HP Opens New 150,000-Square-Foot Center of Excellence for 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing

Visit HP’s new 150,000-square-foot Center of Excellence to see how specialists from those companies collaborating with HP bring hands-on 3D printing and interactive demonstrations to life. This space opens doors to data-driven exploration, where used materials meet rapid prototyping and live demonstrations on campus.

Located in washington state, the campus expands HP’s reach with labs, classrooms and fabrication bays designed for real-world projects. Since opening last year, the center has brought together students and professionals, while photo-based workflows and scalable printers using robust technology demonstrate end-to-end production, from concept to finished part.

financial planning for the project emphasizes sustainability: energy-efficient systems, eco-friendly materials, and water-reuse streams that cut waste and cost. HP tracks data from every run to optimize throughput and reduce environmental impact, helping those groups building the ecosystem grow faster.

The effort draws those focused on scalable production, with collaboration that expands the center’s capabilities. HP brings together product teams, contract manufacturers and universities for ongoing projects that feed back into customer workflows, increasing speed to market for innovative parts and assemblies.

HP 3D Printing and Digital Manufacturing Center Initiative

Adopt a partner-led, phased rollout to accelerate time-to-market and leverage cross‑industry assets. The center opens new doors for co-funded projects with customers and suppliers and has been designed to operate within a living lab, where resources, data, and feedback loops drive iterative learning. The initiative incorporates basf materials and collaborating with industry partners to test products across industries, sectors, and applications.

Teams across disciplines are collaborating to validate performance under real conditions, helping assumptions about material availability and demand translate into concrete milestones.

The facility in washington and oregon coordinates programs with regional labs, customers, and universities; expands HP’s footprint and positions the center as one of the largest dedicated to 3D printing and digital manufacturing in the region.

• Scope and sectors: supports products across industries, including automotive, healthcare, life sciences, and agriculture irrigation components, covering sectors from prototyping to production.
• Materials and partnerships: incorporates basf materials and collaborates with key suppliers to expand performance and material options across polymers and metals.
• Operational design: features modular workcells, featured workflows, and a digital thread to improve engineering throughput and track part history from design to delivery.
• Resource model: opens resources to universities, startups, and regional manufacturers within a structured program that shares data while protecting IP.
• Assumptions and roadmap: leadership defines assumptions around supply chain and demand to guide quarterly milestones and ensure consistent performance improvements.
• Regional impact: active engagements in washington and oregon tie the center to local ecosystems, enabling some pilot programs that support life, irrigation, and other critical sectors.
• Strategic outcome: the initiative is designed to accelerate product iterations, reduce waste, and push the life-cycle performance of customer products.

Next steps: align three joint sprints with material trials, document performance metrics, and schedule site visits to deepen collaboration with regional partners in washington and oregon.

Facility footprint, architecture, and access to core laboratories

Position core laboratories at the facility heart to minimize staff travel and accelerate experimentation. The 150,000-square-foot footprint is organized into four zones connected by direct corridors, delivering better throughput across the center and enabling rapid optimization of workflows across projects.

The footprint allocates about 60,000 square feet to core laboratories and experimentation spaces, 45,000 square feet to design and engineering labs, 20,000 square feet to manufacturing and printing, and 25,000 square feet for safety, utilities, and shared services. This layout supports cross-disciplinary work across the campus and across projects, while last-mile access remains with operators and researchers.

The edificio-inspired façade blends glass and durable materials, framing a central courtyard with water features to improve comfort and reduce cooling loads. The environmental design targets efficient energy use through daylighting, heat recovery, and low-emission materials, while the BIM-driven construction sequence reduces waste and accelerates schedule. The architecture supports high performance spaces that can evolve with assumptions et projections about demand, and echoes a barcelona influence with a welcoming central atrium that invites spontaneous collaboration.

Access to core laboratories centers on a flexible spine: three primary corridors connect the lab bays to the center and to adjacent work zones. Clear sightlines, barrier-free transitions, and interactive wayfinding help researchers move swiftly between design, testing, and manufacturing. Secure but actif access ensures safety without slowing collaboration.

Placement on the HP campus enables cross-site collaboration with partners such as BASF and Oregon suppliers. The layout supports science breakthroughs by exposing teams to diverse inputs and enabling real-time data sharing. The plan incorporates projections for growth and defines potential impact through robust assumptions, while maintaining a focus on environmental stewardship and eau efficiency across facilities operations.

Printer fleet, materials, and testing capabilities

Adopt a three-tier printer fleet to accelerate design cycles and ensure reliable end-use parts. The rapid tier includes 24 high-throughput printers for quick prototypes; the mid-volume tier operates 12 production-grade units for functional testing; the end-use tier comprises 6 certified devices for final parts in healthcare and sanitary applications. This mix enables teams to move from concept to validated parts within days and minimizes handoffs between locations.

Anchor a centralized materials library with BASF partnerships to access medical-grade resins and durable polymers. Stock more than 20 polymers suitable for life sciences and sanitary devices, each with traceable lot records and ISO-aligned documentation. Those materials provide better solutions for critical applications while helping manage financial risk through standardized grades and reliable supplier onboarding that reduce variability across centers.

Establish in-house testing capabilities that cover mechanical, chemical, and sterilization performance. Implement tensile, flexural, and impact tests for material qualification; finish and dimensional metrology to verify part-to-CAD accuracy; and sterilization compatibility tests aligned with healthcare use cases. Maintain clear acceptance criteria for each part class and document uncertainties while updating assumptions as data accumulates to guide decisions.

Coordinate workflows across locations in washington, spain, singapore, and diego to ensure consistency and speed. The edificio hosts a centralized testing lab and a shared digital workflow that ties design, materials, and validation data to a single center system, enabling faster iterations at those centers and stronger alignment with life-cycle objectives that healthcare partners expect.

Plan investments with a focus on rapid, scalable manufacturing and traceable data management. Track total cost of ownership, supplier performance, and part performance in the field to validate that innovations deliver repeatable benefits in real-world life-cycle scenarios, while keeping a clear eye on uncertainties and assumptions that influence financial planning and long-term center growth. Ensure every part made for healthcare and sanitary applications passes rigorous testing before mass production, and maintain a transparent record of outcomes across the global locations, including spain, singapore, washington, and diego, to support continuous improvement and better solutions.

Digital manufacturing workflows: design-to-production and data-driven optimization

Adopt a unified design-to-production workflow that binds CAD, simulation, topology optimization, and MES in an agile loop, using a single source of truth to cut design-to-production cycles by up to 30% in the first six months and boost production performance.

Place the initial line in oregon, edificio A, to test space-efficient layouts and fast iteration at a strategic location while validating the value of a compact footprint for scalable growth and defined production size.

This expands the capability by integrating data streams from CAD, PLM, CAM, MES, and shop-floor sensors, bringing together design, process parameters, materials, and production data to drive optimization and continuous improvement.

The workflow emphasizes materials and process technologies: maintain a materials library that includes polymers and metal alloys, align process windows with certification requirements, and track sanitary handling for components in regulated sectors. Keep photo documentation of each build to support traceability. Photo-based QC checks, inline measurements, and traceability data shrink risk and improve performance while keeping a compact footprint.

Layouts favor modular, scalable stations such as columns of machines that can be reconfigured quickly to support new parts or materials, optimizing space and layouts. This approach applies across locations, including eco-friendly layouts with natural daylight, energy-efficient printers, and recycled-material enclosures, and it can transform the environmental footprint of the edificio while maintaining sanitary standards.

Industry focus areas and practical use cases (automotive, aerospace, healthcare, consumer electronics)

Launch three rapid prototyping programs focused on automotive, aerospace, and consumer electronics within california to shorten time-to-market and cut tooling costs by up to 40%.

Automotive programs target three core parts: a lightweight battery-bracket, a high‑aero air-duct with lattice cooling, and a modular interior fixture system. The center uses HP technology to print reinforced polymers and natural fiber composites, delivering eco-friendly components with a smaller footprint. Expect 12–20% weight reductions, 2–3x faster iterations, and tooling-cost savings of 30–40% versus traditional tooling. Within the california facilities, validate tolerances to ±0.15 mm under real-world vibration and thermal tests, and accelerate co-development with Gimenez Engineering and Cugat to reduce uncertainties across systems. This approach enables better integration with next-gen powertrains and consumer interfaces while streamlining the last mile of production.

Aerospace initiatives cover lightweight fixtures for assembly lines and cabin components. Use high-temperature nylons and metal-coated composites to meet flight-safety benchmarks, achieving first articles in 8–12 days and 3–4x faster cycle times. Target 25–35% cost savings while preserving full traceability through digital twins and an end-to-end systems approach. Collaborate across worlds of manufacturing to align location-based capabilities with certification pathways, ensuring resilience against uncertainties such as supply delays and weather. The focus remains on reducing the overall footprint while maintaining strict quality controls for aerospace readiness.

Healthcare applications emphasize patient-specific anatomical models, surgical guides, and customized prosthetics. Choose biocompatible polymers and natural fillers to balance sterility and eco-friendly goals. Pilot studies show 15–30% reductions in operating-room time and 20% improvements in guide-fit accuracy when digital workflows drive rapid iteration. Co-development with hospitals and clinics aligns clinical needs with engineering cycles, shortening time to deployment while supporting regulatory approvals. The california location benefits partnerships with research centers, and the engineering team mitigates rain-driven variability with controlled environments and robust data governance.

Consumer electronics focus on enclosures, housings, and modular components for wearables and handheld devices. Implement batch runs of 100–1,000 units to validate form, fit, and user experience, and accelerate CAD-to-prototype timelines by 50–60% through next technologies. Material choices emphasize eco-friendly polymers with natural finishes, while durability is tested with accelerated drop and thermal cycles. The co-development model with consumer brands strengthens the supply chain at the location, enabling three to four product cycles per year and a reduced footprint across the product lifecycle. The approach supports rapid updates to competing devices and reduces time to market in a dynamic consumer environment.

Collaboration models, pilots, and local ecosystem engagement in Barcelona

Launch a three-month pilot in Barcelona that pairs local manufacturers with the new facility to co-develop scalable software-driven solutions.

Adopt three collaboration models to fit Barcelona’s mix of established factory ecosystems and agile startups: a cross-sector consortium linking suppliers, universities, and municipal agencies; an open-innovation lab inside the 22@ district that runs pilots across locations; and a regional testing corridor that moves from Sant Cugat to other hubs, with clear go/no-go gates.

Design pilots around advanced manufacturing and digital workflows, using shared software platforms, standardized data models, and environmental testing rigs.

Engage the Barcelona local ecosystem by coordinating with spain’s tech councils, Sant Cugat and 22@ district business associations, universities, and existing industry groups; align the effort with spain’s environmental and industrial goals and secure resources from existing regional funds. Also explore partnerships with California-based suppliers for advanced components.

Establish governance: a steering committee that includes facility leadership, major local manufacturers, and university partners; set goals for throughput, defect rates, and energy use; pursue certification pathways for additive manufacturing and quality assurance; require financial planning and milestone reviews.

Add risk controls for weather patterns such as rain, ensure access to multiple locations, keep doors open to collaboration from doors to doors of partner facilities and suppliers; plan to scale across the largest Barcelona-area facilities and additional locations.