Made In Brooklyn No More: 3-D Printing Company MakerBot To Move Manufacturing To China

Just two weeks after announcing the unloading of over 25 percent of their Industry City office and manufacturing space, MakerBot — the 3-D printing company that took Brooklyn and then the world by storm — has revealed that they are also going to move its entire U.S. manufacturing operation to China.

The somewhat-surprising move comes as a disappointment to MakerBot’s U.S. born-U.S. made narrative, but spokesperson Johan Broer explained to Technicailly Brooklyn that the decision came down to cost.

“Manufacturing in Brooklyn is expensive,” Broer told them. “3D printing is an emerging market and as such is very volatile, and we saw that particularly last year. . . It’s a very competitive market, a global market, and saving costs will make us more competitive.”

The decision will likely lead to the laying off of an undisclosed amount of employees.

CEO Jonathan Jaglom agreed to the sentiment in a press release.

Jaglom and Broer said the move will save the company money and add flexibility, in large part by laying off its higher cost American workers. MakerBot will transition the work of manufacturing its printers out of house, to the American company Jabil, which operates plants in China.

“This will allow us to scale up or down,” Broer said. “They can easily add a line or a couple lines and that’s not possible for us with our own factory.” See also: Apple and Foxconn.

The change explains how MakerBot will be retaining a presence in its Downtown Brooklyn office space, which houses its administrative departments, while leaving a bare bones presence in Industry City, which focuses on manufacturing.

These changes also comes after the 2013 sale of MakerBot to Stratasys, whose CEO, Jaglom, apparently has a track record of being open to manufacturing in Asia.