Rapid Network

Between 1983 and 1993 I was Managing Director and owner of 'Styles Precision Components Limited', a 10-person precision machining jobbing shop. You know the kind of place: a few Bridgeport's and a few Colchester lathes! My little team were great, but the business was stuck in the 1960's. I had grown the business from £50,000 per annum to about £500,000 per annum, but in 1993 business in the North-East of England was terrible. STYLES faced closure.

I had two options: go bust, or do something spectacular. I chose 'spectacular' (in a small way).

In 1980, when I was about 15 years old, I had a vivid dream of a machine that could build up a metal component in an Ultra Violet cabinet. Little particles seemed to collide with a small bead on the end of a vertical stick. As time went by, so the particle grew until there was a component on the end of the stick. It was one of those dreams you don't forget.

In 1989 I saw a short program on the BBC's Tomorrow's World about the first Stereolithography machine to be installed at BAe Systems. I watched as an Ultra Violet laser lased across the surface of a vat of acrylic resin converting liquid plastic into solid. As each layer dipped down, another layer was deposited on top. It wasn't exactly like my dream, but the UV element and the 'growing' of a part caught my imagination like nothing before.

In 1989 I was completely skint: I couldn't even afford the next box of carbide tips for my shell-mill, so 'stereolithography' had to wait.

Again in 1992 Stereolithography caught my imagination when I saw a magazine article by Tim Plunkett, the Managing Director and founder of a company called Formation Limited. Tim's article seemed to pose more questions than it gave answers and I was amazed that someone, anyone, could possibly be making a business out of this stunning new technology.

In early 1993 I called Tim on my mobile phone posing as a potential customer to try and glean more information. Tim was really helpful and he told me a lot that I didn't know. Formation was the original leader of the UK rapid prototyping sector and blazed a trail in the quality and finishing of Stereolithography models. At the end of the call I embarrassed myself somewhat: Tim asked me what kind of 3D data I had available to send to him. At that time I didn't know the difference between a DXF file, an IGES file, or a Nail file. I covered the phone and turned to my brother who was driving and said - "give me the name of a CAD file - quickly!" Dave whispered DXF. I repeated to Tim that my 3D data was in the form of a DXF file (2D Data). Oh, the innocence of youth...

I don't know if Tim remembers that call, but it has never left me because it was the point at which I decided that I had had enough of dreary old jobbing machining, and that I was going to head for the bright lights of the fledgling rapid prototyping sector.

In April of 1993 I arranged to view an SLA-250 stereolithography machine at the Hemel Hempstead offices of 3D Systems the UK division of the US inventors of the stereolithography process. I turned up there with my girlfriend and her 2 year-old daughter in a pram and viewed that ground breaking rapid prototyping machine. The then Managing Director of 3D Systems UK, Andrew Chantrill, later told me that of all the prospects he had ever had, he never suspected that by 2000 I would be his best UK customer. In fact, he never gave me a second thought after my visit that day.

By November 1993, having done the rounds with the venture capitalists in the UK, I had raised a total fund of £586,000 including £250,000 of venture capital from 3i, and had placed an order with cash with Andrew Chantrill. I had to assist him in getting his jaw off of the floor.

As well as buying a stereolithography rapid prototyping machine, I purchased an MCP vacuum casting system for making replica parts from the stereolithography master model. This turned out to be a winning combination and set the mould for all UK RP companies to follow.

I went at the rapid prototyping business in exactly the same way I had gone at jobbing precision machining, but the result turned out to be ten times bigger. Sometimes people are just held back by their industrial sector.

In the early 1990's a Japanese company called ARRK had set up a sales office in London to sell CNC machined models into the UK market. Peter Rawson has been their European MD ever since. They made really good money selling CNC models until Tim Plunkett and I crashed their party. By the end of 1995 we had almost completely destroyed the CNC based prototyping sector in the UK. It was then that ARRK conceded that stereolithography was the way forward and jumped into the rapid prototyping sector with a big splash.

By 1997 the UK rapid prototyping sector was dominated by Formation, STYLES RP, and ARRK. There were a number of other key players such as CA Models, Ogle, Malcolm Nichols, JJ Engineering, Laser Prototypes Europe, Amsys, and a smattering of incredibly irritating University outlets.

But the stage was set for the Big Three to battle it out to the bitter end.

By 1998 Formation and Styles Rapid Prototyping were pretty much neck-and-neck as the industry leaders; two young companies, with two young and energetic Managing Directors, going at it with great gusto.

In January 1999 Formation was acquired by ARRK and Tim moved on to set up 3TRPD, which is now the UK's largest Selective Laser Sintering bureau.

Tim Plunkett was and continues to be the most experienced and knowledgeable rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing specialist in the UK, if not Europe. He had done such a fantastic job at Formation, and I am not ashamed to say that I copied/emulated much of what Formation did. Tim now runs Plunkett Associates, which specializes in advising OEM's on best practice in rapid manufacturing.

In April 2000, when STYLES RPD was also sold to ARRK, it had sales of £5m and employed 73 people. STYLES RPD at that time was the largest and most successful rapid prototyping company in the UK.

After the acquisition of STYLES RPD, ARRK had an effective monopoly in the UK and could quite easily have driven away all of their competition - but they didn't.

The RP sector went through a very difficult period post 9/11, and in 2002 the industry experienced its first year of decline. I have to say that I considered myself lucky to be out of the rapid prototyping sector at that time. I could also see that great changes were afoot during 2002 and 2003. ARRK started to add imported production tooling and moulding to its offering and the smaller RP bureaux such AME, Paragon, CA Models and Malcolm Nicholls, as well as the University outfits such as CRDM started to take a good foothold in the market.

By 2003, Phill Adamson, a former Team Leader of the Vacuum Casting department at STYLES RPD, and his modelmaker colleague Peter Humphrey, also from STYLES, bought out the rapid prototyping section of Mold Systems (formerly JJ Engineering). With a tiny little bit of help from me, they set about creating what is nothing short of the World's most advanced vacuum casting facility. They took the STYLES quality to new heights and are now renowned for their 'two-shot' and 'lens' capabilities.

Both AME and Paragon now have more than £1,000,000 in sales each and are growing very fast. Many of the other rapid prototyping bureaus are expanding nicely and biting away at the giant's ankles. ARRK are now a huge Global toolmaking/moulding company and have over 20,000 employees world-wide. In the last couple of years they have bought more than 20 companies in China alone.

As for me, the story is just beginning: again.

In 2005 I moved my home to Dongguan in Southern China and set up a rapid prototyping company called Star Prototype China and am experiencing growth rates of about 30% per month presently. I also came back into the UK market recently with the acquisition of the once great Omega-Plastics.

Omega was, and will again be, the UK's most successful rapid tooling company: but that's for the next article.

Gordon Styles