DISPLAY MODELS

Bringing Hatchery Technology to Life: An Interactive Sales Model

How multi-colour 3D printing made industrial machinery easier to understand.

For complex industrial products, a digital rendering can show what a machine looks like, but a physical model can make its design and functionality much easier to understand. 3D printing bridges the gap between complex engineering and effective sales communication, turning detailed digital designs into tangible tools that customers can explore, handle, and understand. For sales teams presenting sophisticated equipment, a custom 3D printed model can provide a portable, engaging way to demonstrate value and explain intricate systems without relying solely on drawings, screens, or full-scale equipment.

Technology

FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)

Material

PLA (Polylactic Acid)

Size

300 x 300 x 200 mm

THE CHALLENGE

Selling large-scale industrial equipment often requires customers to understand far more than the exterior appearance of the machine. For our customer, the hatchery incubator contains sophisticated internal systems, including modular ventilation, egg trolley racking, and controlled airflow, that are difficult to communicate when the equipment itself is too large to bring into a typical sales meeting.

The sales team was relying on CAD renderings, 2D brochures, and physical factory tours to help prospective buyers understand the incubator’s design and operation. While these methods could communicate important information, they did not provide a convenient, hands-on way for customers to explore the machine’s internal layout and see how its different systems work together.

The customer needed a portable physical representation of the incubator that could travel with their sales representatives and make the machine easier to understand anywhere in the world. The model also needed to capture the level of detail found in the full-scale equipment, giving prospective buyers a clear view of both the exterior design and the complex engineering inside.

Scaled Down Complex CAD Geometry: Transformed the full-scale incubator CAD files into a compact desktop model while preserving the key structural and engineering details needed for customer demonstrations.
Recreated Internal Systems: Modeled the internal ventilation fans, trolley racking, and environmental control components so prospective buyers could see and understand the machinery beyond its sealed exterior.
Engineered a Removable Roof: Designed the model with a removable roof section, giving sales representatives immediate access to the internal systems during demonstrations without compromising the appearance of the assembled model.
Integrated Multi-Color Printing: Used multi-color FDM printing to reproduce the incubator’s white paneling, grey framework, blue ventilation components, and control interfaces directly into the model, eliminating the need for manual painting.

why it worked

A physical model gave our customer’s sales team something digital renderings could not: a tangible, interactive way to explain complex engineering. By scaling the incubator down to a portable desktop format while retaining its key internal systems, we created a demonstration tool that allowed prospective buyers to physically see how the ventilation, racking, and environmental controls fit together. This made a highly sophisticated piece of industrial equipment easier to understand, demonstrate, and remember during a sales conversation.

Our expertise in CAD optimization, detailed model design, and multi-color 3D printing allowed us to preserve the details that mattered most without creating an unnecessarily complex or expensive model. The removable roof provided direct access to the internal components, while multi-color printing clearly separated the major systems without requiring manual painting. The result was a professional, portable sales asset that accurately represented the full-scale incubator and gave our customer a practical way to bring their product into sales meetings anywhere in the world.

Where a model like this fits

Physical models are especially valuable when a product’s scale, internal systems, or engineering complexity are difficult to communicate through traditional sales materials. 3D printing makes it possible to create portable, highly detailed product models that give sales teams a tangible way to demonstrate how sophisticated equipment works. From industrial machinery to engineered systems, these models can turn complex product features into clear, engaging demonstrations that help customers understand the value of what they are buying.