Belgian mass customization software company Twikit showcased a number of mass customization cases and applications at RAPID + TCT 2019. The Twikit team was able to show BMW Group’s Mini customized products, customized motorcycle parts and unique braces.

Twikit is really the only firm that has specialized individualization software that can readily mass customize unique parts for 3D printing. Whereas you could go to other firms to build custom digital supply chains to tie into your 3D printing workflow or you could cobble together half a dozen software tools to do the same in an improvised way Twikit’s is a dedicated tool. It was built from the ground up to enable the rapid parametrization of new geometries that could then made with 3D printing. Mass customization is usually a wonderful subject for conferences but most corporates shy away from actually implementing the technology. Too complex, ruffling the feathers of the supply chain and manufacturing guys and a perception that it would be hard to implement scare companies off. Whereas I’m usually very skeptical of startups I’m very optimistic about Twikit’s prospects and their tooling. The company has spent a long time pioneering deep in the darkest woods and the world has finally caught up with it.

The BMW mass customization case is, of course, the one that caught all the headlines. Thanks to Twikit Mini owners can now use an online tool to mass customize decorative items on their cars. The software connects with BMW’s internal workflow and existing management software to give a traceable manufacturable solution to the German luxury auto giant.

Twikit also worked together with OEM Formlabs to create customized motorcycle handles for startup Tarform. The handlebar is a central element in your control, contact with and experience with the motorcycle. I’ve personally long believed that handles for tennis rackets, golf clubs, steering wheels and all manner of things are a huge applications so I love this implementation.

“In the Twikit software platform, the customer can make his desired adjustments until he’s satisfied with the final design. This customization experience can be experienced on both smartphone and desktop. The desired and final product is saved as a 3D file and will be exported within the cloud to an stl. file which will be sent afterward to Formlabs’ 3D printer. To become the final product, Formlabs makes use of flexible resin, which allows bendable/compressible parts to be printed. Now the actual production process can be set in motion.”

I love the idea that through 3D printing you could achieve better ergonomics, or perhaps have a more comfortable ride or better control over the bike. The user’s increased satisfaction with the bike because they designed part of it will also help. You can see a video here of the process.

The application with the most far-reaching implications, however, was one where Twikit’s software was used to make customized braces. Through Twikit 3D scan data could be turned into a unique orthotic or prosthetic. Here the software was used to obtain a precise comfortable fit to the human body. In applications such as postoperative braces, braces and across the spectrum in orthotics and prosthetics, the need for something like this is huge.  Twikit has created a key bit of technology that can really accelerate the adoption of mass customization and 3D printing. With the right partners this could be pushed out to millions of parts worldwide.

GE Additive Print Services has shared their additive manufacturing expertise and success with General Dynamics Land Systems to 3D print a titanium cable guard at their Pittsburgh production site. This collaboration is historical as it marks the first time a 3D printed metal part will be used in a US ground combat vehicle.

Along with creating the part in Pittsburgh, GE Additive also offers the following support in additive manufacturing:

• Part qualification
• Production
• Post processing
• Inspection

Like so many other companies today, General Dynamics Land Systems is poised to take advantage of the myriad benefits offered by 3D printing and additive manufacturing processes. GE Additive is certainly a likely source to draw from, and according to the recent press release sent to 3DPrint.com regarding the oproject, it sounds as if GE will be leading the Michigan-headquartered company in an ongoing technological and industrial journey to develop applications for building combat vehicle platforms.

“General Dynamics is always looking for innovative technologies to enhance our products, and additive manufacturing holds real promise in the near term. We’ll continue teaming with leading suppliers such as GE Additive as we uncover additional applications for this exciting technology,” said Jason Deters, a specialist in Process & Technology Development at General Dynamics.

Additive specialists from GDLS demonstrating cable guard evolution.
(Photo: GE Additive, GEADPR019)

General Dynamics realized their need for innovation as they began seeking a way to create parts that are higher, offer better performance, and are faster to make.

“The GE Additive team has been a great partner during this transition, and we’ve benefited from their expertise on the specific design and qualification requirements for additive-manufactured production components,” added Bill Vanslembrouck, a specialist in Advanced Products & Technology at General Dynamics.

The part will replace an older 18-part steel component, and both companies expect it to be the precursor to many similar following applications. The teams from both companies are working to streamline the phase from prototyping to actual production, using GE’s EBM Q20plus machines. To do so, they will have to put several specific dynamics into place:

• Standardized build plate orientation
• Support structures
• Quality control plans

“We’re honored to be working with General Dynamics at this important inflection point in its additive strategy. My team excels at getting organizations from prototype to production as efficiently as possible,” said Chris Schuppe, general manager at GE Additive AddWorks.

“To do that, we add value by keeping the business case front of mind, building on our additive production experience and offering our customers multiple technology modalities,” he added.

3D printing has certainly earned its own street cred over the past few years—with demanding users in nearly every nook and cranny of the world—but when you realize how many different types of combat and military applications it has been used for, the respect grows deeper as we learn more about 3D printed submarine hulls, durable components made from thermoplastic parts, and titanium parts for fighter planes. What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

[Source / Images: GE Additive]

Gina Scala is in charge of marketing Stratasys’ education efforts. She also is in charge of marketing the company’s entry-level F123 series 3D printers.The education market is huge for 3D printing. Far from formalized education and 3D Printing is a wide open subject. In our podcast we discussed it at length. Will it have an impact on education? On what level? Will it only be available to high school students? Kindergartners? Will it be the path through which 3D printing gains in broader adoption or a fad? We spoke to Gina to find out what she thinks and what Stratasys is doing on education.

What’s happening in 3D printing education? 

Where we are seeing growth is in design schools, art schools, and in medical. A lot more areas are now taking an interest in 3D printing. They are integrating technology into curriculums and into their offerings. At the University level, people are looking at planning 3D printing more.

At some universities, they now have so many 3D printers that they use online maps to find all of the printers on campus. For the past years, there was organic growth all across the campus. Now we’re seeing universities looking more at growing intentionally. They’re looking at their needs and requirements more and are then deploying printers across campus or in labs.

We’re also seeing more and more graduate programs in 3D printing emerge as well. 

For a university should I put a 3D printer on every desk, use a cluster or a lab with a bunch of different technologies in it? 

it depends on your needs. Rapid Prototyping labs tend to have higher rates of technicians, so, for now, they have the highest productivity. Deployed printers that are used for a very specific thing do well also.

For a university that is just getting started the most important thing to do is to not have just one champion. You really will need two to three. I also wouldn’t recommend getting 40 small printers. Instead get one printer that gives you reliability and control, like the F120. You know it’s going to run and its simple to use. When you reach 70% productivity on that printer then get the next one. 

For what levels of education is 3D Printing suited?

The first 25 F120’s went to high schools. Here they’re used as shared resources. They can let people focus on the learning and logistics of 3D printing without having to fiddle with the printer.  Ease of use, plug, and play. Load your part and go. As time goes on the technology will get used more useful at lower grades.

Is lack of CAD ability holding 3D printing back?

Design for Additive Manufacturing is prerquisite to using these tools for advanced uses. This does mean that for some applications there is a barrier point. The knowledge and skills are technology are getting easier to use all the time. At some CAD packages have gotten simpler through things such as giving you primitives to use. 

an F120 and a F370

What are some new things that you’re seeing? 

Microfluidics is something that we’re seeing emerging applications in. We now have Advanced FDM in GrabCAD Print. This lets you change advanced settings such as infill/texture in Print without you having to go back to CAD. In jigs in fixtures for example on the manufacturing line, a worker could easily fix a fixture in the file in GabCAD.

We’re doing a lot of material innovation on the F123 series with things like TPU and a lot more will be coming to that platform. It is the most deployed 3D printer that Stratasys has ever had. They are more plug and print machines that make it easy and efficient for you to work with them. With a steel frame, linear rails kevlar belts and things like controlled airflow across the chamber, pound for pound they’re superior to the competition. 

Fabrisonic has a very unique 3D printing technology. The company’s UAM (Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing) process can take layers of metal tapes and through ultrasonically welding them and then machining them create 3D objects. Ultrasonic vibration has been used as a welding technology before but the firm has commercialized it for our market now. UAM lets you do very exciting things such as joining different metals, work with relatively inexpensive feedstock and embed sensors in metal parts. Now Fabrisonic is lowering the cost to get started with their technology by offering an entry-level machine, the SonicLayer 1200 for $200,000. Often times Fabrisonic can seem kind of a Don Quichote of 3D printing pioneering an own path that is very different than other companies all working on the same technologies. Can the firm go it alone? Or will it succumb to a VHS wars kind of pressure where Video 2000 lost to the wider adopted VHS? Will it find a niche such as the one it is trying to carve out in embedded sensors? Or will it find broader use but for heat exchangers or exotic blends of metals? We sat down with Fabrisonic’s brilliant Mark Norfolk to find out.

The New Fabrisonic 1200

How is Fabrisonic doing? 

Were continuing on our growth curve. We’re a very small firm at the moment consisting of 8 people. In the next year we’ll be adding five people. We want to be a growing, strong & viable business. We’re all engineers so we want to build solid businesses. 

We are a spin out of a nonprofit, EWI. So far we’ve been bootstrapping the business. Its a question of slow and steady with a focus on the long term.

At the moment we’re evenly split between service and machine sales. In house we operate five of our own machines. We’ve just launched our Fabrisonic 1200 which is a very capable machine that lowers the price point at which people can use our technology.

We’re very curious about emerging applications in electronics, sensors, IoT. One key aspect of our technology is that we can integrate electronics into metal structures. We see expanding interest into that application in process monitoring, industry, aerospace and other industries.

What are some examples of things that people are making with Fabrisonic? 

One example is an embedded fibers optic sensor inside a metal part. What we can get from this is the actual load data from the component. In the demonstration case, it is a part of a wing. What our customers can do with this is to monitor the strain on the wings for example. This kind of application can be very useful in commercial aerospace. You could also track strain on the landing gear on every landing to predict failure or maintenance. 

What is also being done is embedded thermocouples so we can get precise temperature measurements in specific places in a reaction vessel. Some of our customers want to very precisely measure temperatures in chemical reactions and use Fabbrisonic to put sensors exactly where they need to be. By placing the thermocouples inside the reaction vessel they can get the right data to adjust and control the reaction.

Another example of a  sensor is inside a base plate used for PBF for metals. The embedded fiber optic cable in the base plate can monitor the process while the PBF machine is running. We can determine the strain, magnitude, and vector during the print job, Besides metal 3D printing such careful monitoring would be advantageous in many machines and processes. 

Another application that we’re seeing is piezo microphones being used to detect cracks in metal structures to monitor failure or fatigue. We’re making sensors to measure magnetic fields and also making waveguides.

We’re helping to tackle challenges in health monitoring and also of things like wings, structures or a pole. 

Embedded fiber optic strain sensors.

What are some of the advantages of your technology? 

One of the biggest benefits is that we’re a solid state process. We’re not melting the part or changing the metallurgy of the part.  Material cost is also low at $5 to $10 a pound. Besides embedding electronics in metal, we can use dissimilar metal and join them together. We can make gradient materials as well. A lof what you can do with our technology is emerging. We’re doing things whereby a part can become a barcode, that is serialized through the different thicknesses of the part itself. This ensures that the part itself can vouch for its own tracing and security.

A copper and aluminum part.

Why is 3D printing heat exchangers so promising?

It lets you get the coolant exactly where you want it. Without a lot of different production steps. You can pull out mass, increase performance and do part consolidation all at the same time. 

With electric cars will there be possible demand in that arena for your technology?

For sure. We are seeing a lot of things where 3D printing could reduce part count and improve performance in electric vehicles and batteries. Structures could be heat sinks as well for example. Cool things.

What work has been done on microchannel heat sinks in heat exchangers?

We’ve made 10,000th of an inch channels in heat exchangers. This lets you get more surface area, in order to get more heat out faster. You can then integrate that anywhere in your structure. Or by varying dissimilar metals get different temperature gradients. The thinking has changed, your thermal unit is also structure.

Can you make gradient/functionally gradient parts with Fabrisonic?

The big thing for gradient, for us now, is to use it where is a transition; in temperatures for example. When monitoring or controlling for CTE (Coefficient of Thermal Expansion) we can use the layering of different materials to avoid sharp temperature differences. Fatigue cracks can also be avoided through this method.

In ‘Three‐Dimensional Bioprinting in Regenerative Medicine: Reality, Hype, and Future,’ authors Anthony Atala and Gabor Forgacs explore some necessary topics within 3D printing and bioprinting. The technology has brought forth incredible innovation capable of transforming manufacturing, design mechanisms, and offering never dreamed of self-sustainability that could be even more useful in the future for the military, aerospace, and many other organizations.

Healthcare, however, and the medical realm have already been heavily impacted by 3D printing. The momentum continues to accelerate undeniably too, as researchers discover new ways to improve the lives (and perhaps even save them) of patients in dire need of relief or assistance through numerous different types of devices and implants.

Beyond all the hullabaloo and the hype though, with talk of technological magic and industrial revolution, the authors examine the real potential for bioprinting and further progress in regenerative medicine. To begin, they remind us of the staggering complexity of the human body, evolved during millions of years of trial and error and the weeding out of imperfections with natural selection:

“As a consequence, present day tissues and organs are all complex, and their complexity varies depending on the cell type and organization, architecture and function. Flat tissues (e.g., skin) are the least complex, tubular structures (e.g., blood vessels) more complex, hollow nontubular organs (e.g., bladder) even more complex, and solid organs (e.g., liver or heart) the most complex,” state Atala and Forgacs.

They also comment on recent stem cell technology advancements, the ability to grow cells in vitro, and the impact of engineering from within the lab—resulting in some organs that have been implanted in patients during clinical trials.

“Several tissue‐engineered products are advancing through the regulatory pathway so they can be eventually commercialized and disseminated widely. However, most of the engineered tissues now in the more advanced stages of the regulatory pathway were made by hand,” state the authors.

Although at this point you may have become desensitized to ongoing news about the engineering of tissue in the lab, it is certainly no easy feat. A tissue biopsy must be taken, cells must be coddled into growth and beyond that must survive, which is the greatest challenge, aside from implanting them for the required application at hand.

“Harvesting and cell expansion techniques, culture media protocols, growth factor additives, environmental conditions, and sterility, are just a few of the many details necessary to have the right cells as a starting material. Furthermore, an adult liver for example contains approximately 100 billion cells, and is composed of multiple cell types, including hepatocytes, stellate cells, and Kupffer cells. In order to create such an organ, the various cells need to be expanded at the same time, to large numbers and thus divided many times outside of the body. Extreme care needs to be exercised to make sure that the resulting cells do not become transformed and remain functional consistent with their intended use,” remind the authors.

Materials are complex in tissue engineering and bioprinting, obviously. Many different elements must be in place, and conditions must near perfection, along with all interactions between cells and chemicals—and accompanying technology. 3D printing, although available for decades now and used by engineers as well as aerospace and automotive companies, has become so accessible and affordable that it is becoming commonplace in schools, libraries, labs, hospitals, and many businesses and factories.

STEM technology has really taken off in the US educational system. Students from Stockbridge High School in Michigan were the recipients of XYZPrinting 3D printing technology. Here, they are pictured with a young boy they created a fishing rod adapter for. (Photo credit: XYZPrinting, from ‘XYZprinting: Investing $1 Million in US STEAM 3D Education Program.’)

As the technology has also branched off into bioprinting and automation, via cell-laden, extruded inks, researchers have discovered the following benefits:

• Affordability
• Reproducibility
• Scalability
• Precision
• Automation

As the authors point out, progress has indeed been remarkable; however, hitting the mark with fabrication of human organs has not been as easy a goal to meet as previously expected:

“Just like toys could be printed with the push of a button, many thought, tissues and organs would be printed in a similar manner. However, nothing could have been further from the truth.”

Bioprinting is an extremely complex undertaking with the most delicate materials imaginable: human cells. And while such technology may have sprung from the dynamics of 3D printing, the process and outcome are much different, comparing the simplicity of a completed, functional object with cells that must be nurtured into the desired form—with the ultimate target being that of an actual human organ.

“In the more distant future, with further progress in large‐scale cell culture, bioprocess engineering, and genetic strategies, it is possible that we will be able to design specific printable living structures that are not even conceivable today,” say the authors.

“Tissues printed with gene‐edited cells from the diseased patient to achieve a normal endpoint or combination of extended bioprinted tissue units functionally interconnected similarly to that in the human body are examples that could lead to unforeseen progress in regenerative medicine. Bioprinting offers many promising opportunities. However, patience and perseverance are needed to realize the full potential of the technology.”

If you want to learn about true perseverance—combined with affinity for technology and innovation—just keep your eye on progress emerging from 3D printing users of all kinds from all over the world. Due to the intrinsic and infinite opportunity to create offered by 3D printing technology, engineers, designers, tinkerers, makers, manufacturers, and many more are drawn to trying their hand at finding ways to improve on conventional parts and prototypes, along with constantly perfecting and stretching the limits of their tools.

The results of bioprinting, demonstrating strides in patient care from corneal grafts to 3D printed brain tumors, often leave us incredulous over learning what is happening in research labs globally; however, the true reward for most who are involved in such studies will be successfully 3D and 4D printing human organs that can be used as transplants and truly change the face of modern medicine forever.

What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.

[Source:

]

David Calderon

Today we will be doing an interview with David Calderon from the CASTOR team. CASTOR is a decision support system for utilizing industrial 3D printing. They connect manufacturers to 3D printing capabilities. This helps to enhance their business while they try to leverage technical expertise. They are a startup that is based in Tel Aviv and have been featured as a startup in TechStars. David is a co-founder and Vice President of Business Operations for CASTOR.

Who is CASTOR?

Omer, Elad, and I are the founders of CASTOR and long-time friends. The three of us come from diverse backgrounds in the tech industry and together we looked at the ever-evolving 3D printing industry. We realized that manufacturers face two main issues when it comes to 3D printing: one technical and one financial.

On the technical front, manufacturers must have extensive material, and printer knowledge and understand the limitations of the different 3D printing processes. Because this industry is changing so quickly, it’s hard to develop the extensive knowledge and expertise needed in-house. On the financial front, manufacturers need to know when the 3D printing of parts can result in cost savings and when it doesn’t. This calculus depends on the manufacturing quantity, geometry of the parts, the technology and material used, and many other factors.

We have developed a decision support system that addresses these two issues by helping manufacturers understand when 3D printing is preferred over traditional manufacturing methods, and significantly reduce the lead-time and cost for parts.

Our team has significant experience.Omer Blaier, our CEO, previously worked for Stratasys in several positions in the intersection between product and R&D. He was able to see the gap between how fast 3D printing technologies are developing and the end user’s lack of information and expertise to really utilize the full benefits of 3D printing.

Elad Schiller, our CTO, has been coding and leading teams of developers of enterprise software for more than a decade. He has the rare ability to simplify complex technical data while creating user-friendly interfaces.

I oversee business development and sales. I draw from my experience as a Senior Manager at EY where I dealt with dozens of companies, from early-stage startups to publicly traded companies in the tech sector.

CASTOR

In terms of IOT and 3D Printing, what are the core competencies needed for a company to do well?

Since the 3D printing field is still defining itself and evolving rapidly (in terms of applications and also technologies), I think a company must be agile, able to learn quickly, and adjust its product offering in response to the frequent changes this market is experiencing. While there are some market leaders in this space, the technology is still in the adoption phase, so even well-established companies can lose their competitive advantage if they fail to adapt to the changes quickly.

Another very important core competency I would highlight is the ability to focus on areas where 3D printing can make a big difference. We often hear from our customers that they spend weeks on screening parts in huge assemblies to find potential parts which are suitable for 3D printing. At CASTOR, we believe that automating this time-consuming screening process will allow engineers to focus more on creating real value in terms of shortening lead-time and cost savings and subsequently create more success stories using 3D printing.

If someone has no idea about IOT and 3D Printing, how would they need to educate themselves? What kind of projects can one do with their standard 3D Printing setups available to them?

There is a wealth of professional material on the industry. To gain a basic understanding of the different types of technologies, materials, and their applications, I would check out resources like 3DPrint.com, service bureaus like Shapeways or Materialise, and 3D printer manufacturers like Stratasys, HP or EOS.

Once someone decides to use 3D printing, the second step is to use tools that provide detailed feedback on the parts the person wants to produce. CASTOR might be a good place to start since we provide our customers with transparency as to why parts pass or fail our 3D printability analysis and what needs to be done in order to fix the part and make it 3D printable. We think this information should be easily understood by all members of the team and not just an AM expert, which is why we focus on providing simple answers to this complex problem.

The team is based in Tel Aviv. How does this affect interactions with the technology sector as most development done is in different locations within the world? How are you positioned?

These days physical location isn’t a barrier of entry when it comes to technology. There are so many great tools that bridging the distance gap, so it really comes down to a simple question: does the technology solve a major problem and how good is the solution?

As for CASTOR’s positioning, we believe that our position in the value chain of 3D printing allows us to build great relationships with almost all the players in the 3D printing market. For example, we help service bureaus gain more business by referring them more customers with parts which are 3D printable. Similarly, we are able to build great relationships with the 3D printer manufacturers because we can help their customers immediately decide which parts should be 3D printed with their newly bought printer. As for the material companies, we provide them aggregated data that will help them understand what the users are looking for in a material  in order to develop their next generation of materials.

Stanley+Techstars

So you guys have experience with the Stanley+Techstars accelerator program. Can you explain how this process went and how it has helped in your growth as an organization?

Our main goal in joining this specific accelerator program was to get focused customer feedback to help us achieve product-market fit. As part of the program, we met with hundreds of mentors (entrepreneurs, engineers, consultants, investors, etc.), who are experts in their field, and were able to discuss different aspects of our business with them. We also received feedback on the product which was very useful. Participating in such a unique program enabled us to speed through this process which otherwise would have been extremely lengthy.

Moreover, the fact that a corporate company like Stanley Black & Decker, a Fortune 500 company, was significantly involved in the process, allowed us to learn about the product and sail cycles in larger enterprises. We also made some great friendships with fellow entrepreneurs, the Stanley+Techstars accelerator program staff and mentors. The accelerator was a phenomenal success for us.

What is the five year plan?

Our plan in the short term is to constantly improve the service we are providing our customers. We plan to do this by making the software customizable while maintaining relatively low complexity and also by integrating  CASTOR with CAD and ERP systems. We are not looking to create a solution to every problem in 3D printing. Instead, we strongly believe in partnerships which enhance both parties’ abilities and provide a seamless solution to the user. In the long term, we plan to make CASTOR a more robust solution by building machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities which will enable us to offer the user design changes in order to make parts 3D printable.

Jabil is a huge contract manufacturing firm that makes and develops products for the brands that you know. With over 100 factories and $19 billion in revenue and over a 177,000 employees Jabil’s interest in 3D printing can have huge ramifications for our industry. Just this one firm could broadly adopt our technology and drive adoption forward. With end-user products having to be made at high volume and low-cost Jabil is not the first firm you may think of when you look at 3D printing. After all, in highly customized industries and high-end applications such as satellites the 3D printing business case is more easily made. Jabil has been doing some fundamentally very interesting things, however. The firm has developed and is making materials which will lower its own costs, it went into the production of footwear and insoles, and set up a 3D printing network while deploying Ultimaker 3D printers and betting big on HP.

Jabil seems to be making a steadfast move in engaging the 3D printing market in a fundamental way. Moreover especially with a global network of manufacturing, a lot of volume, the expertise in making 3D printers itself and its own materials the firm may yet cement significant advantages into the fundamental economics of manufacturing and prototyping. With contract manufacturing being cutthroat and low margin anything that can give them an advantage may have significant knock-on effects. If it makes sense for an automotive manufacturer to adopt 3D printing then it will doubly so make sense for contractors in tight spots on tight deadlines to do so. This is especially true if they can accelerate prototyping, tooling or customization through 3D printing; offer more customized products at lower costs or bridge manufacture more efficiently. Any incremental move towards the ability to do mass customization at scale or to engage in profitable high mix low volume manufacturing could spell doom for competitors.

Heading up Jabil’s considerable 3D printing engagements and investments in VP John Dulchinos. 3DPrint.com spoke with him at RAPID to find out more.

HP printers at Jabil in Singapore

What is Jabil’s strategy in 3D printing?

Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of Additive Manufacturing. We are focused on how do we take an immature solution set and turn it into a manufacturing technology. We want to produce parts in a certified environment. We want to be able to stand behind the parts that we are making.

At the core, we want to make parts. That’s the foundation. This means that we need to engineer materials because there isn’t a good solution set in materials out there for us to use. In 3D printing, you can get any material as long as it is white PA 12 (polyamide). Usually, specific materials are available for specific solutions and in AM this has not been the case. This limitation meant that we had to develop and sell our own materials

What are you doing in AM? 

If we look at our clients, they are world-class companies. We work for companies such as HP and Cisco. Top brand companies. At a baseline level, we want to do programs with those companies. In order for us to do that we have to engineer the entire workflow. From the translation in the software to the design file, all of it.

We are interested in aerospace, automative, transportion in general, medical devices, orthopediccs and consumer goods.

Is this contract manufacturing of something else? 

Especially for consumer-facing products in things like mass customization application you really need the whole stack to make it make sense. We can do ideation and we can take something from an idea to a solution set.

For us, it is important to understand how and if additive creates value for customers. The more value that there is for them the more possible value there is for us as well.

What are some interesting applications? 

I’m an engineer. So I think of it in terms of a logic tree. For a lot of things, 3D printing doesn’t actually make sense. From a cost standpoint it does not map out well when compared to traditional manufacturing. In some low volume applications it makes sense especially in things such as aerospace and spare parts. In aerospace you can, for example, combine parts, save weight. This creates significant value. Late in life parts are also very expensive to keep and produce, here additive also is very usefull.  There are many great applications in healthcare as well.  Personalized medicine, but broader still also personalized products have much value. In performance, automotive people also want to pay for optimal parts. We can pay for outcomes in additive but that won’t work for all functional production parts. 

With Reneult F1 now. we are their on demand production partner. We can now supply parts for on the F1 car. We love this since F1 is like we are very engineering driven. This partnership aligns well with us. It fits Jabil’s manufacturing pedigree. 

Are you expanding your materials and printers portfolio? 

We’ve made a number of materials and want to release a material a month soon. As for printers we operate close to 300 at the moment.

Is 3D printing helping Jabil? 

On the design side, for sure 3D printing is speeding up our business. With designs we can now make more iterations. With fixtures and tooling, we are also much faster. We have well documented case studies where we have gone from making a fixture in 4 to 5 weeks in five days. We can also do more quicker iterations in the fixture.

As an anecdotal piece of evidence, we had one fixture used to electrically test a part. It had a slot at the botton through which the operator had to put their hand. Every once in a while the operator’s fingers would slip and touch the circuit board, shorting it. Once this was discovered it took 3 hours to design and two hours to print a solution for this problem. Within five hours we had, thanks to 3D printing, addressed the quality issue. 

We also have some really good design for additive examples on recent client projects. In one example we took an existing assembly of 39 parts and reduced it to two. Reduction in assembly processes also happened as a result of this. We used 3D printing to simplify the part and the production process. 

DowDuPont is one of the largest chemicals companies in the world. The firm entered the 3D printing market cautiously and later than most through a partnership with Taulman. Making far less waves than big splash BASF or accelerating Henkel and not having the decades of 3D printing experience of SABIC, DSM, Evonik or Arkema firm entered later than direct selling Solvay and Clariant. Whereas at other polymer and chemicals firms it increasingly seems that 3D printing is strategic, DuPont seems to be targeting practical material applications. No pie in the sky CEO pronouncements but rather functional materials. On the one hand the firm is making FDM filament in PA (polyamide) including insanely high GF load filaments they are also involved with ECCO’s efforts to 3D print silicone.

I’m fascinated to see polymer and chemicals giants engage 3D printing in a completely different way. It will take us years to see whose methods and engagements were the most apt and successful. Go indirect? Partner a lot? Build big departments or invest in existing firms? Focus on OEMs or services? I’m enjoying every minute of learning about all of these firms and their completely opposite learnings, assumptions and plans. Blind gorillas trying to horse ride is this epoch if we see it through the eyes of these polymer giants. They have the same information available to them and the same general ideas but they completely do it their own way.

Right now DuPont Transportation & Advanced Polymers of DowDuPont’s Specialty Products Division is focusing on automotive ducting, semi-crystalline materials and flexible materials. We interviewed Marketing Manager Christophe Paulo to find out more.

Christophe told 3DPrint.com that, “We are aiming to do is to make it simple for our customers to step into 3D printing.” The company is developing a number of different grades of materials. DuPont’s focus for the moment is on material extrusion technologies (FDM). Uniquely the firm not only is focusing on filament producers but it is also looking to sell granulate. Granulate, the pellets that are used to make filament and are used for injection molding is sold to filament makers. DuPont however really believes on selling granulate to OEMs and filament makers to be sold on to end users. The company is a huge fan of granulate 3D printers such as the Titan. 

Christophe explained that, “some of our materials $100 per kilo but pellets you’re looking at $25 per kilo” and that “you can print a lot of parts a lot faster and a lot cheaper with Titan3D or similar faster processes.” DuPont is specifically looking for larger parts here on production where they’re looking at “10,000 parts” or more. “If we start to do mass customization pellets make a lot of sense,” says Cristophe. 

Zytel automotive part

Pellet extruders have been around for a number of years. Technically not really perfected they’ve been a novelty. If Christophe is right and pellet extruders would make a big impact on the material extrusion market then this would mean a sea change for the 3D printing industry. Much material development, compounding, and production is being done by specialized filament companies such as Innofill3D, Mitsubishi, Colorfabb. A big switch to pellets would hit their margins very hard. This may also mean that distributors such as Resinex would be more inclined to sell direct to the market as well. Or more compounders could get involved in 3D printing. A lot of material extrusion innovation comes from filament companies. They are also the main center for knowledge exchange between end users, polymer companies and OEMs. Granulate would still have to be compounded and optimized for 3D printing through additives but the impact on the filament makers and 3D printing ecosystem would be huge. For their own materials, DuPont had to extensively, “work on the chemistry to make it printable.“

So far the company sells both filament and pellets direct and through distributors. Along with Solvay, the firm is the only one to have a direct offering which is noteworthy. “We are nonexclusive so if a filament company wants to use our pellets we supply the material.” The company is “stepping into Nylon, TPE” and is looking at more materials. For now, they have Zytel with Carbon Fiber. This Polyamide 6/12 has a 20% Cabon Fiberfill. Polyamide with carbon fiber fill is a huge growth material for a lot of manufacturers since the stiffness and other properties are good. Christophe mentioned that “they also have grades of GF 30% and 50% GF.” These GF (glass filled) grades are similar to the materials used in automotive applications and familiar to companies in automotive. The team really worked hard to, ” make the material really easy to print and match properties with existing materials used by our customers.” They’re positioning their material as much cheaper than PEEK but above ABS in price. It sells for around 89 Euros for a Kilo. It may not have everything PEEK has but it’s at a price that makes sense to use in bulk, “the right price for the right properties.” 

If we look at the future Christophe firmly believes that, “the future of 3D printing is in series and mass customization.” He also, rather uniquely, thinks that “the bulk of the Material Extrusion market will be in pellet to parts” and mentions that, “We really believe in pellet printers.” This kind of strong opinion in favor of pellets is absent at the other big polymer companies and a very notable position to take. 

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