The origins

Our story begins in 2015, with the union of three people: Joan Folguera, John Amin and Francesc Adell.

John and Joan met in a programme for the development of innovative technology-based projects for young entrepreneurs, the first with a hardware made with 3D printing and the second with an app to help small businesses in Lleida. After several conversations, they decided to implement a great idea with Francesc Adell, who has set up the "Caragolet de l'Oest" team in his warehouse, driven by the "maker" spirit that moves him.

The three of them pooled their knowledge and, with the desire to work together, they set out to start the INTECH3D project. Francesc will be responsible for business acquisition, John for the maintenance of installed equipment and Joan for the management of resources.

The idea

Analysing the 3D printing environment, they saw that there was a large proliferation of extrusion equipment manufacturers. Although they also had the capacity to assemble equipment, they wanted to go a step further and investigate what their real applications were.

They soon realised that the problem to be solved was not the lack of supply of hardware, but that there was not enough demand due to a lack of knowledge of how to use the technology. The industrial fabric needed the knowledge of how to use the equipment, i.e. a strategic partner instead of a distributor.

From this first turning point, the realisation that knowledge of the application was more important than the manufacturer of the equipment, INTECH3D - Your 3D Partner was born.

First steps

To find out how they could help companies, they started by asking themselves what are the business and technological benefits of using additive manufacturing.

To find the answer, they did a first phase dedicated to manufacturing components for third parties. As a result, they discovered that most of the orders they received were for prototypes, followed by spare parts, final components and simple tools for the workshop.

After several years of experience, they knew when they needed to use the technology and with which materials. This led to a huge growth in demand for the manufacture of components for third parties, as they became increasingly aware of the sectors and applications where 3D printing made sense to improve the company's competitiveness.

Education and training

The biggest obstacle for companies to integrate 3D printing equipment was knowing how to use the machine. The general lack of knowledge of this technology meant that its integration was a very high-risk investment, even though it could have great results.

Since then, they began to focus on raising awareness and transmitting knowledge to companies so that they could discover how to exploit the benefits of using this equipment.

Wanting to go a step further, they thought that they would stop the problem before it started if they provided the knowledge to students, to prepare them for the possibility of being in a company where it made sense to use the technology.

So they began to explain to schools the importance of teaching students how the equipment works, and started as associate professors at the University of Lleida.

Innovation

Continuing to follow up on orders and after thoroughly analysing the pain points of their customers, it was very clear that focusing on manufacturing and hardware was not enough.

There was still a gap that equipment manufacturers could not fill, which was the need to have a software ecosystem for 3D printing project management that would facilitate and optimise the process of using the technology for all types of users.

That's when they decided to co-create the PRINT&GO project, a software solution that allows you to plan, monitor and control the entire 3D printing flow remotely and in real time, increasing the efficiency of your production.