Roboze Opens New Headquarters, Eyes Medical 3D Printing

Roboze has always been known for its 3D printers’ abilities to print with high-performance materials, and it impressed the 3D printing community in the fall at formnext, when it introduced the ARGO 500. The new industrial 3D printer is capable of printing with a wide range of materials including PEEK, ULTEM, Carbon PA, and Carbon PEEK, a new Roboze creation consisting of PEEK filled with carbon fiber. The introduction of the ARGO 500 gave Roboze a lot of momentum going into 2018, and that momentum has just kept on going for the Italian company.

Roboze has just moved into new headquarters located in Bari, Italy, in an industrial complex that is hope to several major multinational corporations. The new building is furnished with open space design offices, an R&D Laboratory and a Demo & Applications Center for the development and implementation of the company’s 3D printing and advanced materials technology. With the new facility, Roboze plans to quadruple production and expand the assembly and testing areas of its 3D printers.

The new headquarters sounds like a pretty nice place to work, too, with relaxation rooms and other features designed to maximize employee satisfaction. If you’re interested in working at Roboze, incidentally, now is the time to apply – the company plans to hire 40 new employees by the end of 2018, and 60 in 2019. Roboze currently has 25 employees with an average age of 30, with 80% of them being engineering graduates, and half of the staff is dedicated to research and development.

Roboze opened its first office in the United States last year, and has since expanded further into the US with a new location in Chicago. It will house Roboze applications engineers and marketing managers who will work on boosting the company’s presence in the US market.

All of this additional space is greatly needed, as Roboze builds approximately 30% of its 3D printers’ components in-house.

“Our machines are completely designed by Roboze,” said Founder and CEO Alessio Lorusso. “We write the software language, design the user interface, and manufacture our extrusion heads in-house. All this know-how under one roof, allows us to respond quickly and stay at the top of our industry when technologies or markets change. Investing in production technologies also increases our experience and opens up new opportunities. Our goal isn’t to produce the most machines, but rather to produce the best machines in the world.”

Roboze has always had its sights set on the industrial market, but with all of its expansion comes a new focus: medicine. A new division will be created that will focus on the medical technology sector; the company’s expertise in PEEK will help to meet the demand for PEEK applications in medicine. Roboze has already laid out the groundwork for six research and development projects involving new 3D printing technologies and materials designed to create and improve medical applications with less invasive and more cost-effective procedures.

Roboze has also received approval for a €1.3 million project in partnership with the University of Salento, CNR and the San Raffaele Hospital. The project will involve the development of a 3D bioprinter for the printing of scaffolds in compatible and implantable biomaterials.

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[Images: Roboze]