Comments On the Sale of Lulzbot

In early 2020, Lulzbot was sold to another owner. People can only speculate on what really happened unless they were involved in the situation. But it appears that there are significant lessons to be learned here. Is it simply that printers cannot compete with cheap chinese $300 printers? Or is it a question of making production in America competitive again - 'make America great again' like Trump says? What are the limits to industrial productivity on a small scale, and maybe the solution is agile open source franchise like OSE is aiming to develop, instead of anything that resembles centralized production? Note that the largest hobby 3D printer company, Prusa Printers - is highly centralized as a single facility. Does this model work? We think that distributed production could work better - pending solution of Distributed Production Engineering and Distributed Quality Control. It is my opinion (MJ) that Prusa will run into hard times soon as well - even though it appears to be doing well now. So here we record some notes on lessons learned.

Comments

• I imagine it's very difficult to build something successful then watch it crumble because capitalism doesn't allow ethical businesses to thrive. - Michael Altfield

Links

• Lulzbot moves to North Dakota - [1]