From 1+ Significant Resin Shipment Delays w/o notification

General Discussion
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I ordered 1L of Gray resin for my Form 1+ on Feb 20 along with a build platform and a new tank. While my tank and platform arrived a week later, the resin did not.

I had to lodge a support ticket to find out that the resin was back-ordered, and likely wouldn’t ship for at least another week, which means that I wouldn’t get it for at least two more weeks… a month from the original order.

I lost my client over this. If Form Labs had been more upfront about this issue, I could have either ordered a different color resin in stock, or resin from another 3rd party manufacturer.

Listen, I know that there can be production issues, but some of us are customers with critical supply chains and paths. When an order is placed, we rely on being told the truth and that FormLabs will ship the materials ordered on-time.

Now I know I cannot trust the FormLabs supply chain. I shouldn’t have lost an order worth thousands of dollars, simply because FormLabs is trying to downplay supply issues.

Sincerely,
Martin

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It’s even worse in the EU. We order resin and accessories, around a thousand € per month (Form2), and I get no notice that it either has been shipped or has been delayed (the web store doesn’t get updated) or sent in multiple packages. Suddenly I receive stuff out of nowhere, from a week to 4 after the order sometime even more.

Currently in my account I have two “ongoing” orders marked as shipped… i have an “order processed” on the 8th or march and “departure scan” on the 9th. Good. Except I already received these two orders, one was ordered on the 12th of December 17 and the other one on the 24th of October 17.

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Meanwhile, I was able to order from ApplyLabWork for 2L of resin ( Beige, Black ) which are known to work well with the Form 1+ and have been extensively tested on it.

Order payment to shipment? 24 hours. Arrival in 3 days.

Customer communication is NOT rocket science. It takes some attention to detail, and follow up. It means keeping track of actual inventory, and giving customers solid expectations of when a delivery will be.

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Not to mention you’re getting 2 liters of resin for less than the price of 1.

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I ordered 1L of Gray resin for my Form 1+ on Feb 20 along with a build platform and a new tank. While my tank and platform arrived a week later, the resin did not.

Did you order the resin in a bottle or a cartridge?

Formlabs have aid that they are withdrawing resin in bottles, but the same resins will continue to be available in cartridges.

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So one would assume that if you order the bottle and they’ve ran out it it in bottles but it’s still available in a cartridge, you would simply ship the cartridge with a note explaining that the bottles are out of stock, but the cartridge resin can simply be poured into the tank just as if it was from a bottle. Right?!

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this reminds me of the infamous toilet seat controversy.

Women think EVERYONE, out of consideration for others, should always put the seat back down after use.

Men counter that, sure- it would be NICE if everyone else ALWAYS did the thoughtful thing for the next person… but that if you utterly rely on OTHERS to watch out for YOUR ass- sooner or later, it is Going to get Wet.

Formlabs could absolutely up their game on customer service as regards consumables. I back your complaint 100%.
i’ve been waiting 3 months for 2 LT tanks… WTF?

But to the OP I have to say that if you rely on some other company you have no control over for your supply chain to the extent that a single missed order could lose you a client, you need to up your own game as regards anticipating what can go wrong.
What if Fed Ex had a plane crash? Would it be Fed Ex’s fault you lost a client?

Number one, You probably now realize you should keep a Supply of resin in stock capable of taking you thru several months of operation, just in case of a disruption.
Or- have alternate suppliers.

Secondly- running out of resin is no excuse for failure to deliver.
Having your printer stop working, like mine did, is no excuse.

When My printer had to be sent back in the middle of a job- I simply had to get an outside service bureau to run the prints for me.

Sure- it cost me all the profit on the job… but my client got what I promised he would get. And so he gave me the next job.

The advice I give all my apprentices is this: Clients only ever ask for one thing… that they can hand a problem they have to you and KNOW you will solve it. It doesn’t matter how you do it, only that you do it.

the contract you make is not for the profit the job might bring. Its to do the thing, whether you profit or not.

Every time Formlabs has to repair or replace a printer- they are sacrificing their profit to try and make good on a promise, even if it means they take a loss.

I do not mean this as criticism. It is the sage advice that I got when I was 25 that helped me be a success for over 35 years in a field in which it is difficult to succeed.

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To be frank, I do keep an inventory of stock for various resins. However, I also use a modality of “just in time” manufacturing for some materials, because I simply can’t afford to keep every single resin in stock just in case there might be a demand for it.

“Running out of resin is no excuse for failure to deliver.”

Sure. On the other hand, failure of the resin stock in storage is not in my control. I purchased and kept a stock of 2L of resin for this particular task. Even though the resin had not expired, it had yellowed and separated in the bottles, and FormLabs was not willing to exchange or replace the resins.

The advice is sage, and you simply didn’t have the full set of data to work your conclusion on. FormLabs needs to do a MUCH better job of informing people when they are making process changes

In this case, they could have just sent a bottle of grey resin in a cartridge tank. It would have done the job, and they failed to offer it as an option. Likewise, if they have a supply problem they need to immediately communicate that to customers that have orders.

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I ordered the Form 1+ resin in a bottle.

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I live in Colorado and have been using “Source Graphics” in LA. for Formlabs consumables. They tell you exactly what is in stock and often ship the same day. No special shipping and I can have resin at my door in 2-3 days.

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Here is the pertinent part of that announcement, as far as the OP’s issue is concerned:

So not only did they not have the bottled resin through the end of March as promised, but they didn’t bother to ship the cartridge in its place either.

So, FAIL & FAIL.

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