The Big Interview: 3D Systems’ CEO, Vyomesh Joshi

While team TCT were just getting stuck into the expo area at AMUG 2016, news broke that 3D Systems (3DS) had appointed a new CEO almost six months to the day after Avi Reichental had departed. Vyomesh Joshi (VJ) was the man stepping up to the plate and a quick glance of his C.V. confirms the direction the board decided VJ was the man to push them in.

A master’s degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University saw VJ join Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1980. 32 years at HP saw VJ rise to executive vice president of the company’s Imaging and Printing Group overseeing a period of phenomenal change towards the, now omnipresent, digital press. When it comes to states of flux VJ has been there, done that, and printed the t-shirt.

HP was a company that had struggled to integrate a large number of acquisitions and struggled to keep a grip of markets it traditionally thrived in. Sound familiar? Take a look at HP’s share prices and compare the peaks and troughs of the early 2000s to what happened to 3DS a decade later, it is eerily similar.

Whilst Avi Reichental helped put 3DS on the mainstream map, the direction he was trying to force the company in simply wasn’t reflective of the market. Avi pushed hard on the consumer brand, Cubify, and the manufacturing solutions of which 3DS has an impressive portfolio, suffered. Avi loved CES choosing the consumer orientated show to launch a host of ill-fated technologies like three generations of the Cube, the CubeJet, the CubePro C and the CeraJet. It became clear that 3D Systems were not making the most of their portfolio by trying to flog desktop machinery.

It was therefore apt that I caught up with VJ for the first time at IMTS 2016 – a show dedicated to manufacturing technology – where his direction for 3DS was evident.  It’s safe to say that Cubify won’t be being resurrected any time soon…

Daniel O’Connor (DOC): Do you ever see a future for consumer 3D printing?

Vyomesh Joshi (VJ): I am very direct about this; I don't want to be into the consumer arm. You can't just say, "everybody in their garage is going to have a 3D printer..." If they buy a 3D printer how much usage are they going to have out of it? Will they use it once a week? Once in a month? Once in a year? The more interesting thing is how we make 3D production real? I will focus the company on that. I will bet on that and that is the right bet. You've just seen how GE validates the market, it's just about a maturity curve.

DOC: You have kept Chuck Hull very close, how has he helped with your 3D printing education?

VJ: Once you talk to Chuck you really get the understanding of what it (3D printing) means, what 3D Systems is all about and the portfolio that we have.

The first phase for me was listening and learning, going around with Chuck and Chuck's people, our teams in Rock Hill, in Denver, in Leuven, in Israel, in Korea. I got to understand this fantastic portfolio but the problem was execution, it's as simple as that.

All of our problems are internal, it's not the market, it's the technology, it's not the portfolio. With 36 years in the industry, it is something I know how to do, know when to commercialize and how to get to operational excellence. I think that's why I get so excited.

I also noticed that all these companies that we acquired weren't integrated properly, we never really told the story the way I felt the story needed to be told. It is all about hardware, software, AND materials, it's all about application engineering. Materials are the core and software are the glue. Partnership is fundamental; you need to ride the shoulders of giants. The story’s not about me; it is about our people, our partners and our customers.

I think that is really what you are seeing, and now I feel I have the right team augmented with the good people we have, now we just need to execute. It is not more complex than that. An organization structure requires three basic principles; simplicity, accountability and a focus on cost so that we can invest back into the business with innovation.

DOC: 3D printing is big news here at IMTS, do you think the manufacturing industry is finally waking up?

VJ: I had a great conversation with our partners who basically said, 'you know VJ the thing I'm really amazed about at this show is the job shop community is talking about how they have to be in additive manufacturing.' I remember Drupa (the 2D printing industry’s Mecca) in the 90s was all about Heidelberg Press, go today and it is all about digital press. I think that same thing is going to happen to this show, it is not subtractive it is not additive it's a mixed environment and we need to be in that environment. We think that we have a unique opportunity to be part of.

DOC: On the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion the first thing you see on 3D Systems’ booth is the Figure 4 technology the first prototype of which we saw at CES 2016, how good was it to have an innovation like that to come into?

VJ:  I know where I need to put my resource when I saw Figure 4 I said 'That's it!'

I really believe that we have a multi-cavity digital mold machine. It is integrated with all our inspection and material technologies and it is just the beginning. There is a big revolution coming.

I believe that when you have a phenomenal team and you augment the team and you focus them on where the value creation is going to happen you will see meaningful results.

What we are saying (with the Figure 4 Technology) is that if you have a 3D printer, that architecture has a lot of limitations, first of all the cost structure point of view, you have all of these skins you don't need and you've got to do post-processing anyway, why can't you just make this into a linear approach with multiple engines? With pick-and-place so that you will be able to really enhance productivity, which is the ultimate goal.

DOC: How do you see Figure 4 Technology transforming the speeds at which we manufacture?

VJ: A lot of people talk about print speed but when I speak to our customers they all say,"It is all about productivity, not print speed." It has to be about productivity, repeatability, and durability of parts.

When you really think about the total cost of operation, it is not just about materials cost. It is the line, the line layout, the productivity uptime, how you're going to integrate the software for automation, it is integrating into you manufacturing ERP system.

As an engineer I know; I’ve got to think about how I'm going to get through the whole process, compress the time and make it so my manufacturing manager sees it as a no-brainer and says, "well, of course, I'm going to integrate'. I'm not just going to think about a 3D printing factory, I'm going to integrate it into a workflow, which could include subtractive and additive.

DOC: Is the prototyping market still unvalued in this industry?

VJ: Prototyping is very important because the value proposition is so clear - you can have a 50-70 percent time and cost reduction, it is a no-brainer.

The problem is that people don't understand that this technology has evolved. The manufacturing industry is very conservative if I'm a manufacturing manager I'm not going to take risks because if you take a risk and there's an issue, my CEO is going to be all over me and say what is this stuff? Why are you experimenting?

This is a mega-industry you can't transform that unless you build the entire infrastructure.

At HP we used to generally have a three-year development cycle; you go from investigation phase to lab phase and I make one lab prototype, then I go from lab to production prototype phase, I'll make twenty, from production prototype to manufacturing I'll make a thousand. That whole three years can now be done in six months. People think 3D printing needs to be geared just towards production, no, no, no! It is about the whole process, the innovation process, going from lab prototype to production prototype to production.

Prototyping is just the initial part of going to production so I don't think those are separate processes. They are a continuum of the innovation process. The needs of production are different to prototyping but the path to production is through prototyping. If you drive and focus on the needs of production, prototyping is included, that's the beauty of it; they’re not distinct.

xpo area at AMUG 2016, newsbroke that 3D Systems (3DS) had appointed a new CEO almost six months to theday after Avi Reichental had departed. Vyomesh Joshi (VJ) was the man steppingup to the plate and a quick glance of his C.V. confirms the direction the boarddecided VJ was the man to push them in.A master’s degree in electrical engineering from Ohio State University saw VJjoin Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1980. 32 years at HP saw VJ rise to executive vicepresident of the company’s Imaging and Printing Group overseeing a period ofphenomenal change towards the, now omnipresent, digital press. When it comesto states of flux VJ has been there, done that, and printed the t-shirt.HP was a company that had struggled to integrate a large number of acquisitionsand struggled to keep a grip of markets it traditionally thrived in. Sound familiar?Take a look at HP’s share prices and compare the peaks and troughs of the early