 'I don't know much about this,' and like, they already say like, what they,what they like, like, I want sweet wines, and you're like, Okay, so let's, you know, maybe it's a, you know, these wines are sweet, but maybe I'll use the term fruit forward or something like that, to kind of get them more interested in it up front, because I know, it's not like sweet is like, by the way, sweet is the measurement of sugar. Which fun fact, if you want to test sweetness, I just use the tip of your tongue nothing more, and the tip of your tongue tastes the sugar because that's where your receptors are. And, and you you work. And yeah, you just work with whether their their level of interest and understanding is. And this translates to, again, what we do in Xometry so much because we offer so really quick feel like we offer 11 different manufacturing technologies, we have things traditional like CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, injection molding, urethane casting, and we have seven types of 3D printing. So the gamut of industrial 3D printing processes in both plastics and metal. And every single one of them is unique and has its own strengths and trade offs to it. And no matter if you're like the best engineer, the best CNC machine designer on the planet, you still may not know much about how to grow apart in metal 3d printing or what design attributes it is. So when you're listening to so when you're talking to this customer, you can help gauge what they're interested in. And sometimes it's going between the conversation read between the lines, when I'm talking with a with another engineer, and they're telling me, 'Hey, can I', how do I say, how do I say, I guess it's adequate. You know, we had a question this morning, like, can you cut this it was a very specific ceramic material, which is also very hard to see as he cut. And when it comes down to it, it's like, okay, I heard you say ceramic, but in my mind, I see high heat, or electrical insulation, and or extremely, extremely rigid. And so now my questions are, why do you need ceramic? Because they're looking for a onesie of something. It'll be super expensive to cut in this but I'm like, I have this SLA resin that has ceramic infill to it. So if you're looking for highly stiff and possibly good insulation properties, maybe I could just grow this part for you. You'll get it in a week. You know, if you're looking for high thermal, like I have, you know, if I can I use a metal or doesn't need to be electrically insulated or insulated for you It can be substituted for something that is extremely stiff and, and so we start working around because sometimes when someone asks for something super exotic, like that sentence could all of a sudden be like us like a $4,000 sentence? Well, maybe not 4000. But like $1,200?

Aaron Moncur: 20:13

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Greg Paulsen: 20:14

And so sometimes you're like, How can I actually make this $90 for you like, to help me help you and have this conversation? So it's all about kind of understanding, and and, again, with the experience I have is I'm usually the one talking to those customers about their projects. I've been the buyer before, I've been the person talking to other people about my projects. But my experience whole for mostly is working with customers on the strings and trade offs. Because sometimes it's timeline, I just need it fast. I need that shape fast. Sometimes it's true. You know, a lot of times it's for the spec, like I needed like this, no exceptions, and working with them and, and figuring out the best route.

Aaron Moncur: 20:55

Yeah, I think that's a big point, a mentor of mine, he he has drilled this into me that intent counts more than content when it comes to questions, right? People might ask you something like, like you said, can you machine this out of ceramic? Well, do you really need machine it out of ceramic? Or are there is there a question behind that question? You know, I think that I need really high temperature and something really rigid. I think ceramic is the way to do that. So my question is going to be can you machine this out of ceramic, but really, my question is, can you give me something that's high heat temperature, and really rigid. So in 10, counts more than content. I'm gonna take a real quick break here and just remind the listeners that the being an engineer podcast is powered by Pipeline Design & Engineering, where we work with medical and other device engineering teams who need turnkey custom test fixtures or automated equipment, to assemble, inspect, characterize or perform verification or validation testing on their devices. And you can find us at testfixturedesign.com. We're speaking with Greg Paulsen today, otherwise known as Greg of all trades, as he describes himself, who was the Director of Application Engineering at Xometry, X-O-M-E-T-RY. So before I started researching Xometry, for this interview, I had this this this very uninformed understanding of Xometry as a kind of the same as Proto Labs, I'm sure you're familiar with Proto Labs, right?

Greg Paulsen: 22:37

Uh-huh

Aaron Moncur: 22:37

Okay. What, I think that I know the differences now, but I'm going to let you explain this, how xometry different than than Proto Labs? Pipeline, my company, we've used both, and we've had great experiences with both. And so in my mind, they were kind of just the same thing, but tell me how was Xometry different than Proto Labs?

Greg Paulsen: 22:57

Yeah, definitely. And, by the way, Proto Labs, they could be, it could be considered a competitor, it's always like, they're respectable, like, it's actually a, it's a, it's company, it's very interesting, where they've, they've focused on essentially, building a standardized set of tools, and address the advertisers tools, they've created a way to compute how to make or mode, that 3D image based off their toolset and that means that they can standardize and create quick quotes to run in proto labs, large facility. So Proto Labs has very large facility if I like 500 machines, but it's, it's their facility that they're running in. And because it's standardized, it also means that certain things like tight tolerances, surface finish call outs, so higher spec work is sometimes out of the scope, because the tools that they have, have have limitations to it. Xometr, we took a very different approach to that. So we are actually what's called manufacturing as a service. So we are a platform that is backed by folks like myself and more experienced people to me on machining, machining, molding sheet metal, you name it, where you can upload a 3D model, you can get your instantly get pricing. Within seconds of your model being uploaded, pricing will show up and lead times for all our manufacturing technologies, including traditional stuff like machining and then you could dive in. So if you're just looking to get something cut to shape to general standards and tolerances, you click 'buy' right away. If you are looking to get a highly specked out project, you can go into essentially this little tab on'modify' part, open it up, change it to your 70-75 aluminum alloy add, add a surface finish to it. So let's get, let's hard code this now let's add laser laser marking, let's go ahead back and tag this, I need a CMM inspection, I have 16 points that have tolerances of sub sub 1000s here. I need to make sure that I have my CSCs I need a export control ITAR, IDD for material certs. And I, I need 21. And you can do that all in about a minute. And your prices right there and you press buy. And so it makes its very complex quoting process for high spec components, especially like aerospace, defense, medical commercial, like the engineers are putting tolerances, all these parts on purpose, right? There's, there's a reason why things like GD&T and stuff exist, because these parts aren't just shapes, they're things that actually need to be used in the real world. And you're able to add, add that information, get in some pricing and, and move on with your day, send us your sourcing team or pay with your personal card, and, and get that get those parts. And then on our fulfillment side, what's beautiful about us is our capabilities are just constantly evolving and expanding, because we use a manufacturing partner approach. So Xometry is connected with over 3000 manufacturing partners in the US alone. Most of these are small business shops like CNC machine shops, fabricators, we have things like 3D printing service bureaus, tooling, and die mold makers. And when you press'order,'we look at our vetted manufacturing network. And we use actually AI and data science to pair the scope of work, what makes up your projects a success, and pair it with those who can make that most successful at the lowest cost. So you get price competitive for this without a bid war, we are pairing your work with those who love to do that type of work. And their small businesses. We're paying small business manufacturers who are looking for better cash flow, they're looking to keep their spindles turning, and we're elevating their businesses by giving them work on demand. So

Aaron Moncur: 27:12

Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna interrupt real quick here, that that to me was a big difference. Because Proto Labs, like you mentioned, they have everything in house, right? They got 500 machines, or whatever it is. And Xometry, maybe you have some equipment of your own as well. But the majority of the the equipment that Xometry quote unquote, uses is owned by these smaller machine shops that are that are, peppered throughout the US, right?

Greg Paulsen: 27:40

Yeah, and I mean, what's great about us is we have a big storefront, right, you look for these services online, xometry will pop up, and, and what we're store for these businesses, because they never may never have access to like NASA, or any like large organizations like BMW, Bosch, Dell, GE, they've all they all our customers in Xometry, they actually, the end up being investors of Xometry, because they really like this distributed manufacturing business model that we have. And even things like we're actually just opening up something kind of new here we have a 2D drawing marketplace for, if you ever work with like legacy designs, where there's no 3D CAD, it's just you know that 1960 Scan Vellum, we now have a, we don't have a service that is helping you directly connect with manufacturers that we've already vetted through our network. So like quality manufacturers to get it's still RFQ, but it's on our side. So it's all consolidated, where you can get you can actually get your quote or get your drawings reviewed, get feedback quotes, and even order on our site with direct connections to the so we're calling the 2D technical drawing marketplace, or we're trying to be this this place where if it's technical manufacturing work, go to Xometry first. That, that's really our goal is we want to be that that one stop shop.

Aaron Moncur: 28:58

Let me ask a question about tolerances. Because there might be a way to do this at proto labs, I can't remember off the top of my head now, but at least with the standard workflow at proto labs, you upload a stamp or a parasolid or whatever file SolidWorks file, and then you get a quote, but you can't attach tolerances to the 3D file. And there's no at least with our standard workflow, no way that I know of, to upload a drawing that has tolerances on it. In Xometry, is there a way to to specify, I need plus or minus two thousandths of an inch on just these features, but the rest of it can be plus or minus five?

Greg Paulsen: 29:33

Yeah, so we have our so first of our manufacturing standards are kind of like they're, we're not making up these manufacturer standards. We have standards for every technology that are just universally accepted as like every every machine shop will understand distance tolerance, generally it's gonna be plus or minus 5000. So then we have distances angularotyu tolerances that that get a little bit wider as the part gets longer because that's what happens to metal and plastic as it gets longer,

Aaron Moncur: 29:58

Sure.

Greg Paulsen: 29:58

It tends to tense up want to flex on you. But they're universally accepted. So if you don't provide CAD, if you don't specify tight tolerances, you're still we're still inspecting to that general manufacturing standard. But if you do need tighter tolerances in specific areas, within within that autocoding drop down, you're actually able to select a tight tolerance range. And then how many locations have that it'll automatically adjust your quote. And there's another thing it's going to happen, you're gonna see a little yellow box that says, give me a drawing, please, you know, you had threads to tap holes, if you need like a smoother surface finish, like a 32 RA or something, it's gonna, it's gonna say like, that's great, but we need to read a drawing. Now give me give me that trying.

Aaron Moncur: 30:44

It's gonna prompt you to upload a drawing.

Greg Paulsen: 30:46

Yeah, and because these are, real experience machinists that are looking at this, I mean, these are small business machine shops, and they do this professionally, they're going to be reading this drawings, and making sure that we hit to the standards and specifications. So like, so we have a way of getting the ease of instant quoting from the 3d file, while at the same time allowing you to communicate what you actually need to do like this is this is the scope, this is the real scope of the project, you're able to specify enough on our quoting engine to get the price right, immediately. And by the way, cool, yeah, by the way, even if you don't like if you don't see the material, we have entire engineering teams that are able to mainly quote, so say that's a, it's a, it's more of an exotic material. For product, it's not on our drop down, which we have most most major materials are but if you don't have it, you can select custom type in what it is. So sometimes, it's usually an alloy like a specific alloy like a T-6511 aluminum specifically, please. And in the press requests, procrastinating or view, it goes to our internal team, our internal team will then take a look at it quoted out, get it back to you within a day. So you could still use our site. And we could do manual work, or you could always review quotes or look at competitive quotes if you need to. So we're still people, we're

Aaron Moncur: 32:04

Well, I want to be clear that this there's no like partnership or anything between Xometry and Pipelines, just a good conversation here, Proto Labs is great, used them for a long time. One thing that I found, not me actually, a teammember really likes about Xometry Is he gets some swag every now and then. I think he's gotten some like some coasters and a notepad or something like that. And he will, he will fight you tooth and nail. If there's an option between Xometry and Proto Labs. He wants the chance of getting that swag. Jason, if you're listening to this as a shout out to you.

Greg Paulsen: 32:39

It's really funny. So well, we've been we've been working remotely. I know the audience doesn't see the specific exercise bike behind me because I'm in in our, in our basement right now, where I work for last few months. And part of my job is educating on different materials and parts. So I'm ordering parts, and I'm getting them delivered to me. And the Amazon three boxes and my wife jokes like, 'Well, another Xometry box?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' But I had this stack of coasters. Because yeah, you get you get the coasters and I have a daughter, three year old daughter, and she was she's taking my ultimate Frisbee. She's, she's putting them in a shelf, putting the cursor on top and telling me that she was making pizza. So like, so I've coasters all over the floor.

Aaron Moncur: 33:25

There you go, Xometry, providing a source of enjoyment and playtime during COVID. Alright, what what are the 3D printing technologies that xometry offers is HP's, Multi Jet Fusion, the MJF technology, which is kind of newer on the scene, right? Tell us a little bit about that. And how does that differ? What are the benefits over more traditional 3D printing technologies like SLS and FDM and SLA.

Greg Paulsen: 33:55

Yeah, and just kind of note, as I mentioned, I've been working with SLS for over a decade now. And I just I really enjoyed it, or I still enjoy it. But one of the one of the reasons why I like SLS so much, is because this is selective laser sintering. So it is you're building parts in a powder bed, it's a heated powder bed, that powder is the plastic, and it comes feels like flour. And it will a laser will go in the SLS process and fuse the cross section of your part. And then it also that fusers enough to hit one layer underneath create that third dimension so it sticks to the what's underneath it. And then the next layer goes on top of underused powder and you fuse that cross action you build and build and build, but the beauty of laser centering like SLS is that you are you do not need support structure. So if you if you imagine taking like a golf ball and sticking it in flour, then letting go, it doesn't float, it doesn't sink, it kind of stays there. And the same thing happens with these processes where afterwards you let the build area cool but you had this giant block of powder and then you treasure hunt inside to find your three dimensional parts. And because you're building so many parts in a three dimensional space, so you're not just stacking them on a table, you're putting them like, folding them in air and you're keeping them, you know, usually only a couple millimeters spaced apart from each other. So you could really pack this up with parts. I, you as a customer only paying for that little space that your parts taking, and just very economical. So

Aaron Moncur: 35:27

Quick side side tangent about SLS. So I agree SLS, SLS is terrific provides parts that are strong and flexible. And the fact that it doesn't require supports is phenomenal. I hate supports, right? They always leave the full puckered marks on the parts that meant that the surface finish. The thing I don't like about SLS is the surface finish is pretty rough. Do you, do you know is that ever going to change I mean, let's say 510 years in the future, we're gonna have SLS parts that have a really nice clean surface finish?

Greg Paulsen: 36:04

So you're, you're actually really talking like negative one year in the past, but that that. So there are there are more post processing technologies that are out right now that you can look at surface finishes that any what's very nice as the surface finishes are, they're vapor smooth. But if you're like if you know like desktop, 3D printing with ABS, you can use acetone because it's not chemically compatible, you get that smoothness from this. So kind of thing, the same concept, only something that could work with a Amad base material. So like something like polyamide, which has dialogue, and it does surface smoothing, it's getting more popular, like in fact, some of our manufacturing partners are actually running these machines now. And I'm hoping I hope that we added to our platform sooner than later. But we're actually actually allowed these people are running these machines are actually running with the mgf platform, which I'll segue to. But because you can get some surface smoothing, it's not going to be perfect, it's not gonna be glossy and can't be like I want it to be empty 11010 like it could with with injection molding, but you can smooth the surface and also smooth surface in any process enhances the physical properties of that part by getting by creating a more even surface to it. But it's nice, because even that these processes can work with things like altom and other high performance materials that are really difficult to tumble because they're high performance materials and really tough. So I'm excited about about some of that. But yeah, so SLS as a person who's operating and run the machines, I'm usually like, okay, 13 seconds later, 13, 13, 14 seconds later. And you're like, 'Wow, that's fast,' especially for how much you're building. But when you think about every layer is 120 microns. And we were talking about doing that over you know, I'm gonna go from my cars inches, but like 60 inches or so you're, you're talking about are not 60 inches, like 30 inches, you're talking about a lot of layers. And that adds up to most billets being somewhere between like about 25 to 30 hours depending on density of pack, and SLS. So Multi Jet Fusion, for through HP is what I would call innovation using the existing knowledge from from selective laser sintering. Because we love this no support powder bed process as as operators as well as users, because it is so forgiving to us for geometries, like you're mentioned, you could do you make walls thick, it's a stiff party, you make the walls thin, it's flexible, it's, it's a really, really cool and you don't need to worry about supports on the on the complexity. So MJF, though, is like how can we increase throughput on this and make it easier as an operator to handle and hopefully reduce pricing that way? So instead of a laser hitting on this, it is it's a inkjet bar that will go across, and essentially put deposit black ink on the white powder. So the powders of these two processes are exactly the same like you hold them you like it's the same stuff. And it'll ink the cross section of those parts. And actually, there's two inks have one for the edge and stopped bleed. And then there's one for the the fusion agent, which is going to essentially absorb heat, because the second stage is a even heat bar, going across that build chamber and applying even heat to the unsynced and the ink powder alike. But that black ink powder is absorbing enough heat to create the melt. And that melt is enough to fuse its neighbors and then fuse underneath getting you that third dimension. So it's achieving what the laser is doing. But it's doing an all in one passive boom, boom. So all of a sudden, I'm like six, seven seconds layer. And it doesn't. It doesn't sound like much but all of a sudden my full builds are now 18 to 20 hours and my throughput increases. And a lot of times on these industrial machines the pricing of your parts A lot has less to do with material, although it has something to do with material, but it has more to do with the overhead expense and overhead of these machines. So the machines are able to get a little bit more out. So on a one to one, if I built you one, one part Multi Jet Fusion and SLS, and you blindfolded me receive them, you'd be holding them and be like, I literally can't tell the difference. Like, you know, if you took off the blindfold, you'll see one that if it's in the natural state of MJF, it's gonna be gray. SLS is naturally white, but the MJF is gray, because like I said, it's that black binder, and then it has an edging compound. And that's where you kind of get this greatness from, to it. It's got a detail compound. But if you start ordering in bulk, you may see differences in pricing, where MJF sometimes went out or a very small particle went out. So again, very similar processes on the on the outcome from from what you're going to receive, other than some like cosmetic, like visual looks. But the throughput can make HP a little bit more competitive when you're looking at production. And additive.

Aaron Moncur: 41:09

Interesting. Okay, thank you for explaining that I didn't know I didn't understand exactly what the process was. So it's basically the same material, I'm assuming material properties and things like that, that's effectively the same between the two.

Greg Paulsen: 41:21

HP actually is boasting slightly improved. But again, if you're I mean, if you're going in like ANSYS, and simulating it, you're gonna find some, some differences. But for the layman, I will say snap tabs and clips tend to behave a little bit better, better than the HP product.

Aaron Moncur: 41:36

Okay

Greg Paulsen: 41:36

But like I said, SLS is still just, it's such a high throughput platform and so established. There's, there's a lot less question marks, since HP is also introducing things like that. Fusion agent, and the detail agent into the print. So it's, it's has a little bit of a learning curve to get to an acceptance standpoint, especially when you're looking for things like like aerospace and more commercialized manufacturing, who of us who have used and utilized SLS additive? But yeah, those are, those are so similar. I wanted to create clarification there. We have, like I said, we seven, seven different technologies, and they're all different, like so even things like photopolymer bass, like we have stereo lithography, and we have over a dozen different materials in that. So here's the difference with that, though, is like SLS emulsion fusion, you're running nylons, and TPU, materials, and other materials net and they're real thermoplastics. Like you put heat to plastic, it melts thermoplastic. With with these things like SLA, you may know that because the parts come out, like with this much more finer surface detail to like a smoother surface detail. They're coming out of a liquid bath of resin that's cured with ultraviolet light. So because that's not plastic, right, plastic, like a thermoplastic, it's actually curing and they're engineered to behave like plastic. So if you go on Xometry site, you'll see stuff like polypropylene, like abs like polycarbonate, like. And then we have the ceramic field which our head Application Engineer Tommy always says, 'Don't think plastic think toilet bowl' when you're talking about flex with, with the ceramic field. Like if you tried to flex it, you will break it. But the but they're engineering materials, right? They're engineered to, like dash-like, like, abs-like material. Right?

Aaron Moncur: 43:27

Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. So what can we look forward to in the future from Xometry? What are the innovations that we're gonna see in the next few years?

Greg Paulsen: 43:36

Well, I think this whole marketplace manufacturing aspect, and being a central point is, is a really big deal. Because this problem of procurement just exists where a lot of times, you, as a buyer, don't know where to go to get what. And you may also have supplier overload, where you have so many suppliers on your, on your list that you like, see, see you had 2000 suppliers in your list and you do like one change in your internal organization. And also you need everybody to somebody sign an NDA or something, you have 2000 days of sign so Xometry helps out this supplier account consolidation by being Xometry, just one single storefront and also consolidates the manufacturing technology. So I think from a simple standpoint, we're going to be continuing to add and create better intuition around new manufacturing technologies on our site. I think there's a lot of opportunities for small businesses with sama tree with the different branches that we have as as we're growing, especially for small business manufacturers to be part of the Xometry's network. Whether it is directly interacting with customers through our marketplaces like that 2D technical drawing marketplace or finishing network, or working with that more catered white glove service that is our core business, which is an instant quoting site. There's lots of options ways for them to get work on demand, and essentially get faster pay, and usually some better rates for things like materials and other supplies, because we're we, by us representing all these awesome, we can become a giant manufacturer rep that we can leverage for better deals for manufacturers. So I think the flywheel is really starting to spin for Xometry in the last couple years. And as we continue to grow, we're going to be looking at how can we enhance our suppliers, so that this manufacturers, it just make it dirt simple to be to get custom parts made through, through our side. So it's, it's, it's going to be those those things. And I don't know if you if you have European listeners or not, but we also we have Xometry Europe, which has been around for a year now. And so we have manufactured 18 countries in the EU. And it's actually Europe itself is based in Germany. So there's expansion, there's, we're going global.

Aaron Moncur: 45:56

Impressive, impressive. I know that it's been for the past few years that Xometry has kind of come onto my radar. So for sure you guys are doing something right. Well, we should probably let you get back to your day here. But before we go, would you like to share any contact information? If people want to get ahold of you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Greg Paulsen: 46:18

Yeah, well, I'm Greg Paulsen, P-A-U-L-S-E-N. I'm always happy to connect on LinkedIn. And as you could tell, and I love talking shop. So if you ever want to talk technical details, or go over materials, our new, I love keeping my eye on new additive processes, please reach out in regards to Xometry, X-O-M-E-T-R-Y.com is the is the best place to go. And that that will take you to all our services and site. I actually do a lot of our FAQ and resources and also a lot of fun videos, including some engineering challenge videos. So if you ever want to see me like throw 3D prints against the wall, go check out our video section. But we have a lot of educational content. So even if you're not quoting their stuff on the side, that can be very useful to learn more about different different processes, different technologies, whether it's 3D printing or something traditional, like molding. We want to enhance that, like we want to make engineers better, like I want better drawings. It makes me a better manufacturer for you. So definitely check that out.

Aaron Moncur: 47:23

Great. All right. Well, Greg, thank you so much for taking some time out. I know you're busy man. Really appreciate you sharing some of your knowledge with me in the podcast listeners.

Greg Paulsen: 47:32

Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Aaron Moncur: 47:38

I'm Aaron Moncur, Founder of Pipeline Design & Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at testfixturedesign.com. Thanks for listening.