【3D Printing】 How Universities Drive the Adoption of 3D Printing Technology in a Region
Manchester Metropolitan University PrintCity Case Study
A recent report from the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) found that additive manufacturing adoption in Manchester is roughly double anywhere else in the UK outside London, citing PrintCity as a key driver for this achievement.
PrintCity, a digital manufacturing hub within Manchester Metropolitan University (Manchester Met), has become a national benchmark for university-led industrial technology application.
This book, through interviews with Professor Carl Diver, Professor of Innovative Manufacturing and Director of PrintCity, and Sam Hitchin, Technical Officer in charge of the facility's 3D printing department, reveals a model that connects education, research, and industry to de-risk, democratize, and accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing.
| Background: Collision of Manufacturing Tradition and New Industrial Revolution
Manchester is widely regarded as the birthplace of the first industrial revolution. This deep heritage of engineering, production, and pragmatic innovation has shaped how the city has embraced the next wave of manufacturing transformation.
In the mid-2010s, as additive manufacturing began to mature as an industrial technology, the UK government recognized a growing skills gap and looked to universities to help bridge it.
PrintCity was established in 2018 precisely to address this policy challenge. Starting with only two or three printers, the facility was designed from the outset as an open, industry-facing hub, rather than a traditional university laboratory, where students, researchers, and businesses could explore the possibilities of additive manufacturing side-by-side.
Manchester is known as the birthplace of the first industrial revolution. The city and its surrounding areas have a long history of engineering and manufacturing, as well as an enterprising spirit. PrintCity builds on this foundation – it provides a springboard for businesses to reach new heights.
Said Carl Diver, Director of PrintCity and Professor of Innovative Manufacturing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
| The Facility: A University-Scale Living Lab
PrintCity, part of the Engineering Department at Manchester Metropolitan University, is a multidisciplinary digital manufacturing hub.
With over 100 machines, ranging from desktop FFF printers costing around £100 to industrial systems valued at up to £300,000, it offers a range of technologies to meet the needs of all types of users, from first-year design students to established aerospace suppliers.
| Breadth of Technology as a Strategic Choice
Roughly 30% of the printer fleet are FFM (material extrusion) printers, which are what the vast majority of students start with.
These workhorse models – predominantly Bambu Labs P1S and P2S – are fast, reliable, and forgiving enough to allow learners to experiment without incurring excessive costs.
Beyond FFF, PrintCity also deploys SLA, SLS, DLP, LFAM, concrete, and continuous fiber technologies, ensuring that when companies or researchers require an industrial-grade solution, it's available on site.
Technology investment decisions are well-considered. The team analyzes industry demand across the North West of England and the broader UK, and benchmarks against offerings from leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) (including site visits to major German manufacturers), prioritizing those that are not currently widely available through commercial service bureaus.
The goal is to fill a real market gap, rather than compete with the private sector.
| 3D Printing Bureau: Rapid Delivery of High-Quality Products
Sam Hitchin, PrintCity Technical Officer and Bureau Manager
Within PrintCity, Sam manages a dedicated 3D printing service bureau—providing high-quality part printing services to students without requiring them to operate the machines themselves. It should be noted that this center provides internal printing services only to faculty and students, and does not undertake external commercial projects.
Students from disciplines such as architecture, fashion, interior design, product design, and engineering submit orders through an online system and receive printed parts within strict academic deadlines.
What makes the bureau unique in its operations is its data-driven quality management approach.
The team has developed a custom dashboard, built entirely in-house by PrintCity engineers, to aggregate real-time telemetry from every printer: remaining print time, success and failure rates, failure classifications (nozzle clogs, print bed adhesion issues, slicing errors, under-extrusion), and maintenance history. Every Tuesday, the team reviews the previous week's data to identify systemic issues and improve maintenance processes.
We don't just print and pray for success, we use data to ensure everything is as scientifically rigorous as possible. We are conducting internal experiments to find the optimal conditions to maximize print success rates.
Said Sam Hitchin, PrintCity Technical Officer and Bureau Manager.
This rigorous analytical approach yields tangible returns: faster turnaround times, fewer print failures, and reduced material waste – all critical for both economic and environmental reasons. The dashboard also serves as a demonstration tool, showcasing a well-managed additive manufacturing operation to visiting companies.
| Model: Four Pillars of Adoption
PrintCity's impact on regional additive manufacturing adoption stems not from a single initiative, but from a model operating simultaneously across four interconnected areas.
1. Widening Participation: Benefiting the Next Generation
PrintCity welcomes approximately 200 secondary school students from the Greater Manchester area each year through its widening participation program.
Many young people are exposed to industrial 3D printing technology for the first time at PrintCity. By creating this exposure early on, the institution helps cultivate a cohort of future engineers, designers, and entrepreneurs who already have conceptual understanding and practical experience with the technology before entering higher education or the workforce.
2. University Teaching: Integrating Interdisciplinary Skills
All forty thousand students at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) have access to PrintCity's facilities. Crucially, the facility serves all disciplines, not just engineering.
On any given day, the department processes parts needed by architecture students modeling building concepts, fashion students exploring structural fittings, interior designers prototyping layouts, and mechanical engineers testing load-bearing components.
This interdisciplinary exposure means that additive manufacturing will become a familiar tool across various industries and will collectively shape how UK businesses design and manufacture products in the decades to come.
Students wishing to delve deeper into related technologies can enroll in the university's Master's program in Digital Design and Manufacturing, taught within the PrintCity campus. Students in this program not only learn technical knowledge but also gain daily hands-on experience with these technologies alongside industry partners and researchers.
3. Research: Expanding the Frontiers of Technology
PrintCity supports researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and institutions across the UK, providing them with access to equipment and expertise that would be prohibitively expensive to replicate independently.
Current research activities span a range of areas, from exploring advanced metamaterials (lattice structures and materials that respond to temperature, humidity, or mechanical loads) to applying sustainability research (such as recycling and reusing selective laser sintering (SLS) powders and resin waste). Manchester Metropolitan University is currently ranked first in the "People and Planet Green League" as the most sustainable university, and has been in the top ten for over a decade.
Doctoral students, partly funded by industry partners, work alongside the facility's technical team, creating a continuous cycle of practical knowledge generation.
4. Industry Engagement: De-risking Investment
The fourth and most commercially significant pillar is PrintCity's structured industry collaboration program, funded by a series of multi-year government grants. Over the past four or five years, more than 300 companies have been supported, covering the full spectrum from initial exploration to full technology transfer.
The entire process begins with an open visit or a workshop guided by professionals. PrintCity adopts an objective and neutral approach: if 3D printing is not the best solution to a company's problem, they will say so honestly. This candor is central to its credibility.
If additive manufacturing is suitable, companies enter a short technical feasibility phase, and upon discovering real potential, move into a structured project lasting three to nine months, during which the PrintCity technical team works with the company to develop and validate real-world applications.
Carl Diver, Director of PrintCity
This process is supported by the collaborative ecosystem across Greater Manchester, particularly with colleagues in the business school's enterprise center, who contribute to early-stage ideation and innovation workshops.
We want to give businesses the opportunity to explore this technology, to understand its limitations, so that when they decide what investment to make, we can support their decisions and de-risk their ultimate investment.
Carl Diver, Director of PrintCity, commented.
The funding model behind it is as important as the content itself.
PrintCity secures three- to five-year government projects that pre-fund teams and equipment. This means the facility can respond to business needs within weeks, rather than waiting 12 to 18 months as with traditional grant cycles. Rapid response is not secondary; it's a core element of its structural design.
| Model: Four Pillars of Adoption
One of PrintCity's most significant – and least heralded – contributions to the adoption of additive manufacturing technology is its cultivation and retention of talent. Carl Diver illustrates this with Sam's story, whose career trajectory, as the facility's technical lead, embodies the institution's human-centered approach:
Sam, an undergraduate in Product Design at Manchester Metropolitan University, discovered PrintCity and was so drawn to its technology and work environment that he became part of the team before graduating. Subsequently,
He pursued a Master's degree in Digital Design and Manufacturing, working part-time at PrintCity throughout. Later, when a technical position opened up, he joined full-time. In less than a year, he completely transformed the print facility—assisting colleagues in setting up custom monitoring dashboards, standardizing maintenance processes, and improving print quality and efficiency.
This is not an isolated case. PrintCity graduates are currently working in additive manufacturing teams for F1 racing, with four to five graduates already employed in such teams, and two PhD students partially funded by them.
The institution has also created indirect employment pathways: at a PrintCity networking event, a prospective student met a former student working at a local company, which directly led to the student being hired in the additive manufacturing industry, completely bypassing the Master's degree route.
These individuals bring deep practical knowledge of additive manufacturing to the companies and industries they join. In fact, they are the catalysts for technology application—and they are a direct product of the PrintCity model.
| Tangible Impact: Twice the National Average
The regional impact of this layered approach has been independently verified. A DSIT report found that the proportion of SMEs in Manchester adopting additive manufacturing technology is roughly twice that of other regions outside London.
PrintCity was explicitly identified as one of the contributing factors to this outcome.
Recent government reports indicate that the adoption rate of additive manufacturing technology in Manchester is approximately twice that of other regions in the UK outside London. PrintCity is considered one of the key factors in creating this opportunity for businesses.
Said Carl Diver, Director of PrintCity.
This is a remarkable finding.
Promoting the adoption of additive manufacturing technology has historically been difficult: the technological landscape is complex, capital costs are high, and the required skills are scarce.
A region achieving twice the national average adoption rate—and a university facility being credited as a cause—indicates that PrintCity's model addresses practical barriers to adoption in a way that pure market mechanisms cannot.
| Keys to Success: Critical Success Factors
From Sam's perspective:
Focus and Institutional Commitment
Sam's advice to other universities is clear: the key to success is having dedicated professionals. PrintCity doesn't have workshop technicians dabbling in 3D printing alongside other tasks. It employs specialists in additive manufacturing. It is this focus, combined with strong institutional investment, that has enabled the facility to accumulate deep expertise and achieve scaled, consistently high-quality production.
· Specialized technical personnel focused on additive manufacturing
· University-supported investment in equipment and staffing
· PrintCity offers a range of technologies and materials, ensuring every user receives appropriate technology, materials, and expert support.
· Industry funding invested in new technologies that do not duplicate commercial services
· Open culture: PrintCity welcomes visits from other universities and shares its operational experience.
From Carl's perspective:
Structure, Speed, and Academic Integrity
· This funding model, which pre-deploys resources, allows for response times measured in weeks, not months.
· Honest advice that is not biased towards any particular technology, telling businesses when 3D printing is not the best solution.
· Comprehensive support model, continuing to support companies after project completion to ensure skills integration.
· An open, inclusive, and accessible culture that makes the facility physically and culturally easy to access.
| Looking Ahead
Both Carl and Sam are passionate about the next phase of PrintCity's development.
On the technology side, Carl believes that emerging functional and responsive materials (materials that can react to temperature, humidity, or mechanical loads) are a frontier where PrintCity's research community has already made significant strides.
He also focuses on developments in industrial reliability and repeatability, which remain barriers to wider adoption of these technologies in production environments.
Sam is focused on sustainability.
The recycling of SLS powders and resin waste is an area where PrintCity is actively collaborating with PhD students and material manufacturers, and this collaboration is increasing. PrintCity is also exploring the use of new additives for in-house filament production, striving to position itself as a partner in material innovation, not just a consumer of materials.
Both are clear that the next five years will focus on deepening rather than expanding. More students need to be recruited, more industry partners attracted, and community engagement strengthened—to ensure, in Sam's words, that additive manufacturing gets the reputation it deserves.
| Implications for Other Institutions
· Specialization over generalization: A facility with dedicated personnel and clear responsibilities performs better than a general workshop where additive manufacturing is a sideline.
· Serving multiple constituencies simultaneously: The convergence of students, researchers, schoolchildren, and industry professionals in the same physical space creates value that no single group could achieve alone.
· Agile funding: Multi-year project funding that pre-arranges resources is more effective in fostering industry engagement than project-by-project funding cycles.
· Honest assessment of technological suitability: The ability to say "no" when additive manufacturing is not suitable earns trust from the industry.
· Measure and share: PrintCity's willingness to open its doors to visiting universities and benchmark its own operational data sets a standard for transparency, building trust across the industry.
Article Source
Want to learn more about Bambu Lab 3D printer products? Contact us below!
- Contact Us -
3DMart offers more than just 3D printing, we provide three major OEM services: "3D Printing Service", "3D Scanning Service", and "3D Space Scanning Service" !!
Follow our fan page and don't miss new information:
Facebook | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn