HP Launches Reseller Program to Scale Up 3D Printing Business

Seeking to push harder into potential growth markets, HP Inc. has launched a global reseller program for its 3D printing products.

The computing giant’s HP Partner First 3D Printing Specialization program already includes more than 30 trained and certified partners to help grow and scale the 3D printing business, the company said.

The announcement came today at Rapid + TCT, an additive manufacturing and 3D printing conference in Pittsburg. The news is part of HP's overall channel push, which is led by Stephanie Dismore.

HP also announced the opening of more than a dozen 3D Printing Reference and Experience Centers in North America and Europe, where companies can test and qualify HP Jet Fusion 3D Printing products.

“Building on our experience of more than 500,000 Multi Jet Fusion-produced parts, we are now scaling our 3D printing business to the next level,” Stephen Nigro (pictured above), HP president of 3D printing, said in a statement. “Today we are expanding our solutions availability through new resellers and service bureau partners, opening new experiential facilities for customers and partners, and widening our open 3D printing materials ecosystem.”

Companies such as BMW, Jabil, Johnson & Johnson and Nike are already looking to HP’s 3D printing products to “help reinvent their businesses for the digital manufacturing revolution,” he said.

HP claims its Jet Fusion commercial 3D printing systems can deliver parts up to 10 times faster than current 3D printing systems for half the cost.

Global Partner Program

Initially focused on North America and Europe, the new reseller program allows manufacturing product providers to offer HP’s 3D printing technologies to their customers and help them scale up as needed, the company said.

The 30 initial partners were hand-selected by HP. The majority of those - about 80 percent - are new to HP, Nigro told reporters during a Friday briefing.

Resellers interested in joining the program or learning more about it are asked to connect with a local HP team member.

Experience Centers

The new experience centers will provide companies hands-on experience with 3D printing products in production-level scenarios, HP said, giving customers a faster path from prototype to full-scale 3D production.

U.S. facilities will be located in:

European facilities are:

Growing Roster

In other news, HP said a growing number of manufacturing service bureaus and product design firms are implementing its 3D printing systems.

Companies that are installing HP’s Jet Fusion 3D Printing systems and beginning to deliver printed parts include Fast Radius, Forecast3D, Go Proto, Materialise, ProtoCAM, Proto Labs, Shapeways, Sigma Design and 3D Prod.

HP has also expanded its 3D printing materials providers to include Henkel AG & Co., a chemical and consumer goods company, which will focus on providing powder materials for use with HP 3D printers.

Henkel joins existing materials providers such as Arkema, BASF, Evonik, and Lehmann & Voss.