An application may be technically printable, yet still fall outside the capabilities of commercially available equipment.
The material may require a different wavelength, handling system, or resin environment. The part may demand a different build volume, resolution, or architecture. A production workflow may require automation or integration. A research application may need hardware specifically designed around a novel material or process.
In those situations, selecting another off-the-shelf printer doesn't solve the problem.
The technology itself has to be engineered around the application.
B9Creations works across biomedical, aerospace and defense, advanced manufacturing, and other demanding applications to determine what the application requires—and when necessary, develop the technology to make it possible.
Custom technology development shouldn't begin with assumptions about the solution.
B9Creations' Additive Advantage Model provides a structured path for moving an application from feasibility toward production:
The process begins by defining the application requirements and proving what's technically possible. Materials, geometry, accuracy, throughput, workflow, quality requirements, and economics can all be evaluated before committing to a production architecture.
As the application moves forward, those findings define what the technology actually needs to do.
Sometimes the answer is an existing B9 platform.
Sometimes it requires new material settings, software, workflow, or process development.
And sometimes the feasibility and development work reveals that the machine itself needs to change.
That's where B9X comes in.
Together, they allow B9Creations to move from “Can this application work?” to “What does the complete system need to become to make it work reliably?”
Through B9X, hardware engineering can be combined with materials, software, application engineering, and manufacturing expertise to develop technology around the requirements established through application development.
Depending on the challenge, that can mean modifying an existing B9 platform—or engineering a significantly more specialized system.
Build volume, resolution, accuracy, wavelength, Z-height, material handling, and other system characteristics can be configured or engineered around application requirements.
Novel materials can require more than new print parameters.
B9Creations can develop custom platform and vat solutions for applications involving specialized, sensitive, or high-value materials.
In biomanufacturing, that flexibility has supported work involving emerging materials such as bio-inks and collagen-based systems. CollPlant has publicly credited B9Creations with helping advance its work and produce collagen prints.
The material doesn't have to conform to the machine. The technology can be engineered around the material.
Other applications push the physical limits of existing technology.
When demanding geometries require a different combination of feature size, accuracy, build area, or process control, application development can establish the performance requirements—and B9X can engineer the hardware around them.
Sometimes the printer is only one component of the manufacturing solution.
Custom platforms can incorporate specialized post-processing, automation, software, production-management integration, material-development capabilities, and other workflow requirements.
That allows B9 to address the complete manufacturing system rather than optimizing one machine in isolation.
Emerging biological applications can require platforms built around materials and processes conventional additive manufacturing equipment was never designed to handle.
B9Creations has worked with biotechnology organizations like CollPlant and medical device companies like Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic across custom technology, material development, software, and application workflows supporting bio-inks, collagen, tissue engineering, and other emerging biomedical applications.
The challenge: Novel material and process requirements.
The path: Establish feasibility, develop the material and process, then engineer the technology required to support them.
Aerospace and defense applications introduce a very different combination of requirements: specialized geometries and materials, demanding performance thresholds, secure environments, tooling needs, quality requirements, and mission-specific workflows.
Here, custom technology can become one part of a larger progression from feasibility and technical validation through pilot, scale, and deployment with companies like Poly6, part of Consolidated Precision Products.
The challenge: Demanding performance and operational requirements.
The path: Prove the application against defined thresholds, then configure or engineer the technology and process around what production requires.
For tooling applications, the question may begin much earlier:
Can additive manufacturing deliver the geometry, material performance, accuracy, durability, and economics required to replace or augment a conventional manufacturing process?
The Additive Advantage Model provides a framework for answering those questions before scale. If the opportunity is proven but requires different build envelopes, material capabilities, automation, or process architecture, B9X provides a path to engineer those requirements into the system.
The challenge: Make additive technically and economically viable for the manufacturing process.
The path: Prove the opportunity first. Engineer the production solution second.
B9X custom development builds from B9Creations' established technology foundation.
Existing platforms provide proven precision, repeatability, software, materials architecture, and manufacturing infrastructure. Custom engineering can then focus on the requirements the application has proven need to change.
That can range from a specialized configuration or accessory to a deeply customized platform combining hardware, materials, software, automation, and workflow development.
The objective isn't customization for customization's sake.
Custom hardware doesn't have to mean a one-off machine.
B9Creations has demonstrated that application-specific technology can move from initial development into repeatable deployment. Its work with Kulzer, for example, moved from concept to a private-label, medical-equipment-compliant solution in five months and ultimately to more than 1,000 turnkey systems in the field.
That ability to combine application development, custom engineering, and repeatable deployment is central to the B9 approach.
Depending on the application, the journey may require:
FEASIBILITY
Prove the technical and business opportunity.
PILOT
Develop and validate the material, process, workflow, and technology.
SCALE
Establish repeatability, quality, throughput, and deployment requirements.
PRODUCTION
Deploy the validated solution and support ongoing operation.
And when that journey reveals that standard technology isn't enough, B9X provides the ability to engineer the system around what has been proven.
B9X can customize and integrate:
PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE
Build volume, resolution, accuracy, wavelength & system configuration
MATERIAL HANDLING
Vats, material environments & hardware designed around specialized chemistries
POST-PROCESSING & AUTOMATION
Application-specific workflow & production requirements
SOFTWARE & INTEGRATION
CAM, expert systems, automation & production-management connectivity
APPLICATION ENGINEERING
Part, process, material, regulatory & manufacturing requirements
DEPLOYMENT
From specialized R&D systems to repeatable production fleets
Whether you're still determining feasibility or already know standard technology can't meet your requirements, B9Creations can help prove the path and engineer what it takes to move forward.