Photo credits: Mick Hall and Andy JonesThe cycling industry is particularly fast-paced and innovative and at the highest competitive levels of both road and track cycling there is huge demand for innovation and improving the performance of bicycles. Over the last couple of decades, UK cycling has reached a pinnacle and garnered widespread coverage that has contributed to an increase in the number of amateur cyclists. As a result, many retail customers and amateur cyclists want access to the same technologies that professional teams benefit from soon after their launch.
Historically bike designers have always worked around international standards and commonality of parts but over the past decade there has been a trend away from this, as brands search for better integration of systems, unique selling points and ever-smaller marginal gains.
The result of all this is a bike industry that can barely keep up with demand and expectation with a wide range of opportunities. Staffordshire-based
MagCAD Designs Ltd was founded by Andrew Magnier, a former British National Track Champion and MEng Aerospace Engineer who has experience at the highest levels of competitive cycling together with the technological skills and expertise to offer the highest quality of cycling products.
With this strong foundation of knowledge and expertise, MagCAD, is able to consistently deliver innovative parts and products to its expanding customer base. MagCAD partners with
3DPRINTUK for production of these parts on demand, with the business continuing to experience tremendous growth. 3-D printing has proved to be a valuable and flexible tool for SMEs like MagCAD. It has been widely adopted as a product development tool for faster time-to-market. MagCAD does indeed use 3-D printing in this way but has also adopted it for the production of parts.
Mr Magnier said: “The 3-D printing process is fundamental to our business model. It allows us to react quickly to new opportunities. We can develop, test and validate components in a greatly accelerated timeline. For production, though, it reduces our upfront investment — both in terms of time and cost — compared with more traditional manufacturing methods. It also allows us far greater design freedom for creating complex geometries that are not then subsequently restricted by tooling and traditional manufacturing considerations.”
Improving the aestheticsMagCAD manufactures a range of parts and products for its customers. Mr Magnier continued: “We will receive a design request from either a cyclist, cycling brand or bike shop. Typically, these are requirements to attach smart devices such as GPS computers, lights, cameras and so forth, to parts of a bike such as the handlebars. We will always assess the feasibility of each request before making a commitment to develop components. When we first started out, we would tackle most requests but as the business has grown, we have had to become far more selective as we now receive hundreds of design requests every week.
“A good example would be our MagCAD Bosch Kiox E-Stem 300 Mount which was developed with the team at
True North Cycle Hub in Upper Hulme. We recognised the stock computer mount supplied with the latest Bosch equipped e-bikes was a little basic and there was an opportunity to improve the set up. Together with the True North team we produced a mount that moved the Bosch display off the handlebar and onto the top of the stem, improving the aesthetics and reducing the impact of dirt and debris. The design has proved very popular with cyclists all over the world.”
Since its inception three years ago, MagCAD has experienced significant growth and is on track to 3-D print 9,000-plus parts this year, more than double last year’s volume. The team typically 3-D prints individual components in batches of 20–50, which helps them to manage their inventory efficiently. However, with a growing portfolio, which is now over 350 individual designs, it is important that they are able to scale up the batches to 100-plus parts each order. Having 3DPRINTUK as their production partner, means that they can easily manage this.
MagCAD’s expanding range of products directly benefit from being produced by 3-D printing. Often, they are parts that could not have been produced any other way. Mr Magnier explained: “A number of our parts include complex locking interfaces and overhangs. Typically these design details cannot be produced in one single piece by injection moulding, as the tooling required cannot then release the formed part. We can also 3-D print much thicker material compared with most other plastic processes, which usually require thin sections to minimise thermal deformation and shrinkage.
“In addition, we often get requests to make small modifications to existing designs, such as increasing the length of a part or adjusting the orientation. Sometimes our customers will spot opportunities to use existing designs in a slightly different way and we are able to make the necessary changes very quickly. That is one of the key strengths to the 3-D printing process.”
Mr Magnier added: “Through the growth of our business we have seen a number of large unpredictable spikes in demand for particular products, often driven by discussions and customer posts on social media. That means, despite our best efforts, we can very quickly sell out of items that we considered were held in good quantities. Being able to reproduce parts on demand, quickly and reliably, allows us to react to these trends. Rather than being a headache, it is hugely satisfying when a simple customer post on social media spikes huge interest with other fellow cyclists.”
“Overall the 3-D printing process, and more specifically the industrial systems at 3DPRINTUK, allows us to simplify and optimise the design, reduce post-manufacturing assembly processes and reduce time and costs. All of this benefits our customers as we can pass these time and cost savings on to them.”
Consistent and reliable partsMr Magnier said there is no single reason why the company chose 3DPRINTUK as its preferred production partner. He initially identified 3DPRINTUK back in 2020 when searching for a UK-based 3-D printing service provider, in anticipation of the likely disruption caused by Brexit. Until this point most of the company’s printing requirements had been fulfilled by European-based specialists.
He added: “3DPRINTUK’s instant online pricing model showed us that its costs were very competitive and would scale well with our business. Initial test runs also demonstrated that the quality of parts is outstanding and the 3DPRINTUK team is very communicative and knowledgeable. We found some differences in model processing and 3-D printer tolerances but were able to adjust our designs accordingly and were soon able to produce batches of very consistent, reliable parts.”
Mr Magnier said was also keen to testify of his experience with a number of different features that 3DPRINTUK offers as part of its service; many of which are unique to the company and have been developed by the in-house team. Expanding on the online ordering process, he continued: “The process of placing an online order has always been reasonably quick. But the latest website updates have significantly improved page-loading speed, which was starting to restrict the size of our orders. We can now place large orders in a matter of minutes, allowing us the time to concentrate on other areas of the business.”
He went on to comment on the options for uploading 3-D digital files, including the ability to lock-in build orientation for each part. 3DPRINTUK has always used its experience and expertise to orient all parts for optimum results, however, customers can now take full control of part orientation to achieve the best aesthetic and functional outcomes for their applications.
“When we first started working with 3DPRINTUK we would follow up every order with an email and illustrations to fix the print orientation. It worked really well back then but would not be sustainable now the business has grown. The ability to now lock the print orientation at point of order is fundamental for us to ensure every component performs as expected, functioning for many years of use without issue.”
Once an order has been placed, 3DPRINTUK customers have direct access to real-time updates, a feature that impresses him: “We particularly like the real time status updates online. It allows us to manage both our own and our customers’ expectations. More often than not orders arrive quicker than expected but it is reassuring to follow the process.”
To achieve the optimum strength and quality of parts, MagCAD predominantly uses the SLS 3-D printing process from 3DPRINTUK. Mr Magnier said: “The material and process offers a fantastic balance between strength and stiffness. We understand its performance and limitations well and that means we can have confidence in the parts that are produced.”
Exceeding expectationsIn terms of post-processing services from 3DPRINTUK, MagCAD gets the vast majority of its parts shot peened and dyed black. Mr Magnier said: “We offer colours to our customers as special orders but 99% of sales are for black components. This combination of post processing and finishing produces superb quality parts. We particularly love hearing back from customers who maybe had reservations about 3-D printed parts but whose expectations have been exceeded by far.”
Quality control is essential to MagCAD and Mr Magnier, and this aligns very well with the values of 3DPRINTUK. He explained: “MagCAD has a number of processes in place to ensure the level of quality we maintain is particularly high and it is great to see 3DPRINTUK also prioritise quality as much as we do. Every single component that is sold directly by us is tested before it is shipped. I am an engineer before anything else, so for me, the number one priority is quality and we will only supply something which we would be happy purchasing ourselves — and I am quite particular.”
Another area where MagCAD and 3DPRINTUK align is on lead times and delivery, according to Mr Magnier: “We try where possible to use the economy service from 3DPRINTUK. That helps us manage our cost of sales and allows them to manage their production schedule better. Through the economy service we can fulfil most non-stocked orders within two to three weeks. We will, however, use the express service when we are looking to develop new designs quickly or where demand for particular parts has far exceeded our expectations. With the express service we can often get a new design iteration from concept to testing within a few days, which is exceptional.”
Summing up the working partnership, he concluded: “We have always found the support received from the 3DPRINTUK team to be outstanding. We are able to share knowledge, ask technical questions and get prompt answers to queries. Business is two-way and it is critical that our expectations are aligned with the 3DPRINTUK team for a successful working partnership, which they are. Working with them is a pleasure and we are very excited to see where we can take the partnership in the near future.”