Case Study: Jamco America achieves rapid, cost-effective aircraft cabin prototyping with MakerBot METHOD

Elevating Commercial Aircraft Cabin Design With 3D Printing

Jamco America, an aircraft interiors company in Everett, Washington that supplies premium seating and cabin furnishings to Boeing and Airbus, faced long lead times and high costs for prototype parts—their industrial printers were in Tokyo or parts had to be outsourced for weeks at hundreds of dollars per part, and an earlier entry‑level printer failed to meet quality needs. To speed iteration and meet tight deadlines, Jamco America adopted the MakerBot METHOD industrial 3D printer for on‑site prototyping.

Using MakerBot METHOD (with a Circulating Heated Build Chamber, MakerBot Tough material and water‑soluble MakerBot PVA supports), Jamco began printing functional, complex parts such as dual latches and long extrusions after a simple plug‑and‑play setup. The in‑house MakerBot solution cut lead times from about 30 days to 1 day and reduced part cost from roughly $350 to $14 (example: a mechanical compartment latch printed in 25 hours for $14), while improving accuracy and enabling rapid ergonomic testing and multiple iterations.

Jamco America

John Cornell

Manager of Product Research & Development