The research on Desktop Manufacturing and 3D printing in particular, is still quite new and emerging. So there's a lot that we don't know yet about this new digital tool. However, research on this topic is quickly growing. I'd like to share two recent articles with you. This first article was one that I actually wrote, with two of my good friends and colleagues, Alan Malter and Greg Fisher. It was published in 2019 in the Review of Marketing Research. In this research, Alan, Greg, and I examine 3D printing's potential to impact the retailing industry. We discussed how this new technology can both help and hurt traditional retailers. For example, a 3D printing could help retailers by reducing their inventory, by replacing physical products with digital designs. On the other hand, 3D printing could harm retailers by enabling customers to create their own products rather than buying them from a retailer. In addition to identifying these threats and opportunities, we also created topology of 3D printed objects through a classification of 500 randomly selected objects on the website thingiverse.com. We identified two-dimensions. First, whether it was a new or an existing object, and second, whether it was a standalone object or component of a larger object. We then allocated these 500 objects to four different categories that we call replacements, solutions, creations, and substitutes. For example, a 3D printed whistle is a good example of a substitute, while a device that integrates lego blocks with brio tracks is a good example of a solution. Our analysis reveals that about half of all the objects uploaded on Thingiverse are actually creations, while only five percent are replacements, thus desktop 3D printing appears to be a way for people to create new standalone objects such as a grading dice, rather than existing components such as a stove knob. The second article is by Wiecek, Wentzel, and Erkin. It was published in the year 2020, in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. In this recent research, the authors seek to understand how consumers respond to objects that they make via Desktop 3D Printing. They proposed that individuals who print their own objects will feel more closely connected to them and display a higher sense of perceived ownership, which should result in more positive evaluations of these products. They test these ideas through four different experiments, all of them conducted in Germany, which is where the authors were from. I'll just briefly describe the first study. In this study, the researchers divide 77 participants into three roughly equal size conditions, a no print condition, a print but don't watch it being printed condition, and a print and watch it condition. In all three conditions, participants were asked to evaluate a 3D printed key-chain. In particular, they were asked to report how much they liked it, how much they would pay for it, and the degree to which they felt that they actually owned it. The results of this study revealed that participants who printed the key-chain, whether they observed it being printed or not, reported a higher degree of liking and a higher willingness to pay compared to participants who did not engage in 3D printing. They also found that this effect was due to an increased sense of perceived ownership. In a subsequent study, later on in this article, the researchers found that these effects were stronger for hedonic products like toys than for utilitarian ones, like tools, for example. In some, this research suggests that firms that allow consumers the 3D printer on products, should achieve positive outcomes in terms of greater liking and a higher willingness to pay. First, make the physical digital. What's really special about Desktop Manufacturing, is that it blurs the dividing line between the physical and the digital. All the objects created through Desktop Manufacturing techniques like 3D printing, start with a digital model. Now, once the object is digital, it can be easily stored, transported, and modified to meet specific customer demands. Firms can get a head start on this process by creating new objects using digital modeling tools, such as SketchUp, and by using a 3D scanner to turn existing physical products into digital designs. These digital files are especially helpful for replacement parts, which are costly to store and difficult to transport. For example, NASA uses 3D printers to replace parts that break on a spacecraft while in space. Second, let consumers customize your design. Now, once firms start thinking about products as digital goods rather than physical ones, new possibilities emerge. Physical goods are difficult and expensive to customize. Anyone who has ordered a tailored suit or bought custom furniture knows this. However, with digital products, customization is cheap and easy. Indeed, it is even possible to eliminate finished products altogether. Instead, at some point in the future, a firm will be able to offer a basic template, then let its customers design the product to fit their specific needs. Thus, customers will soon be able to create unique digital designs rather than having to buy off the shelf physical products. You can see thousands of examples of unique designs on file-sharing websites such as thingiverse.com. For example, this unique design is one of my favorites. Thus, the digitization of physical goods makes it easier to satisfy a broad range of customer preferences. Third, cut out the middleman or middle woman. 3D printing alters physical goods, just like the Internet and the laptop alter digital goods. If you are my age, remember how physical music stores replaced by iTunes. Thus, the 3D printer has the potential to disrupt the manner in which physical goods are distributed. Shipping firms such as DHL and UPS are very concerned about this possibility. Products that are shipped digitally save both time and money, and also give firms greater control over the distribution process, thus cutting out the middleman is a very enticing prospect. A firm can do this by posting digital files of its product or parts of its product on a website for easy downloading, or can post it on a third-party website of a digital manufacturer such as Voodoo Manufacturing. Fourth and finally, done is the engine of more. This is one of my favorite mottos. It comes from the Cult of Done Manifesto. Check it out. This document was written by Bre Pettis and Kio Stark, and contains a set of ideas related to getting things done. We actually have this manifesto displayed on the wall in our MakerLab. My favorite idea in this manifesto is the last one, "Done is the engine of more." This is a very simple but profound statement that emphasizes the importance of doing rather than planning. Traditionally, business schools focus more on planning rather than doing. So that statement makes me think differently about how to get things done. It also captures one of the key benefits of 3D printing. Because Desktop 3D Printing is rather cheap and easy, there is no need for extensive planning. If you have an idea, you can design it and make initial prototype in a few hours, on your desktop, in your pajamas. Once you have this physical prototype, you can then get a better idea how well it works. You can then tweak your design and print the modified version and then another one. If it's not right, you can keep doing it. Thus, done is the engine of more.
