Rize Rises on the Strength of Its Team

I spoke recently Rize’s Vice President of Product, Kishore Boyalakuntla, about the disruptive nature of additive manufacturing and what Rize brings to the market.

The company is well located within a hive of innovation, as the Boston area is home to major centers of education as well as familiar names in the 3D printing industry. Think Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Markforged — and Dassault Systèmes’ North American HQ. Prior to this spring, Boyalakuntla was an executive at SOLIDWORKS; we last heard from his team at SOLIDWORKS World early this year as the company released several major announcements.

“I came to SOLIDWORKS in about 2000 and have been part of that journey. My last position in SOLIDWORKS was portfolio management, responsible for all the products we took to market. At SOLIDWORKS this year and last year you must have seen a good many 3D printing companies onstage; these included HP this year, and likewise Desktop Metal and Sindoh. You heard a lot about what we do with 3D printing. When I was with SOLIDWORKS, I spent a lot of time on manufacturing with CAM products, with launch strategies, and worked with many AM manufacturers themselves,” he told me.

Now, he continued, he is at Rize, where he is responsible for products, marketing, and customer satisfaction as the VP of Product. He joined the team in June, not the first exec from Dassault Systèmes to come to Rize.

So what is it about this 3D printer manufacturer that’s enticing those from software to move over to hardware? Why, I asked, join Rize?

“One thing is clear,” Boyalakuntla said. “Additive manufacturing is disrupting, and is going to further disrupt, every branch of engineering. Whether that is from the design side and how you design for additive with more freedom, or for manufacturing, where how you manufacture and approach the point of consumption is in view, or, likewise, in disrupting the supply chain. …[Rize was] the first time I saw something in the industry with the potential to change the game in massive, scalable ways, and I wanted to be a part of that.

“The second thing about Rize, that really pulled me toward Rize, was the platform and the technology, as well as feedback from customers using the Rize products before I joined them. It is a true platform that scales, offering incredibly robust hardware and software technology.”

With Rize’s Augmented Polymer Deposition (APD) technology, impressive capabilities arise. The promise of high-strength 3D printed parts with embedded information and minimal post-processing offers significant potential in a variety of applications.

“Something that really amazed me before I joined Rize was the industrial nature of the printer,” Boyalakuntla continued. “I could talk to customers who are using the printer 24/7, literally, and the value proposition was amazing. The value proposition I was seeing was similar to that in SOLIDWORKS in its early days.”

The story, all in all, he added, is “very exciting” to him — compelling enough, indeed, to want to be directly a part of it as the team is a source of strength for the company. With additive manufacturing, with Rize’s capabilities, with the benefits unlocked through design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), Boyalakuntla sees “new kinds of product and innovation that are not possible otherwise.”

“Rize to me was a fantastic place to be: young, a fantastic technology, a core team that’s top notch with many years of industry experience. To me, it was very simple and straightforward, to be honest; that’s why I’m here,” he said.

Since coming onboard, he has continued to be both impressed by current capabilities and optimistic for their ongoing and upcoming impacts on the market.

Touching on customer stories, an area of Boyalakuntla’s expertise and focus with Rize, he noted that this industry is “basically changing how things are made.” Going beyond this, we discussed some of Rize’s recent announcements, such as a case study with New Hudson Facades in which regular operation of their Rize One 3D printer is bringing about savings of $50,000 per quarter on clamping fixtures alone, and “make on demand” work with PSMI/Azoth Manufacturing.

“There are completely new business models based on digital manufacturing. I’m sure there are many more to come, as we are working with customers on additional case studies,” Boyalakuntla noted.

One area of rising focus for Rize is medical, where we’ve seen notable potential for their unique offerings.

Following the US FDA’s release of guidelines on 3D printing for medical devices this past December, the technology has been in the spotlight as a realistic solution to issues in this area. Boyalakuntla noted that this level of detailed attention from the FDA was “really surprising to me, coming from outside this industry” as the guidelines for additive manufacturing take into account many factors.

“They talk about some key things, like for trade the regulations and what it takes to meet US regulations; traceability; and clean processes. They also talked at length about supports and removal, without compromising integrity,” he said.

“The only real 3D printer that can meet all those expectations is Rize. There are no VOCs, you can include QR codes and all else, and I believe that if you are a medical company, you should be looking at Rize.”

Also supporting use of Rize’s technologies are the trends toward end-use parts and the increasing focus on training and best practices to adopt 3D printing. The Rize One is safe for office use, offers high strength and minimal post-processing, and is seeing wider acceptance in the industry.

The 3D printer appeared at last week’s IMTS in Chicago, showcasing applications with partner Fuji.

We’re looking forward to working with Rize more in the near future — more details on that coming soon.

Via Rize