Since 1947, Husky Corporation has been a trusted leader in fuel dispensing products and services, designing and manufacturing in the U.S. from its headquarters in Pacific, Missouri. What began with a simple innovation—the first nozzle guard to protect vehicles during fueling—has grown into a comprehensive portfolio of solutions trusted worldwide. Today, Husky delivers a complete line of nozzles, swivels, Safe-T-Breaks®, hoses, and accessories through its Husky® General Fueling Products division, while also serving diverse markets through BJE Oil and Lube products, Hewitt Aviation Fueling Products, S.U.R.&R. fluid line repair systems, K100 fuel additives, and Roman Seliger liquid loading arms.
According to Husky, the company’s innovation is fueled by listening, whether it’s to customers in the field or regulators shaping industry standards. This commitment has led to industry firsts like the hold-open latch and break-away valve for making fueling safer, along with a steady stream of patented designs. Just as important, Husky has made a deliberate choice to keep manufacturing in the U.S., investing in its people, advanced equipment, and processes that achieve ISO 9001 certification and deliver 99.5% of orders in four days or less. The result is a legacy built on quality, reliability, and on-time delivery, a model of how American manufacturing can continue to thrive.
Advancing Quality, Innovation and Production
Husky has always worked to develop and maintain a highly innovative, safe environment for its teams, working to define and maintain a culture where quality shows in every aspect of the business. It’s fitting that since the company started working with 3D printing back in 2009, it has entrusted the continued development and use of it to Steve Baynham, now Vice President of Engineering and Quality since 2022.
Baynham started at Husky in 2014 as Quality Manager, bringing his prior experience in ceramics engineering, a master’s degree in material science, and manufacturing of electrical and semiconductor products to bear. He also gained his Six Sigma Black Belt prior to starting at Husky. Since then he has integrated quality into every aspect of the operations.
Utilizing statistical analysis to put quality controls in place that are based on facts has been a key element to his time so far at Husky.
“Quality problems often show up when it comes to warranty returns. So, the first thing was to identify the variations that went into the products, whether it was our own processes or incoming materials. We had to understand all the little stuff that went into assembly, identify the variations, and knock them down,” he said. “For example, in 2014 we had close to $1.3 million in warranty returns. In 2022 we reduced that to $360,000. The bulk of that improvement is due to the elimination and understanding of the variation in our own processes.”
As part of his work, Baynham fully researched and integrated 3D printing into the process, carefully advancing the work done to enhance quality and innovativeness within the design, engineering, quality and production teams. In 2017 with 3D Systems’ ProJet® 6000 SLA 3D printer the team used it purely for rapid prototyping of parts.
“The materials available made it perfect for rapid prototyping but were not compatible with actual end use involving the fuels we deal with,” said Baynham. “But when I came in as Quality Manager, I also incorporated the production of tools and fixtures, leveraging the digital nature of the CAD data to make reverse images of a part into a tool that just fits like a glove. This is a huge advantage.”
3D printing of tools and fixtures enabled highly specialized tools to be made quickly.
“We would get a new part coming in and we would need to get it inspected for quality but without a fixture to measure it,” said Baynham. “It is so much faster to 3D print that fixture, and even if it’s just for temporary use, it makes a whole world of difference for checking parts quickly, cheaply and accurately.”
Part tolerances were already a huge part of Baynham’s push for quality, and prototypes, tools and fixtures made to tight tolerances was a key part of the equation.
“We needed fixtures that had plus-or-minus three to four thousandths tolerance and 3D Systems’ SLA always had great accuracy and precision," said Baynham.
Accelerating Innovation and Delivering Superior Results with the PSLA 270
The company has deliberately ensured that product design, engineering and production are closely co-located and integrated in the understanding that this builds faster, more responsive and innovative environments. Part of that is the growing reliance on 3D printing to accelerate both innovation and quality.
In 2025 the team started a search for a more up-to-date 3D printer. Having assessed several competitive 3D printers as well as 3D Systems’ Figure 4, they finally settled on 3D Systems’ PSLA 270.
With a bigger build size than the older ProJet 6000, and new pixel-based projection technology integrated with the buoyant, non-contact precision of SLA, the Husky team realized they could 3D print even faster while still having the accuracy of SLA.
“The PSLA 270 excels at speed to print, accuracy and also uses the 3D Sprint software which we like,” said Baynham. “Material changes are very fast. It also uses several Figure 4 materials which broadens the portfolio and allows us to do more.”
SLA 3D Printing with 3D Sprint Software
All 3D Systems plastic 3D printers are issued with the leading 3D Sprint print preparation and management software.
The team at Husky is no stranger to 3D Sprint and likes the easy continuation of its use from the old SLA machine to the PSLA 270. Scott Blankley, Engineering Support Specialist at Husky, uses 3D Sprint daily in his work.
“3D Sprint does just about everything I need and makes it easy,” said Blankley. “You drop a file in, hit ‘Autoplace’ and it will select the best position for the data. If you want multiple copies, you hit ‘copy’ and the number of copies you want will be placed. It’s pretty neat.”
Blankley also finds that the tools for support creation are comprehensive and usable.
“This is also neat because you can select where you don’t want supports, say for a screw thread, and 3D Sprint will figure out how to make it work,” said Blankley. “Once you’re ready you add the print to your queue and you’re off.”
Blankley also finds the tools for cutting a part and adding holes and pegs highly useful and easier than doing in their core CAD platform.
“3D Sprint is a good slicer,” said Blankley. “Maybe one of the best and another reason we picked 3D Systems machines again.”
In the future, the team at Husky envisions researching eggshell mold creation using the PSLA 270, as well as ultimately being able to produce end-use parts when the materials are available.
