Used to manage real 3D printing operations since 2020, SimplyPrint lets automotive engineering teams run supported FDM printers across 130+ brands in one interface, with the single sign-on, access control and audit log their IT department requires.
In a car company, 3D printing is one small workflow in a giant operation
It's rarely a farm shipping product. It's dozens of cheap desktop printers scattered across R&D, tooling and plant-floor teams, quietly making jigs, fixtures, prototypes and spares. The machines are cheap; the governance around them - access, IP, standard profiles, cost visibility, audit - is where the real work is. That gap is what SimplyPrint fills.
Distributed & cheap
Printers spread across teams, labs and sites - not one central farm.
Multi-brand by default
Plants buy whatever's cheapest and fastest, so the fleet is mixed.
Mostly tooling & prototypes
Jigs, fixtures, fit checks and spares - not production part numbers.
IP-sensitive
CAD and print files are the crown jewels - who touches them matters.
Trusted by industrial manufacturers and engineering teams worldwide
Started prints
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One identity system across plants, labs and offices
Keep each facility's printers, files, members and local settings separate while central administrators manage the automotive group through one Enterprise organisation.
Distinct operating locations
Model plants, engineering labs and offices as separate locations, then switch across them without flattening every team into one workspace.
Shared or local SSO
Use the main organisation's SAML or OIDC provider across locations, with a location-specific provider where local policy requires it.
Route users from identity data
Map values from a SAML attribute or OIDC claim to one or more locations and place users there when they sign in.
Pooled or separate billing
Share printer and user capacity under consolidated billing, or connect a location to its own Enterprise subscription while keeping central management and SSO.
3D printing automotive parts, from tooling to spares
The workflows that put desktop printers on the floor - and the parts of SimplyPrint that keep them governed. Every figure below is third-party industry data, attributed to its source.
Jigs, fixtures & assembly-line tooling
The workhorse: low-cost polymer aids that hold, locate, guide and gauge parts on the line. It's where the printer count and the clearest payback sit - and it's the exact desktop tier SimplyPrint manages.
Industry data: Volkswagen's Autoeuropa plant reported cutting tool-development costs by 91% with roughly a two-month payback after moving jig and fixture production onto a handful of desktop printers (UltiMaker case study). At Ford's Sharonville transmission plant, two technicians running retail Prusa and LulzBot desktop machines are documented saving over $1 million across four years on line-side aids (Additive Manufacturing Media).
In SimplyPrint: put every desktop machine on one dashboard, group them by line or building, share one approved slicer profile across the team, and drive shop-floor Display Screens that show what's printing next.
Rapid prototyping
Fit and function checks, ergonomics and interior mockups. Every engineering team touches it - it's the on-ramp that seeds printers across R&D and design.
Industry data: Toyota has shown functional prototypes going from concept to part in a single day using in-house additive manufacturing (Stratasys). That speed only holds when every engineer can prep a file without a local slicer install.
In SimplyPrint: slicing runs in the browser on the PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio engines, on any device - a Chromebook included - using profiles you manage centrally. Nothing for IT to package or push to laptops.
Low-volume & end-use parts
Brackets, trim, EV-specific and small-series components, plus bridge parts before hard tooling exists.
Industry data: BMW's Additive Manufacturing Campus reports producing more than 1.6 million components since 2020, with tens of thousands more printed each year at its vehicle plants (BMW Group). Honest scope: most of that distributed, plant-floor volume is the polymer desktop/FDM tier - the tier we manage, not metal series production.
In SimplyPrint: a shared queue routes each job to a compatible, available printer, while per-user statistics and full job history keep a distributed operation accountable.
Spare & legacy parts (digital inventory)
On-demand replacement of parts too rare or too old to stock or re-tool.
Industry data: Porsche Classic keeps roughly 52,000 parts for vintage models and 3D-prints rare ones on demand rather than tooling or warehousing them (Porsche Newsroom).
In SimplyPrint: your file library, queue and job history together become a digital parts catalog - every on-demand print recorded with who ran it, when, and what it cost.
Motorsport & R&D
Not high printer-count for us, but the story that carries the whole IP argument: iterate fast while the data stays secret.
Industry data: an F1 aerodynamics program can consume hundreds of additively-made parts a week from a small team (reported for teams such as Alpine F1) - relentless iteration where the aero data is the crown jewels.
In SimplyPrint: granular permissions decide who can even see a file, an IP allow-list and approved-device rules keep printing inside your network, and a full audit log records every action for the security team.
The answers your security team asks for
In automotive, the security questionnaire usually arrives before the conversation does. These are the answers - ready in the product, not on a slide.
Single sign-on
SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect: Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, Okta, Keycloak, Auth0 and any standards-compliant provider. SCIM provisioning included, and IdP groups map to SimplyPrint user groups automatically.
Learn moreEnforced 2FA
Require two-factor authentication for every member. Anyone without it is locked out of the panel until they enrol - account owners stay exempt so nobody locks themselves out.
IP allow-list & approved devices
Restrict access by IP or CIDR range, require approved devices, or combine both. Choose exactly what's blocked off-network, from the whole panel down to just starting a print - so printing only works from inside your building or VPN.
Full audit log with export
Every security-relevant action in the account: who did what, when, and from which IP. Filter by user, category or date range, and export it for compliance reviews.
170+ granular permissions
Build user groups with exactly the rights each team needs - from who may start a print to who may change a slicer profile or even see a file. Give contractors temporary access that expires on a date you set.
Learn moreDPA signing
Sign a data processing agreement inside the product - no email back-and-forth. Custom DPAs for bespoke requirements via [email protected].
99.9% uptime SLA
A contractual 99.9% monthly uptime commitment on the web dashboard and API, with service credits if we miss it. Uptime is tracked publicly on our status page.
Learn moreFamiliar with TISAX
TISAX is the information-security assessment most automotive suppliers are asked to pass. We're not TISAX-certified - but the controls it looks for are exactly what's above: SSO, enforced 2FA, access restriction, a full audit trail, a signed DPA and EU data residency. Formal alignment is on our roadmap, and we're happy to walk your security team through where we stand today.
Security controls and infrastructure certifications for global automotive organisations. Choose managed cloud or discuss a custom self-hosted Enterprise deployment.
Certifications & standards Security practicesWe'll walk your IT and security teams through every control.
One neutral platform for your supported FDM printers
Mixed hardware is the automotive reality - plants buy whatever's cheapest and fastest. SimplyPrint supports FDM printers from 130+ brands and 610+ models in one account, including the retail desktop machines plants often buy: Prusa, Bambu Lab, LulzBot, UltiMaker, Creality and more. We don't sell printers, so we've no reason to lock you to one.
Printer-tied tools only manage their maker's machines. A neutral control layer manages compatible models across brands - grouped by site or building, behind the same SSO, permissions and audit trail.
Check your printersEvery print costed, every job on record
Every ROI story in automotive additive manufacturing is a cost-per-part story. SimplyPrint calculates the cost of each print - material, machine time and your own rates - so a department chargeback or a utilisation review is a filter and an export, not a spreadsheet exercise.
Because job history and the audit log record who printed what, when, and from where, your file library plus the queue becomes a digital parts catalog with provenance - the same record an auditor or an export-control officer would ask to see.
See statistics & cost tracking
A predictable base plan with room to grow
The Enterprise base price includes 10 printers and 10 seats, together with SSO, enforced 2FA, IP allow-listing, audit-log export, a DPA and the hosted-service 99.9% SLA. Add paid printer and seat capacity as the organisation grows, with the included capacity and expansion pricing visible to procurement.
One plan, from $299/month for the account.
Book a demo and we'll walk your IT and security teams through it, or start the free 14-day trial and send procurement the paperwork after.
Book a demo See all plansPart of SimplyPrint for enterprise - the full picture on SSO, audit, DPA and the 99.9% SLA. See the enterprise platform
SimplyPrint isn't only for automotive - it also runs print farms, schools and OEM fleets with supported FDM printers from 130+ brands and 610+ models. Check your printers.
Book a demo
Pick a time and we'll walk you and your IT team through SimplyPrint - controls first, printers second.