Solid Concepts

Solid Concepts, Inc. is a custom manufacturing company engaged in engineering, manufacturing, production, and prototyping. The company is headquartered in Valencia, California, in the Los Angeles County area, with six other facilities located around the United States. Solid Concepts is an additive manufacturing service provider as well as a major manufacturer of business products, aerospace, unmanned systems, medical equipment and devices, foundry cast patterns, industrial equipment and design, and transportation parts.

The company was founded in 1991, in the birthplace of Stereolithography. The company derives its name from its original focus on rapid prototyping through 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) with the idea that virtual concepts can be printed into solid reality, as the technologies that founded the company are capable of directly reading CAD data and creating parts. Solid Concepts markets its products under its main name, as well as under the website-only offshoot company called ZoomRP.com. The Solid Concepts logo originally featured layered lines comprising a "S" beside a "C" to represent layered manufacturing, but has since removed the layered lines, in order to better represent its composite, urethane, and tooling capabilities.

Solid Concepts Inc. was founded by former 3D Systems engineers Joe Allison, Schuyler Mitchell, and Ray Bradford in 1991. The company began with two SLA-250 Stereolithography machines. They moved into CNC machining, Selective Laser Sintering, and composites within a few years after opening, and have since gained PolyJet, Z-Corp 3D Colored Printing, Fused Deposition Modeling, Direct Metal Laser Sintering, urethanes and tooling and injection molding processes. Solid Concepts expanded throughout the United States, especially during the late 1990s early 2000s, opening facilities in Austin, TX, during the rise of Selective Laser Sintering; Poway, CA, during significant advances in Urethane technology with a strong focus on medical equipment; and Phoenix, AZ.