XtreeE: One of Many Construction 3D Printing Consultants To Come

I’m looking at a French company, XtreeE, that specializes in construction 3D printing.

Well, that’s not exactly right. They say they offer two very specific services:

“Access – help our clients discover and quantify the benefits of large-scale 3D printing, through collaborative design and large-scale prototype manufacturing;

Systems – rent large-scale 3D printing systems.”

It’s that first service that has me most interested: discovering construction 3D printing.

Changing to Construction 3D Printing

The notion of helping clients discover construction 3D printing is a key step to establishing this new technology in the marketplace. No one will want to invest in a technology they don’t really understand — unless they are overly-funded Middle East sheiks, perhaps, but that’s a story for another day.

People tend to do things they are most familiar with. Change is difficult. Change requires effort. Change requires trust and confidence.

Change is hard.

Many times I’ve seen a truly useful technology sit abandoned because no one was interested or they did not understand what it really could do for them. The act of convincing someone to change their world-view is a highly complex task.

Fortunately, there are approaches one can use. One that I’ve very often used is to simply “show” a concept to a prospect. Seeing something is somehow a far stronger way to convince someone than simply words.

Discovering Construction 3D Printing

There are other approaches, and I think XtreeE is on to one of them: consulting. They have smartly divided their services into two parts, evidently focusing on the first one: discovery.

That’s such a good word for this step: Discovery.

It truly represents the right way forward by first establishing a proper understanding of the technology and its possibilities with a client. An unfortunate outcome of an anxious construction 3D printing company might be to sell services or products to a client that doesn’t really need them. Sooner or later they will learn the truth and future business could be compromised.

It’s best to jointly discover the right way forward, and that is done by exploring a situation to develop valid scenarios that actually address needs — and costs for a project.

One might think that XtreeE’s business is really to simply rent 3D printing equipment, and it could be so. However, that step doesn’t happen unless the customer WANTS to do so. The best way is to configure a project that actually provides them benefit that they understand and value.

If so, then future business becomes a lot easier.

Construction 3D Printing Consulting Business

It seems that XtreeE is focused on France and perhaps other parts of the EU as their market, and that seems very reasonable. Within that region they could provide good explanations of the technology to the market with appropriate language and culture. That could be a lot more successful than simply trying to sell or rent equipment broadly.

The idea here is that we may see more companies like XTreeE emerge in other regions, since the focus of this type of business is more on design, thinking and discovery rather than the printing itself.

Via XTreeE (French)