 So we're here with a seed here at ID TechX and hi, so who are you? Hi, my name is Lukas Jansen and I'm one of the founders and directors at seed and we're a 3D printing supplier of large-scale additive manufacturing machines. So this is a 3D printer here in this big machine, what is this? This is a 50% short fiber filled thermoplastic material printed with our big machine called the CFAM Prime. Is this hard? This is very hard, it's a very hard surface and also has very good mechanical properties. How do you describe the material? This is a material which consists of 50% short glass fibers and a thermoplastic material which can be very interesting for making molds for the industry sector for example. And that's something that we do at seed, we develop and deliver systems aimed to make parts for the industry and not only prototype but necessarily end-user parts. So you have a big 3D printer, a big one, and you also do something like this? Yeah, because these parts are took with me to show to you that we can also introduce a continuous fiber along the length of the profile and that's something that we're worldwide unique with because we're the only ones being able to do this at this large size. And you can imagine that by adding this continuous fiber within the parts, parts become significantly stronger and that also makes it possible to print these end-user parts for industry sectors. So can you describe this printer? Yeah. Do you want to come up and stand up? Yeah. So this is a big machine, that's your product right? Yeah. So how do you make this? Is it the biggest 3D printer in the world? It's the biggest commercially available 3D printer in Europe but it's the biggest composite 3D printer in the world. And these continuous fibers that I was talking about on this large size are the only ones being able to introduce these continuous fibers for advanced mechanical properties. And we build this development technology and this machine completely in-house. And the machine that you see operating here on the video is a machine that we also have working non-stop in our production and prototyping facility on the Netherlands. So it's speed up, how long time does it take? Is it able to do fast enough? Yeah, normally it does 15 kilograms an hour but that's the effort. You can't even go to 25 kilograms an hour but to give you an idea, a ring like this would just take several minutes to print. Is it strong enough to be part of an airplane or no? This is a polypropylene with continuous glass fiber. So this is strong enough for infrastructure applications such as buildings or in the maritime sector. But if we would do a high-end thermoplastic material such as peak, which is a material that we can also process with our technology, and we do continuous carbon fibers and this will definitely be strong enough for parts and other things. So are you already delivering stuff that people use? Yeah, we're focused on development and delivery of these machines. And we've already sold multiple of these systems. And the first one will be officially delivered in the summer of this year. And the next one will soon follow before the end of this year. I don't want to get any secrets but is it Airbus? It's not Airbus. But it could be something like that? It could definitely be Airbus. The first two customers that we're delivering this year are based in the Netherlands and are under strong focus on infrastructure and maritime sectors. So you can 3D print a boat? Definitely. Definitely. And what's the advantage of doing that? If you look at traditional production methods, there's actually a lot of manual labor involved. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. What you see happening, especially parts that are manufactured for boats who are produced here in Europe, the production has actually gone to Asia where the labor is much cheaper. And a production technology like this could actually make it possible to produce these parts locally again. And that would not only create jobs here in Europe, but it would also minimize transportation costs and emissions if you produce these parts locally. Maybe what you're doing is you're replacing Chinese jobs with European robots. In a sense, yes. Which is okay. I mean there's nothing negative about this. The future anyway. The future is to further automate these processes. And that's something that we really believe in because that also opens up possibilities in other fields. But is this system making a big thing like this? Is it possible to be precise? What's the limit? The main limits come from the thermoplastic materials that we use. So those are in terms of the machining tolerances or the part tolerances. The thermal behavior of the thermoplastic is key. But for example, if you would print a part of one meter by one meter, we can definitely print this as accurate as down to one millimeter tolerances. And if you would involve a milling operation afterwards, for example, if you would look at the production of molds for the industry, then with milling we can actually go as accurate as 0.1 millimeters. Is that good enough for airplane? That's definitely good enough. If you want one, they can fly. And boats, they can wrap the sink. Yeah, they can. And is it going to be buildings, like just 3D printed buildings? Yeah, we're actually doing our first project with our first customer. So the customer who receives their machine in the summer. And they have already found a project where they're going to use the machine to print 2,000 facade cladding elements. And these facade cladding elements will be used to make the front of a building in the Netherlands. So that's already a very nice example for an infrastructure and buildings application. Is that going to be a particularly beautiful building somehow? Is there some attribute that can only be 3D printed that cannot be made otherwise? All the panels are individually shaped. And therefore 3D printing is definitely a key technology to make that happen. Because normally they would make it on the traditional way where they actually need to make a mold for each individual panel. And that's very cost inefficient. And there's also a lot of material being involved that is going to be thrown out after just one time usage. So 3D printing in that sense is a key technology. So you say you're the biggest in Europe? Yeah. Does that mean there's a bigger one in Asia or in the US? In the US there's a bigger 3D printer. Who's making that? They focus on a different segment. But in terms of the biggest 3D printer being able to produce with these continuous fibers, so for these very strong parts, then we're the biggest worldwide. But they do different something else? Yeah, so they don't do continuous fibers. They also do airplane stuff maybe? Yeah, there are also airplane stuff that they can do. And what's the main advantage of continuous fibers? It has two advantages. The first is the mechanical properties, so your parts are stronger. And the second one is that it reduces the thermal expansion of the material. And now it becomes quite technical, but for the production of molds for the aerospace industry, this is something you typically want.