State of the Art of Makerspaces - Success Criteria When Designing Makerspaces for Norwegian Industrial Companies

Abstract

For supporting the selection of the setup of a new makerspace in Molde, Norway, a pre-study was conducted on the state-of-the-art of makerspaces in Norway and beyond. Data includes: observations and interviews at 13 makerspaces visits in Norway, Denmark and the US, interviews with 11 future users and 1 questionnaire (N=25) answered by members of 8 international makerspace communities.

Full text

Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
2212-8271 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 6th CIRP Conference on Learning Factories
doi: 10.1016/j.procir.2016.05.069
ScienceDirect
6th CLF - 6th CIRP Conference on Learning Factories
State of the Art of Makerspaces - Success Criteria when Designing
Makerspaces for Norwegian Industrial Companies
Matilde Bisballe Jensena*, Carl Christian Sole Semba, Sjur Vindalb, Martin Steinerta
aThe Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Institute of Engineering Design and Materials, Richard Birkelands Vei 2B,7491 Trondheim, Norway
bProtoMore, Britvegen 4, 6410 Molde, Norway
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 2992 9085. E-mail address: matilde.jensen@ntnu.no
Abstract
For supporting the selection of the setup of a new makerspace in Molde, Norway, a pre-study was conducted on the state-of-the-art of
makerspaces in Norway and beyond. Data includes: observations and interviews at 13 makerspaces visits in Norway, Denmark and the US,
interviews with 11 future users and 1 questionnaire (N=25) answered by members of 8 international makerspace communities.
Besides identifying the state-of-the-art of makerspaces concerning Tools, Workspace design, Target group, Business models, Roles and
Activities, User profiles and Stories we determined key parameters to consider when designing and evaluating a new makerspace. These covers:
Activity and Usage, Creating a Community Feeling, and finally to what extend the makerspace manage to educate novel users in the literacies
of a makerspace. In general, our paper contributes with applicable knowledge on implementation of prototype-driven behavior.
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 6th CIRP Conference on Learning Factories.
Keywords: makerspaces; prototypes; rapid prototyping; tools
1.Introduction
In a world where the ability to make rapid changes and
where time to market is a key to success, companies need to
look at agile methods as rapid prototyping to speed up their
innovation process [1]. The Arena project iKuben and the
innovation company Molde Kunnskapspark (MKP) are
developing a new makerspace with a focus on rapid
prototyping for the industrial companies, who are members of
the iKuben cluster in Norway. The companies are primarily
providers of services, components and advanced systems in
the maritime sector and oil and gas sector. To secure the
relevance of such makerspace a need for deeper
understanding of such companies and as well as an
investigation of how the traditional makerspaces are working
today was identified and approached. What could be re-used
when developing a makerspace for industrial companies and
what are the success criteria for future evaluation of the newly
opened space ProtoMore.
Ikuben and MKP have since the summer 2015 visited and
interviewed a range of Norwegian and international
makerspaces in addition to interviewing industrial companies.
These data have been the base for how iKuben and MKP have
developed their makerspace, ProtoMore. Even though the pre-
study was conducted with the focus of designing a
makerspace in Molde the findings are relevant for anybody
who are considering building up a makerspace or considering
implementing rapid-prototyping methods into existing
Learning Factories. Hence this paper present findings from
the initial research as well as discuss some of the identified
topics when it comes to relevance for industrial companies.
2.Setting up the data acquisition
The strategy of this work has been highly grounded in the
theory of triangulation which main aim is to get a more
detailed and balanced picture of the situation [2]. The
situation in this case has been the state of makerspaces and
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientifi c committee of the 6th CIRP Conference on Learning Factories

66 Matilde Bisballe Jensen et al. / Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
maker cultures in our aim to build up our own makerspace for
industrial companies in Molde as well as understanding the
future users of this makerspace. Moreover [3]’s definition of
levels of cultures, which consist of artifacts, espoused values
and underlying assumptions has been utilized. Especially
artifacts and values has had an particular foucs since they are
defined by the physical manifestations, which are seen and
observed in the open such as language, routines, sensibilities,
tools, stories and styles.
The research started with the conduction of 13 semi-
structured interviews at 13 makerspaces in Norway and
abroad. Beforehand an interview guide was made with
predefined closed questions, but also allowed open question in
order to establish room for unpredictable findings. The 13
interviewees all had the role of daily managers of the
respective makerspaces. The analysis of the interviews was
done through a cross-case analysis [4]. First relevant artifacts
related to the shared repertoire of the specific maker
communities were defined. These topics ended up being:
Tools, Workspace design, Target group, Business models,
Roles and Activities, User profiles and Stories.
To support findings from the interviews and to get insights
from other stakeholders using makerspaces a questionnaire
was answered by 25 active members of maker communities
all over the world. The questionnaire contained 6 more open-
ended questions such as; What makes a good makerspace?,
How can one facilitate creativity?
Finally, to meet the needs of future users 11 semi-
structured interviews were conducted with workers from the
iKuben cluster.
Below the reader is provided with an overview of the data
foundation (Table 1).
Table 1. The Data Foundation
Stakeholder Research Method
Makerspaces in Norway, Denmark, and the
US;
1.FIX Makerspace - DIGS (NO)
2.MESH (NO)
3.Bitraf (NO)
4.Teknoteket Makerspace(NO)
5.Fellesverkstedet (NO)
6.Hackeriet (NO)
7.TrollLabs (NO)
8.Radicand Labs (US)
9.d.school + PRL (US)
10.TechShop (US)
11.AutoDesk (US)
12.Teknologisk Institut (DK)
13.Re
p
ublikken
(
DK
)
Semi-structured
Interviews (N=13)
Users of different Makerspaces in Norway,
Germany, Netherlands and the US
A questionnaire of
9 qualitative
questions (N=25)
Future users of ProtoMore; Representatives
of 11 companies from the iKuben Cluster Semi-structured
interviews (N=11)
3.Analysis & Findings
In this section the mapping of the makerspaces in relation
to the 5 overall topics; Tools, Workspace design, Target
group, Business models, Roles and Activities, User profiles
and Stories is presented. When necessary the categories of
each topic will be described followed by the results from the
13 different makerspaces. The analysis will be supported by
the observations in the makerspaces as well as findings from
the questionnaire and the iKuben company interviews.
3.1.Which Tools were most dominant
Table 2. Total count of machines in the 13 different Makerspaces
Machine/Tool Total
3D printer 11/13
Laser cutter 10/13
Mechatronics 9/13
CNC mill 9/13
Vinyl cutter 7/13
Sewing machine 6/13
Lathe 6/13
Welding 5/13
Foundry 5/13
Wood-working 5/13
3D scanner 4/13
Printing 3/13
Table 2 shows that the 3D printer, the laser cutter,
mechatronics and the CNC mill were the most dominant rapid
prototyping machines. These tools were also mentioned as
essential tools 15 out of 25 times in the questionnaire.
However, nothing proves whether these tools were used
simply because of their presence or whether they supported
the user needs in the most optimal way. Additionally, simpler
hand tools are also mentioned as important both in the
questionnaire answers and in the interviews at the
makerspaces. This covers drilling machines, hammer, files,
jigsaw etc. moreover, a short distance to nearby building
shops were mentioned by the iKuben companies to be an
advantage. Shopping tools and materials online were simply
too slow in terms of delivery time.
In relation to [5] one of the cornerstones of a communities
is the agreement of a Joint Enterprise. In this study the tools
became essential in defining the Joint Enterprise of a
makerspace since they are essential for the Joint Enterprise of
building and making. Interestingly the size of tools almost
served as annual rings of a tree. The bigger wood- and
metalworking machines were usually acquired after the space
had grown a solid user foundation and hence been running for
several years.
3.2.The style and functions of the Workspace
Table 3. Workspaces of the Makerspaces
Functionality Total
Machine Workshop 12/13
Event Space 10/13
Co-working space 7/13
Café Area 5/13

67
Matilde Bisballe Jensen et al. / Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Quiet Zones 3/13
Table 3 illustrates the mapping of workspaces of the 13
makerspaces. Certain furniture seemed to be common
denominators for the different areas such as office furniture
and white boards for co-working spaces, higher and smaller
tables in the workshop area, sofas and cafe tables in the cafe
areas, a stage in the event space and smaller soundproof
rooms such as the ”phone booth” at Radicand for quiet
spaces. Moreover, the overall mood of the workspace design
had a rough industrial attitude to it. Some furniture was laser
cut, made of old pallets or had origins from older machining
factories. It seems, as the mind-set of a makerspace does not
go well with polished and white surroundings, but instead
rough and colorful spaces. Most furniture was put on wheels
so that rooms quickly could be transformed into whatever
configuration needed.
A big challenge in the machine workshop areas was to
keep things tidy. It was a particular challenge when the users
of the space do not work in the space on a regular basis, but
are more sporadic. Several different solutions on how to
manage the space and make sure everything were put back
into place were identified. An extreme case was seen at
MESH where the challenge of keeping things tidy contributed
to closing down the workshop and refocus towards co-
working and event space rather than a makerspace.
Another identified need was storage capacity (Fig. 1).
Several spaces had plastic boxes of various sizes they offered
to frequent users for personal storage. The companies of
iKuben also expressed their need of having lockable storage
for projects with intellectual property concerns.
Finally, an interesting finding from the iKuben interviews
of the future users of ProtoMore was the need for test-
equipment to test the prototypes. Many of the companies are
in the offshore business and design solutions for subsea. To
build a prototype is therefore tightly connected to testing the
prototype in water. By fulfilling this need ProtoMore would
really differentiate from existing makerspaces, since advanced
testing facilities was not observed at any of the 13
makerspaces.
Fig. 1. (a) Storage of Tools at AutoDesk; (b) DIY Storage at Fellesverkstedet;
(c) Storage solutions at Fellesverkstedet
3.3.Target Groups of the Makerspaces
The target group of the spaces can be divided into 6
different categories which can be seen in table 4.
Table 4. Target Groups of the makerspaces
Target Group Description Focus of the
makerspaces
Entrepreneurs Individual or groups of people
building projects for future business. 8/13
Makers Tinkerers who like to make their own 7/13
things and hack exciting things for
non-profitable purposes.
Children Students from primary school and up
to high school (Age 10-17)
3/13
Internal
Employees Employees at the institution of the
makerspace 3/13
Researchers Doing organized and systematic
investigation on the topic of rapid-
prototyping.
2/13
Students In this case students at Stanford
University and The Norwegian
university of Science and Technology
2/13
Companies Established organization which
delivers a product or service for
revenue and profit.
1/13
As one sees in table 4 a variety of target groups were
identified from private citizens and children to start-ups and
entrepreneurs. This study proves the claim about a so called
industrial production revolution is taking place. The main
finding in the topic is however that none of the Norwegian
makerspaces are targeting already established companies. The
American based company TechShop also started targeting
private users however since their popularity increased they are
now approached by bigger companies e.g. Ford, asking to
collaborate. Interesting these companies stress the importance
of TechShop not starting up a makerspaces inside the
company, but in a nearby area. Currently the companies pay
subscription fees for a predefined number of employees. This
touch a hypotheses that in order to become a success when
targeting established businesses the makerspace must actively
seek to offer something else than the established company
culture provides. This offering can simply be the physical new
destination as well as a meeting point for employees of
different departments. One of the future users of iKuben
formulated the importance of getting out of the bubble. In
prolonging to this statement come several comments
indicating a very positive attitude to working across
disciplines both internally inside the company as well as
collaboration among other iKuben companies.
3.4.Different types of business models
Table 5. Business Model of the makerspaces
Business Model Description Focus of the
makerspaces
Membership based: Usually a monthly fee the
users pay for access to the
facilities.
6/13
Courses/workshops: Cover for the course.
With/without exclusivity of
workshop and with/without
facilitation.
5/13
Office space: Monthly or yearly rental of
offices or desks. 4/13
Rent of Machines: Pay per use for machines and
material. 4/13
Café/bar: Drink and/or food sale.3/13
Events: Cover for the event. 3/13

68 Matilde Bisballe Jensen et al. / Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Sponsors or Publicly
Financed: Funding from government
through a school, museum,
educational program etc.
3/13
Entrance: Pay for each entry to the
facilities. 2/13
Internal Budget: Covered by the internal
budget of the company.
1/13
Tuition: Funding from the student's
tuition through the school,
where the makerspace is
located.
1/13
Table 5 illustrates how 9/14 of the makerspaces had a
business model with a starting point in the functionalities of
the makerspace - that is renting out the machines on an hourly
basis, Renting out office spaces or meeting rooms or having
profit through café activities. Several of the makerspaces that
rented out machines also facilitated introduction courses to
the different machines.
The Technological Institute in Denmark is publicly
financed and their equipment is free to use two days a week.
The impressive workshop at AutoDesk in San Francisco was
the only visited makerspace inside a private company. Here
the main function of the workshop was to test how
Autodesk’s main product - 3D-modelling software - supported
the actual prototyping machines when the employees of
AutoDesk built their projects. Secondly, it was used as a
(impressive) showcase for visitors.
The different business models identified were seen to serve
different target groups of the makerspaces so that e.g. makers
would pay by the hour whereas entrepreneurs more often
would pay a monthly fee. When interviewing the future users
from the iKuben cluster their comments concerned the topic
of providing freedom and flexibility. This concerned easy
access, which meant no complicated booking systems or
timely papers to fill out.
3.5.Observed paid Roles and Activities
Table 6. Paid Roles in the Makerspaces
Role Description Focus of the
makerspaces
Machine Workshop
responsible: Maintain machines, help users
and provide a welcoming and
safe atmosphere.
11/13
Workshop
facilitators/Teachers: Organize and facilitate
workshops or courses.
6/13
Event Manager: Maintain an attractive
schedule of courses,
workshops, seminars etc.
especially focusing on
external stakeholders.
6/13
Cafe Worker: Employees in the café 4/13
Community
Manager: Focussing on the members
renting office spaces and their
everyday challenges.
2/13
Researchers: Generating new knowledge on
rapid-prototyping related
topics
1/13
The roles of the spaces can be divided into 6 different
categories, which are represented in table 6. In prolonging of
the challenge of keeping the machine workshop tidy an
important role in the makerspace became a Machine
Workshop Responsible (MWR). Table 6 show that 11 out of
13 of the makerspaces prioritized such an employee. However
many of the MWRs covered several other tasks. As an
example the workers a FIX Makerspace and Republikken are
both being Machine Workshop Responsible as well as
Workshop Facilitators and Community Managers. It was
considered a luxury to have resources for an employee only
doing this particular job (In the workshop at AutoDesk they
had 2 full-time workshop responsible). Noteworthy having a
person constantly in the makerspace area was observed to
create a sort of personality to the space rather than just being a
space with machines. Hence the role as MWR could have the
potential to be a constant cornerstone of the community one
seeks to build.
Teaching activities were also identified in 6/13 of the
makerspaces. The part of the curriculum with hard skills
covered most often how to use the machines, CAD-software
and Arduino programming.
From the iKuben interviews the facilitator role was found
to be the most important. There seemed to be a willingness to
innovate, but a need for having external facilitators to
challenge existing applied organisational methods.
3.6.User profiles and literacies of the makerspace
The user profiles of the spaces can be divided into 2
different categories: novel users and extreme users. In this
study both profiles were seen in all makerspaces with the
exception of AutoDesk who only had extreme users and at
MESH where the makerspace was closed down. Still the
democratizing of rapid-prototyping tools through public and
semi-public makerspaces means that the original user profile
of such machinery, being production and mechanical
engineers, has changed into more novel users approaching the
tools for the first time and thereby having very limited
experience on the capabilities of such machines and
equipment. In this study examples of both novel users as
hobbyists and students trying out the tools for the first time by
downloading pre made models or designing simple figures,
were identified. The counterpoints were experienced builders
with complex building projects e.g. a jet sleigh (Fig. 2). [6]
define the literacies of makers to cover; 1. Craftsman skills, 2.
Digital skills, 3. Mastery of rapid prototyping machines, 4.
Knowledge on Material Selection, 5. Improvisation, and 6.
Experimentation. The facilitated courses of the makerspaces
were observed to cover skill 1-3 whereas 4-6 came with
experience in the lab.

69
Matilde Bisballe Jensen et al. / Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
Fig. 2. Example of a project of an Extreme User; A Jet Sleigh
3.7.The Stories and Attitudes
Both the novel and extreme user had in common that they
to a high degree define the community of the makerspace.
Both through the interviews at the makerspaces and through
the answers of the questionnaire it was mentioned several
times how a makerspace is not about the tools, but about
people:
”It (the space, red.) is awesome partly because you have
loads of useful tools, but mainly because there are loads of
cool people hanging around.”
Member of Technologia Incognita
This was seen in the way the users and their projects
becomes the “success stories” of the makerspaces. All
makerspaces had case stories which employees spoke of with
a pride. Also, both user profiles were observed to do
volunteering work in the makerspaces such as clean ups,
interior projects or just hanging out in their free time. The
attitude of the different makerspaces were identified through
posters expressing mentoring sentences that at the same time
supports the essential paradigms of the maker culture:
”I have not Failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't
work,”
Poster at Dansk Teknologisk Institut (DK)
“Stop Sketching Start Building,”
Poster at MESH (NO)
Also the playful attitude was identified in certain humorous
initiatives from morbid warning signs to wheels deciding
where to get the daily lunch (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. (a) Poster at Radicand lab; (b) Lunch Wheel at AutoDesk
Finally different traditions defining the stories at the
different makerspaces were observed. This could be the first
object a user had to make before getting access to the
workshop. At Stanford it was a magnifier, which demanded a
part from each machine in the machine workshop. Others had
the ritual of making a Polaroid picture of new members,
which was hung on the wall with all the other members. Other
again had certain traditions as barbeques and other social
gatherings. It might seem as small details however according
[5] these rituals and traditions are what makes the community
differ from others and increase the community feeling.
4.Discussion
The pre-research provided inspiration on how to design
ProtoMore as well as to suggest criteria to indicate the success
of a makerspace. These concerned three overall topics;
Activity and Usage, Creating a Community Feeling, and to
what extend the makerspace manage to transform novel users
into experienced ones. The three topics will be explained in
the following. Each section ends by defining questions to be
answered to evaluate the continuous process of implementing
and evaluating any given makerspaces.
4.1.A successful makerspace is a used yet tidy makerspace
The activity-level in a makerspace define the success of a
makerspace. This can simply be measured by how much the
machines are used and how many visitors the makerspace has.
Even when certain tools breaks this should be considered as a
small success, as long as nobody got hurt, since it is a witness
of activity. When it comes to keeping the makerspace tidy the
machine workshop responsible should to develop strict
cleaning guidelines as well as a well-understood status 0 for
the machine workshop. This should be introduced to all users
of the machine workshop before they start using the
makerspace. These guidelines are particularly needed in the
machine workshop areas or unmanned café areas. The
evaluating questions targeting activity and tidiness are as
follows:
•How many days were the machines in the machine
workshop used individually?
•What is the number of monthly visitors?

70 Matilde Bisballe Jensen et al. / Procedia CIRP 54 ( 2016 ) 65 – 70
•How many workshops with a fee were facilitated this
month?
•How many free events/activities were arranged this month?
•How much does the current workspace differ from the
originally designed Status 0? (Is the workshop tidy)?
4.2.Creating a community feeling - Offering Something
Different
A particular challenge when designing makerspaces
targeting industrial companies is to overcome the already
established well-defined community and cultures. Hence, the
key to mobilize a makerspace community seems to be
providing the companies with something their current
workplaces cannot. This might be the feeling of freedom to do
something else, allowing internal and external cross-
disciplinary projects and simply to have fun.
The design of the space can support the message of
offering something else by using rough furniture, colourful
areas and inspiring furniture maybe even made by community
members themselves. These visual details seem to stress the
message: “We do think differently here”. This message can
also be communicated in the established booking system of
the space that needs to be simple and easy.
Another demand that was mentioned often in the
interviews with the iKuben companies was facilitating cross-
disciplinary projects both internal and external of the
companies. This would open up for networking and
knowledge sharing. Such events could moreover as a bonus
initiate success-stories, humorous initiatives and other rituals,
which were found essential during the interviews with the
makerspaces.
The evaluating questions for the criteria are as follows:
•How many people attended activities with and without
fee?
•How many self initiated (humorous) projects or artifacts
has been installed in the workspace?
•How many steps does a potential users have to go through
to book the equipment in the makerspace? Can these be
reduced?
•How many activities included workers from several
different companies?
4.3.Providing novel users with the makerspace literacies
A successful makerspace manages to transform novel users
into confident users by educating them in the maker literacies.
(6) defines the literacies of makers to cover; 1. craftsman
skills, 2. digital skills, 3. mastery of rapid prototyping
machines, 4. knowledge on material selection, 5.
improvisation and 6. experimentation. The first three can be
facilitated through courses and teaching. However the last
three come with experience and hence we suggest to measure
the amount of returning visitors to the machine workshop has
and whether they use one type of machine or several.
•Out of the overall number of visitors how many had been
here before?
•How many times were the different machines used?
5.Conclusion
This paper addresses the research question: How to design
a makerspace targeting Norwegian Industrial Companies? By
the conduction of a triangulated study consisting of interviews
of managers at 13 different makerspaces, interviews with 11
future users and finally a questionnaire (N=25) of current
members of other makerspaces we map the current State-of-
the-Art of makerspaces in Norway and beyond. We conclude
the main challenges when designing maker spaces for existing
companies to consist of; Keeping the space used, yet tidy;
Overcoming cooperate cultures and traditions and finally;
Transforming novel users into experienced ones.
To make sure a makerspace has solved this challenge we
end by suggesting success criteria and questions to ask when
evaluating the performance of a makerspace. With these
suggestions we contribute with applicable knowledge on
implementation of prototype-driven behavior in general.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Ikuben and Molde Kunnskapspark for collecting
data for this work.. This research is supported by the Research
Council of Norway (RCN) through its user-driven
research (BIA) funding scheme, project number 236739/O30.
References
[1] Leifer LJ, Steinert M. Dancing with ambiguity : Causality behavior ,
design thinking , and triple-loop-learning. 2012;10(2011):151–73.
[2] Berg B. Qualitative research methods for the social sciences [Internet].
Fourth. 2004. 305 p. Available from:
[3] Schein EH. Organizational culture and leadership. 3rd ed. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass; 2004. 437 p.
[4] Eisenhardt KM. Building Theories from Case Study Research. Acadamy
Manag. 1989;14(4).
[5] Wenger E. Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems.
Organ Artic. 2000;7(2):225–46.
[6] Hielscher S, Smith A. Community-Based Digital Fabrication
Workshops: A review of the research literature. SPRU Work Pap Ser.
2014;62.