For Robotech, 3D printing has enabled significant cost savings, agile experimentation, and more efficient production. For their end customers, the benefits of 3D printing can be seen in, among other things, faster robots that reduce manufacturing costs and time.
Text updated on September 25, 2025
The benefits collaboration has brought to Robotech:
✔️ 3D printing makes manufacturing more cost-effective.
✔️ Robots are more productive when the manufacturing method does not limit design.
✔️ The end customer gets a more efficient and productive device – a win-win situation for all.
✔️ Cooperation with 3D Formtech is seamless and value-adding.
Robotech Oy is a company founded in 2017 that creates turnkey solutions for its customers using robotics and automation.
The collaboration between 3D Formtech and Robotech dates back to before Robotech was founded, as Robotech’s CEO and founding member, Pasi Kapiainen, had already accumulated years of experience in 3D printing during his career.
Robotics is a field where it is vital to be at the forefront of technological development; you must be among the first to adopt new technologies and find innovative solutions. In this regard, 3D printing offers countless possibilities not restricted by old formulas.
3D printing enables lightness and complex structures
In the world of robotics, the challenge is the weight of the tool or gripper carried by the robot, which reduces the robot’s payload. According to Kapiainen, optimising the gripper’s mass is the key, and 3D printing is an excellent solution for this.
“The first thing we noticed was that by printing plastic, we were able to create interesting and lighter structures,” Kapiainen says of his experiments with 3D printing.
“We quickly realized that 3D printing could also be used to replace other parts. Today, we make structures so complex that they allow air to pass through them and, in some cases, even electrical wires inside the structure. Electrical connectors, for example, can also be integrated into the structure,” he continues.
In addition, 3D printing makes it possible to replace and combine several different components into a single printable entity.
“In the past, similar integrations were done in various ways by assembling different components – sometimes a component was machined from plastic, other times frame structures were made from aluminium, and parts were screwed together. Then hoses and cables were added,” Kapiainen says and goes on to explain:
“With the old technology, there could be 40 parts in a gripper, whereas with 3D printing, a similar entity can be made today with just ten components.”
Efficiency in both robots’ functionality and the development process
Lighter and more complex 3D prints also significantly improve the functioning and efficiency of the finished robot.
“If the gripper weighed one kilogram using the old technology, it has been reduced to a third of that weight when printed in plastic. This, in turn, has a significant impact on the robot’s performance – when the components do not limit the robot’s speed, a lighter robot can run faster and handle heavier products,” Kapiainen explains.
What is particularly important to them is the speed and cost-effectiveness of printing, which also enables agile experimentation and continuous development – with 3D Formtech, a new print can be obtained in as little as a day, whereas with the old technology, you would have had to wait several weeks for a new component.
Furthermore, 3D printing enables more freedom in design.
“During the design phase, we can add the company logo as an embossed image to various components. Then it will be visible to the customer, for example, on the side of a production line or on a machine part,” Kapiainen adds.
3D printing expands the range of possibilities
The high-quality equipment and versatile, durable materials used by 3D Formtech have enabled Robotech to use 3D printing extensively. This has brought cost efficiency and even savings in areas where other manufacturing methods would have increased costs.
At Robotech, for example, special attention is paid to design, which is evident in the rounded edges of the printed parts. In 3D printing, a well-designed shape can reduce costs instead of adding to them, as less raw material is used. At the same time, the manufacturing possibilities in 3D printing are considerably more diverse.
“With the old technology, such fine-tuning would have cost a lot more, which is why it would have had to be left out altogether,” Kapiainen notes.
In 3D printing, optimization is easy not just in design, but in other ways as well.
“All kinds of optimization, whether in terms of weight, appearance, or usability, is one of the reasons we like to use 3D printing,” Kapiainen sums up.
Cooperation with 3D Formtech is always reliable
Kapiainen describes 3D Formtech as an excellent and reliable partner. For Robotech, speed, accuracy, and quality are the most important factors in 3D printing, and 3D Formtech meets all three.
“For us, the prints’ reproduction accuracy is important, meaning the components’ dimensions are to scale. Security of supply and keeping to schedules are also important. These are the reasons why we’re satisfied with 3D Formtech,” Kapiainen says.
Although 3D printing has enabled significant cost savings, money was not the decisive factor for Robotech when choosing a partner.
“The fact that we can trust the job to be done is definitely the most important thing. At times, 3D Formtech’s service has been absolutely incredible: when we’ve been in a hurry and noticed that a part is missing, we’ve sent the print file with our requirements to 3D Formtech, and in the best cases, they’ve stopped all other work to get the package to us quickly. I really appreciate that,” says Kapiainen.
“We have great cooperation and it will definitely continue. Together we make better machines,” Kapiainen summed up in an interview in 2020 – and as he predicted, our cooperation is still going on.