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The Real Cost of 3D Printing

After reading the now famous article about a ventilator valve that can be 3D printed for $1, compared to the traditionally-manufactured valve costing $11,000, I realized that the way 3D printing costs are calculated is still vastly oversimplified, which leads to reliance on two incomplete cost models. The most common says that unlike traditional manufacturing there are never economies of scale and that the cost per part stays constant, whether a single part or 100s of parts are printed. Another model is that 3D printing costs slightly decrease with the number of units as more parts are added to the build bed, and the average build time per part decreases.

Figure 1: Common models of 3D printing costs

Both of the above models provide a cost approximation and are often used by service bureaus, but they both have the same flaw: They don’t take the machine utilization into account.

For 3D printing, there are five main cost contributors:

Material cost: Material usage for the part, support material, and other material waste
Machine depreciation: Portion of the machine price attributed to a part due to the time the machine is being used to build the part
Consumable costs: The cost of consumables used for the build (build trays, argon gas, filters, printhead, etc.)
Labor costs: Personnel cost involved in the build (build file preparation, machine preparation, build monitoring, machine clean-up, and support removal)
Risk: Risk of failure involved in building this part. Usually comes in two different types, time risk – the longer the print, the higher the risk of failure, and geometry risk – certain geometries might have higher risk of failure for certain technology.

In this article we will take a deeper look at the machine depreciation cost and how machine utilization influences it.

Let’s start with a basic equation that is often forgotten or ignored but is essential to understanding the cost of 3D printed parts.

Figure 2: Machine Depreciation Calculations

The machine utilization is the percentage of the time during the year where the machine is producing parts. Because the utilization is in the denominator of the equation above, there is an inverse relationship between part cost and machine utilization. In other words, the part cost goes down as the machine utilization goes up.

Real machine utilization is very difficult to guess without having robust data available, so a lot of companies will use a fixed number for utilization. They often choose a number between 60% and 70%… a number that is often overly-optimistic.

Other companies with access to historical data will estimate machine utilization based on past figures. Many factors can influence the utilization figure, such as maintenance, down time, and build cleaning, but based on our experience the main contributors are staff availability to change builds and having enough parts to produce.

Staff availability is often forgotten because additive manufacturing is seen as an unmanned manufacturing process. While this is mostly true, staffing is still required for preparing and cleaning the machine between builds as well as monitoring if the build has failed. If a build finishes in the middle of the night with no staff available, a machine will sit idle, lowering utilization until the morning when a technician can prepare the machine for a new build.

To solve this, companies tend to schedule longer builds to complete outside of working hours. Scheduling builds in this way reduces the time a machine sits idle between builds.

Figure 3: Unoptimized build planning 62% utilization

Figure 4: Optimized build planning 79% utilization

We have seen companies updating to a faster machine expecting cost savings due to better part throughput, only for the machine sit idle because there are not enough parts to keep it busy. If the machine can produce parts twice as fast but the number of parts produced per year is the same, then the machine depreciation cost per part stays the same.

Taking this into account, it is important to match the machine throughput to the part demand as closely as possible:

Figure 5: Production equipment matched with part demand

These two points show that 3D printing is similar to traditional production methods, where it is necessary to get throughput, part demand, and production planning right in order to minimize part manufacturing cost.

When taking into account machine utilization and how most users of additive manufacturing adopt the technology, we come up with the model below, which takes into account everything we discussed in this article and shows how the per part cost of 3D printing changes based on the number of parts manufactured and the number of machines needed to produce them:

Figure 6: Realistic utilization-based cost per part

Based on the graph above we see that costs can be cut to a minimum if we can match the parts demand with the machine capacity. At Blueprint, when we create a ROI model for our clients, we often group many parts together to improve the machine utilization. Sometimes we will change the material of some parts or redesign a part so it can fit in a smaller build chamber. Knowing this, what should you do?

If you are looking into acquiring some production equipment, ask for real build time figures based on your parts, then plan what a typical week of builds will look like. This will help you to create a utilization-based ROI tailored to your specific conditions.

Once the machine is up and running, monitor its utilization. If it is low (below 60%,) identify the cause. Can you schedule builds better? If you don’t have enough demands for parts, invest into identifying and transitioning parts to additive; that investment will end up saving you money in the long run.

Also look at changing the design of your parts to lower build times. Getting training on design for additive manufacturing will lead to less material utilization and shorter build time which will improve your overall parts economics.

Regardless of the design changes needed, don’t be scared by the initial cost per part based on cost calculations on a limited number of parts. Keep in mind that any extra part you manage to identify and transition to additive manufacturing will lead to a part cost reduction on all your 3D printed parts. Keep monitoring your use of additive manufacturing and observe the costs are shrinking the more you use it and you are getting more expertise. Actively managing your machine utilization and investing in upskilling your workforce will be the keys to achieving the favorable economics of additive manufacturing.

Loïc LeMerlus

Loic leads the development of Blueprint’s algorithms that drive our proprietary analysis tools. He also works closely with many of our clients to analyze complex data and understand the economic impact that 3D printing and additive manufacturing could have on their businesses. In other words, he puts the numbers behind the hype. Loic has over 9 years leading projects to quantify the impact of the technology, working with users and vendors across the additive manufacturing industry.

Blueprint is an additive manufacturing consultancy, bringing together more than 16 years of knowledge and experience across the industry. As the world’s leading additive manufacturing consultancy, Blueprint regularly assists future-ready companies achieve additive success. Based in Eden Prairie, Minn., and Milford, U.K, the firm offers a unique, technology-agnostic perspective on all things additive, from strategic advice to design optimization services. More information is available online at www.additiveblueprint.com.

If you want to discuss this article or your additive manufacturing strategy, the team at Blueprint is here to help. Let’s talk.

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3D Printing is Additive to Supply Chain Agility

The world’s manufacturers have been stretching supply chains out, becoming ever-more complex, for years now. While in eras of relatively free flow of trade, this has let countries and regions specialize in specific manufacturing types that play into their competitive advantages, the consequence is increased risk and decreased agility. This is being brutally borne out today in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, but the problem was becoming apparent even before that, particularly with the rise of Brexit and nationalistic manufacturing policies.

Additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, approaches can help reduce risk and restore agility when supported by AI-driven insights. By digitizing traditional manufacturing, introducing dual manufacturing approaches, and building out additive as a platform, manufacturing leaders can deliver the scale and efficiency benefits of global supply chains without being one black swan event away from disaster.

Framing the problem

The global COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered customer demand, created workforce challenges, and disrupted global supply chains in ways that few expected. For many business leaders, this pandemic has exposed risks in their global supply chains that they had not contemplated, and indeed, that supply chain organizations were never built to handle. It is time for business leaders to start looking at the global-level risks to their supply chains and manufacturing operations.

Disruptions happen in supply chains all the time. Unfortunately, they’re most often solved at the tactical level rather than the strategic level: Sudden imposition of tariffs? Profits are slightly down next quarter. Air travel cut in Europe because of a volcanic eruption? A solvable logistics problem. Escalating conflicts in a region? A few supply chain analysts must work a few late nights to find a second source.

The risks to global supply chains have been getting more obvious for years, and companies have had to react to events like Brexit and the sudden imposition of tariffs in trade wars, but this global pandemic has removed all doubt of the need to address these risks at the strategic level.

Lots of talk, but nothing new or actionable

In the last month, there has been growing interest in global supply chain risk, with articles in Harvard Business Review and the MIT Sloan Management Review publishing notable examples. The global problem is recognized.

Many have focused on how artificial intelligence, analytics, and even blockchain technologies can help mitigate these urgent risks. Indeed, AI and analytics solutions can help you understand volumes, production variability, escalating costs, or how much of your bill of materials is dependent on a commodity price. You can and should use these tools to optimize your supply chain, but they are just that: optimization tools; they break down when you uncover problems that require a new framing or need new and novel solutions.

Indeed, we’re uncovering a new problem: Over the last three decades, the relative free flow of trade has meant that manufacturing has concentrated in countries with comparative advantage in manufacturing that type of commodity. (One might expect that manufacturing in the west has declined in absolute terms with the rise of China; it hasn’t.) This means that structurally, how the world manufactures are highly-coupled to geography and is built on a model that targets efficiency at very specific production volumes. Manufacturers are unprepared to respond to global-scale threats (and opportunities) because of this strong coupling to geography and volume.

The need for a solution to macro-level risks

Supply chain analysts have historically been very good at understanding and addressing the micro-level risks associated with supply chains: Stock-outs, risk of a single supplier dropping out, commodity price increases… Consequently, the supply chain management industry has developed a suite of tools to address this: safety stock, dual sourcing, price guarantees, commodity hedges, competitive bidding, etc.

What the global disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic show us is that supply chain professionals have not been very great at understanding and assessing the macro-level risks associated with their manufacturing supply chains. What happens when disruption happens at country-, regional-, or global-scale? Clearly business leaders need to start contemplating these questions.

A better way to frame the problem

Start by acknowledging that most manufacturing is difficult to move once set up, so planners must predict the future and contemplate this risk over the life of a production line. Unfortunately, almost every macro-level risk to production is related to geography: Tariffs, labor disruptions, commodity unavailability, logistics breakdown. How do you tell if risk is geographic? Ask the question: If we could instantly move our production to somewhere else in the world, would this problem be solved? If the answer is yes, then the risk relates to geography.

Second, an often-overlooked element of risk is global demand. We’ve seen in the past several months that demand can be highly variable and spike (in the case of toilet paper) or drop (in the case of airplanes) dramatically in response to a crisis. It is not just in times of crisis that demand is variable; most product companies will experience a spike of demand upon release, and a tapering-off as a product matures, with consequences for production economies.

Finally, we define companies’ ability to respond to changes in geographic or demand risk as “agility.” In a supply chain context, this is the speed with which manufacturers can shift production between geographies and the ability to quickly adjust production within a wide range of volumes. The tools that enable manufacturing agility often help address both demand and geographic risk, so we’ll conceptualize those in a single bucket.

Conceptually, you can think of this framework as being summarized in a simple equation:

Thinking of risk in this way, we can start to understand what the risks are, what flexibility is needed to address this risk, and what questions we should be asking within our businesses and to our suppliers:

Risk

Flexibility needed

Questions to ask?

Geographic risk – Risks of disruptions to supply chain based on national, regional, or global factors.

Risks could include disruptions caused by labor market dynamics, tariffs, war, pandemics, natural disasters, factory input shortages, political factors.

Geographic flexibility – The ability to move or shift production from one geography to another.

Where are my suppliers?

Where are my second- and third-tier suppliers?

What borders do my supply chains cross?

Do I manufacture in more than one geography?

What are the economic factors that cause us to produce where we do?

Demand risk – Risks of radical increases or decreases in demand, either regionally or globally.

Demand shifts could be localized or global and be caused by fiscal and economic policy, market competitive forces, economic pressures, pandemics, natural disasters, conflicts

Volume flexibility – The ability to economically produce goods across a wide range of volumes.

What is the event that could happen that will reduce demand the most?

How quickly can we scale-down production?

What fixed costs are we incurring, regardless of demand?

What event could cause the greatest spike in demand? Could that demand spike be regional?

How quickly can we scale up production?

Given our production capacity, what is the ceiling of production before more investment is needed?

The conclusion from this framework is simple: If business leaders in manufacturing reduce their dependence on geography, create manufacturing infrastructure that is less dependent on specific levels of production, and increase their ability to respond quickly, they will reduce their manufacturing risk, be ready to respond to the next crisis, and be more prepared to take advantage of future opportunities.

Enter 3D Printing

Additive manufacturing is not simply about purchasing some 3D printers. It is, in fact, a manufacturing process that can be applied strategically to address manufacturing risk particularly by optimizing the denominator in our equation – agility.

Some of the well-known advantages of 3D printing involve the ability to have similar economics at any scale, or to produce line-side at the point of need, but 3D printing is neither a blanket solution, nor the only way that you can reduce risk from geography and demand and increase agility. But it is a very good tool in some cases. Here are three cases you should consider as part of your manufacturing strategy.

Digitization of traditional manufacturing toolsets

Rather than replace traditional manufacturing with 3D printing, look to 3D printing to digitize the process. Many manufacturers use 3D printing for manufacturing jigs and fixtures, but applications can go beyond that: Specialized tooling, job aids, molds for direct production, and machine service parts are some of the applications we have seen at our clients.

The advantages to digitization of your manufacturing toolset are twofold: In an event where you need to switch production to another geography, the number of things that you need to pack up and ship somewhere is reduced. Further, if you have the need to scale, printing additional molds and toolsets can enable your operation to do that rapidly.

The more components of your traditional manufacturing process can be digitized, the more agile your manufacturing operation is and the less coupled to geography your business becomes.

Dual Manufacturing

Dual manufacturing can be summarized as follows: Designing and qualifying functionally equivalent parts for two manufacturing processes, one process that is efficient at volume, and one process that is efficient at unit-scale. The advantages of this come from the fact that many traditional manufacturing methods require capacity to be deployed in blocks and are most efficient when these blocks of capacity are fully utilized. An injection molding setup that can produce 20,000 pieces a day is most cost-efficient when running at full capacity. Producing 20,001 pieces a day requires an additional fixed investment and wasted capacity of an additional setup. Under a dual manufacturing concept, additive manufacturing is used to augment traditional production until traditional manufacturing can be deployed at scale.

This concept isn’t only applicable in a crisis and we see it as relevant at several points in the normal production cycle:

Early production – Low volume production of the first units for review, trade shows, product launches
Peak production – Augment traditional production to meet peak demand where excess traditional manufacturing capacity would otherwise need to be built
Aftermarket – Production at low volumes for servicing aftermarket needs.

An additional advantage is that, once you have contemplated dual manufacturing, you can make strategic decisions about how closely you want to couple your manufacturing to a given production scale. Shifting more production to additive, or similar technologies, can reduce your risk to fluctuations in demand.

Employing a dual manufacturing concept simultaneously reduces risk to both geography and demand. By designing for a platform that can be deployed anywhere in the world, you decrease your geographic exposure. Likewise, by adding a manufacturing method that is similarly efficient across any volume to your manufacturing toolset, you increase your ability to produce to fluctuating demand.

Additive as a platform

Businesses that think of additive manufacturing as a platform can decouple themselves from fixed investment in geography and volume commitments. Once a machine and material are selected, a lot of the complexity in manufacturing is abstracted by that machine; rather than requiring tooling and separate processes for every part, the tooling and processes become largely standardized. As the number of parts that are designed for your “additive platform” increases, your manufacturing capacity becomes exponentially more flexible; any platform-compliant additive machine can produce any part designed for the platform. Additionally, an additive platform can be deployed incrementally, or augmented by any one of hundreds of global service bureaus.

Summary

During times of uncertainty, the default playbook for many business leaders is to cut budgets and weather the storm; eventually the economy will turn around, demand will bounce back, trade disputes will be resolved, and we can get back to business.

In contrast, we recommend using this as an opportunity to reassess manufacturing supply chains. We think that forward-looking business leaders will make this choice.

By contemplating tools that reduce exposure to geographic and demand risk, as well as increase the ability of manufacturing to respond, business leaders can both be ready for the next macro-level disruption in their supply chain and be able to act on opportunities once we emerge from the global Covid-19 pandemic.

While we have shared some ways in which 3D printing can help you alter your supply chain risk equation by decreasing exposure to geographic and demand risk, and increasing your agility, the examples above are only some of the ways that one tool can assist a much larger initiative. Pivoting manufacturing away from risk and toward agility will require support at all levels, from the C-suite to the manufacturing floor: Executives must look at and evaluate risks they never considered before, designers must contemplate the design freedoms (and constraints) of new tools, product managers must consider the economics of production across a range of volumes and geographies, engineers must learn how to design for additive, and supply chain must learn to “source” parts in ways they never contemplated before.

For organizations willing to change how they think about manufacturing, this will be a multi-year journey, but the rewards are obvious: Lowered exposure to country, regional, and global macro-level supply chain risk and the ability to be more responsive to your customers and markets. And if you don’t do it, one of your competitors almost certainly will.

Aaron Hurd (Senior Manager, Blueprint)

Aaron is a Senior Manager with Blueprint, where he helps clients understand how additive manufacturing impacts their strategy, supply chain, engineering, and manufacturing processes. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan and an engineering degree from Iowa State University.

Kunal Mehta (Managing Director of Blueprint)

Kunal is responsible for leading the global business of Blueprint and focuses on driving adoption of 3D printing across start-ups, Fortune 500s and governments. With his extensive experience deploying numerous emerging technologies, Kunal possesses a unique perspective in helping organizations achieve high performance by designing and executing additive strategies to reshape their manufacturing processes – consistently providing customers with a differentiated, more profitable, and more satisfying experience.

If you want to discuss this article or your additive manufacturing strategy, the team at Blueprint is here to help. Let’s talk.

References:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.CD?end=2018&locations=CN-US-EU-8S-IN-VN-MX-KR&start=1990

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/is-it-time-to-rethink-globalized-supply-chains/

https://hbr.org/2020/03/coronavirus-is-proving-that-we-need-more-resilient-supply-chains

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Blueprint Webinar: The Business Case for 3D Printing Spare Parts

In the next decade, 3D printing will massively reduce costs and create new revenue opportunities in spare parts businesses. This growth will be driven by 3D printing’s unique ability to eliminate fixed costs in manufacturing and radically reduce lead times.

The first step in unlocking the potential of 3D printing in your spare parts business is to understand the business case.

In this webinar Aaron Hurd, Consulting Manager at Blueprint, gives an overview of the business case for 3D printing spare parts. He explores both the high-level business case and gives tactical examples of how 3D printing is uniquely positioned to solve cost and lead time issues that often plague spare parts businesses.

In this webinar, you will:

- Learn how and why 3D printing solves the problems of cost and lead times in spare parts.
- See real examples of applications where 3D printing provided savings in both cost and lead times.
- Hear stories of how leading companies are innovating using 3D printing in their spare parts businesses.
- Gain an understanding of what it takes to deploy a 3D printing capability.
- See actionable steps to take for jumpstarting 3D printing in your spare parts business.

Blueprint is the world’s leading 3D printing consultancy. We’re engineers, innovators, analysts, and strategists with 15 years of experience helping clients across virtually every industry, at startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. We are laser-focused on helping our clients make sense of 3D printing, from high-level strategy and innovation, to deeply technical design optimization.

If you want to discuss this article or your additive manufacturing strategy, the team at Blueprint is here to help. Let’s say hello.

hello@additiveblueprint.com

The post Blueprint Webinar: The Business Case for 3D Printing Spare Parts appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

Interview with Vinod Devan of Deloitte on Their 3D Printing Approach

With 3D printing moving towards broader adoption many companies are now entering our market. One of these is Deloitte. The professional services firm that does everything from accounting to tax and M&A also wants to guide firms into the 3D printing world. We interviewed Vinod Devan, Product Strategy and Operations Lead at Deloitte Consulting to see what the firm’s plans are in 3D printing and how it hopes to help customers.

Why is Deloitte entering the 3D printing market?

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a critical component of the Industry 4.0 digital transformation.AM technology is finally at the point where companies are starting to realize significant, tangible, new value for themselves and their customers. Deloitte is making significant investments in 3D printing knowledge and capabilities so that we can advise and join with our clients as they revolutionize supply chains, product portfolios, and business models.

What competencies does the team have?

At Deloitte, we have incredible depth in supply chain and manufacturing and have been helping companies digitize their operations.This includes product design and development, manufacturing, production design, and in-market management – all of which are impacted by AM. Through our growing ecosystem of collaborators and global alliances with leading hardware and software players in this space, we bring a holistic view of the benefits and impacts of AM and complementary digital technologies.

What kind of projects have you done with customers?

Our projects generally fall into three buckets: Helping clients who are new to additive manufacturing enter the space in a strategic manner, helping clients operationalize and scale their existing – but relatively foundational – AM efforts, and helping clients that are already mature in AM transform and optimize end to end product and supply chain operations. Regardless of the project type, we strive to strike a balance between technical feasibility, business viability, and customer desirability. This approach is necessary for a ‘play to win’ strategy in AM.

What advice could you give me if I was a large manufacturing company and I’d want to get started with 3D printing?

Start small and focus on high value areas – this could be rapid prototyping, production of spare parts, or tooling components.Use this exercise to get comfortable with the technology, economics, and value of 3D printing. Build a roadmap to demonstrate success, and keep expanding the AM applications portfolio within your enterprise. Don’t treat AM as a fad; it will change manufacturing in unprecedented ways.

What application areas do you see opening up?

Over the next three to five years, we expect growth and scale in applications that are gaining significant traction today – long tail spare parts, tooling, bridge production, product personalization, and mass customization.

What are the next products that will be industrialized with 3D printing?

Automotive and large manufacturing companies are leading the industrialization of AM, due to the significant cost savings associated with digitizing their inventory. Consumer products and med tech companies benefit from the high degree of cost-effective personalization that AM offers. The range of products that will be additively manufactured will depend on the rate of development of specialized materials, adoption of the digital thread, integration of digital security to protect IP, certification of AM products by regulatory agencies, and perhaps most importantly, the willingness of innovative executives who choose to be bullish on digitizing their businesses.

What are some of the technologies that you’re most interested in?

The ability to 3D print has been around for a long time. While recent developments in AM are certainly encouraging and exciting, the development of complementary technologies that accelerate and expand the value of AM are very interesting. These include IoT, data analytics, and AR/VR. Together with AM, these technologies unlock the true potential of Industry 4.0.

What are some key developments in 3D printing materials?

Materials are definitely on the critical path for large-scale adoption of additive manufacturing. Getting AM products to be the same or better than those produced by legacy manufacturing processes often comes down to material science and engineering. Given the unique requirements for each application, we are seeing material producers develop new strategies and even new business ventures to not just develop specialty materials, but also to provide supplemental services that accelerate the adoption of their materials.

What are the key stumbling blocks in 3D printing implementations?

There are two primary stumbling blocks – the first is companies that don’t believe that AM is finally here, not just hype. Current manufacturing processes have been around for a lot longer than AM and have reached a high degree of efficiency and optimization. AM has been touted as disrupting those legacy models for almost three decades, but has fallen short until very recently. There is an entrenched mindset that will require a cultural shift to facilitate adoption. The second stumbling block is the lack of a holistic approach to AM. There is a tendency by executives and engineers to focus on either cost or quality or some other standalone benefit. That results in a narrow adoption strategy, which often does not yield sufficient value to justify additional investment.

A lot of people can never tell me how much a 3D printed part costs. How much would a 3D Printed pen cost? How many could I make a day?

Cost and volume questions are valid, but the answers vary greatly by technology, material, and process. And in our opinion, they do not provide sufficient information when evaluating 3D printing. Along with the cost elements (once to determine how you intend to print a part), other important questions should be considered. For example, could a 3D printed pen function BETTER than a traditional pen? Could it be lighter weight? Could it be personalized to the user? Could you sell more of a 3D printed pen relative to a regular pen because of its added value? Would the lifecycle cost – not just a production cost – of the pen be lower?

What products would make sense for 3D printing, which would not?

Despite the advancements in recent years, some limitations remain. For example, products or parts that exceed the optimal build size of current machines can’t be printed. Products in sectors with heavy regulatory oversight and lengthy certification processes make the scaled adoption of 3D printing a cumbersome exercise. Products that cannot be accommodated by today’s material set require additional design cycles to determine feasibility. Like with any disruptive technology, the number of products that can be “onboarded” to AM will increase exponentially as demand increases.

GE Additive Partnering Up with Honda and Triumph Group for 3D Printing Acceleration

GE Additive, which is attending the Farnborough International Airshow this week, has been busily dropping announcements from the trade fair, the latest of which is centered around its AddWorks additive consulting service provider. GE Additive and AddWorks were chosen by the Honda R&D Co., Ltd, Aircraft Engine R&D Center in Japan to help increase the development of 3D printed aerospace applications for its future generation aircraft engines.

SmarTech Publishing stated that over $280 billion will be invested in additive manufacturing over the next decade, and GE Additive wants in. Last spring, the company announced that it would be increasing its focus on additive manufacturing, planning to sell 10,000 3D printers by 2026 and become a $1 billion business by 2020. This announcement was followed by setting up operations in Japan this winter, and announcing that more commercial offerings would be available last month. Now, it’s continuing to increase its commercial efforts in Japan by focusing on important industries like automotive and aerospace.

“We are pleased that Honda Aircraft Engine R&D Center has selected GE Additive to be its vendor in providing AddWorks consulting services to further the use of this transformative technology in its future generation aircraft engines,” said Thomas Pang, the Director of GE Additive in Japan. “We are in the best position to share our learnings from our own additive journey, having started from prototyping to successfully applying it to mass production for aviation engine parts.”

Honda R&D Headquarters

GE and Honda have been partnering together in the aviation industry for over ten years, first setting up the joint venture GE Honda Aero Engines LLC in 2004 between Honda Aero and GE Aviation, and then creating the GE Honda HF120 jet engine for use on lighter business jet aircraft like the successful HondaJet – the most delivered in its category last year.

To assist customers in adding 3D printing to their business workflows, GE Additive provides materials, 3D printers, and the engineering consultancy services of AddWorks; these consultants use their AM expertise to help clients figure out if adopting 3D printing will be beneficial in terms of performance and cost. GE Additive is hopeful that AddWorks will help Honda Aircraft Engine R&D Center, and ultimately lead to further growth of its partnership with the company and increased AM adoption in aerospace.

At its Japan location, GE Additive will sell Concept Laser and Arcam EBM 3D printers, along with materials, both directly and through local resellers to customers in the country that focus on heavy industry, automotive, and aerospace.

In addition to the partnership with Honda, Pennsylvania-headquartered Triumph Group, a leader in the aerospace industry, is working to further its own AM strategy by selecting two of GE Additive’s 3D printers and a variety of AddWorks design and engineering consultancy service packages. Triumph hopes that these new additions will help to support both its commercial objectives and its R&D initiatives.

“I really admire Triumph’s smart and progressive strategy in adopting a multimodality approach to their additive journey. And when you add to that the deep experience and divergent thinking of our AddWork’s team, I look forward to seeing the results of what I hope will be a long and rewarding relationship,” said Jason Oliver, the President and CEO of GE Additive.

Triumph works in all levels of the aerospace supply chain, ranging from single components and complex systems to aerospace structures, in order to offer solutions for an aircraft’s entire product life cycle. The company enjoys a competitive advantage over similar businesses thanks to its ability to integrate several capabilities and products.

The aerospace company chose an M2 Cusing Multilaser DMLM system from Concept Laser, as well as an Arcam EBM Q20plus system, both of which should be fully installed at its Seattle R&D facility within Q3 of 2018.

“Triumph Group is excited to work with GE Additive to broaden Triumph’s utilization of additive manufacturing technology. Thus far we have successfully used additive manufacturing for prototyping, and we are rapidly growing its use for design competency,” said Dan Crowley, the President and CEO of Triumph Group. “This partnership with GE Additive will strengthen our additive manufacturing capability, accelerating our ability to design and develop future on-wing solutions for our customers.”

L-R: Gary Tenison, VP Strategy & Business Development, Triumph Group; Jason Oliver, President & CEO, GE Additive; Dan Rowley, President & CEO, Triumph Group; David Joyce, Vice Chair of GE and President and CEO, GE Aviation; Tom Holzthum, EVP Integrated Systems, Triumph Group; Ryan Martin, Sales Leader Americas, GE Additive

Right from the beginning, GE Additive’s AddWorks team will work with Triumph in multiple areas, such as advising on prototyping strategies, discovery workshops, and materials selection.

Discuss these stories and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Images provided by GE Additive]

Your New Editor In Chief: Joris

Hi, I’m Joris, and I’m going to try to give you more signals while reducing the noise. I want to thank Sarah for all of her hard work and dedication to this site. I can only hope that I can make a similar impact as Editor in Chief going forward.

I see myself as a kind of business development person for 3D printing itself. I’m continually trying to advance the technology in any way I can through a realistic hype-free assessment of the possibilities. I’m very interested in the applications that are emerging and what is possible now as opposed to shiny new renderings and overclaim. I’m obsessed with the technology and continually try to learn more.

As a small child in Kenya, I had this ongoing thought experiment where I would imagine by what magic we could turn trash into new things. Even at 8, I was a bit sceptical about burning all of our trash at the bottom of our yard. When in 2004 I read a paper on using 3D printers to make robots and batteries (by Hod Lipson and Evan Malone) I was blown away and realised that with this technology we could as humanity have our cake and eat it too. We could consume and then recycle old 3D prints in a closed loop at home. It seemed to me to be the only longshot opportunity that could let a people addicted to things work towards saving the planet. It took me four years of obsessive reading of papers before a job was available at Philips on what became Shapeways (It was called U-Design.it first, really happy we didn’t run with that).

Joris Peels

Later on, I had the opportunity to work at Materialise, Ultimaker, HP, Formlabs and lots of other firms. For the past few years, I’ve been doing consulting for the 3D printing market. Mostly I do market research, competitive analysis, track machine sales and new developments. I’ve worked for OEMs to help them position their printers, worked to develop 3D printing materials in FDM and SLS, worked to create new business models and new high volume applications for 3D printing. I gave trainings at multinationals and helped large businesses track relevant developments in Additive Manufacturing. I’ve done technical due diligence for VC and helped PE investors find their footing in the market. Uniquely I’ve worked across the value chain for 3D printing and have empathy with and knowledge of all the main types of players in the market.

The reason for me to take this job is explicitly to bring more realism, analysis and truth to the 3D printing publications. I want to increase the quality of the information on 3D printing that is available. I want to edit out the bull, the opportunists who add no value, the chancers and the “me too’s”. The quality of some publications is just ridiculously low. As a voracious consumer of 3D printing blogs, I’m tired of reading nonsense. The more that you the reader know, the better our industry will solve the manufacturing challenges of a fast-changing world. In times of uncertainty, it is the well informed and agile that can make a difference. I, therefore, see my role as being a filter that makes you more likely to know what is going on and relevant in 3D printing.

Bioprinting is an area that I’m hugely interested in. I’m very sceptical of all the house printers but look forward to them building things that won’t collapse while hoping that they take into account frost, QA and layer adhesion. I hope that desktop SLS machines won’t kill people either. I’m obsessed with PEEK, PEKK, PPA’s (polyphthalamide), Ultem, Hastelloy, ASA, ceramics, reducing part count, soft robotics and manufacturing with 3D printing. Variable density insoles and shoes intrigue me. I think that internal topology optimization, crystallization on the fly and tunable infill will be breakthroughs for 3D printing. I have a bias for SLS (powder bed fusion) and FDM (material extrusion), for manufacturing. I still don’t believe in food printing or 3D printing fashion, but I do believe in wearables. I don’t understand why anyone would want to print chocolate.

I have an Ultimaker, a Formlabs, two Overlords, and a few Prusa i3 clones at home. I mostly print tensile bars but also am making lamps and jewellery. I have my own blog, which I never update, where I’ll put things too esoteric for here. The material I use most often is ASA. My favourite software is 360, Cura, MakePrintable and Magics. My dream 3D printer is an EOS P110, or maybe an Arcam Q20. I’d love to have a MetalFab1, but I’ve checked, and it won’t fit in my house.

I’m very direct and can be very sarcastic, acerbic even. I’m a very curious person. I talk an awful lot but can also go into quickfire question mode. I try to be funny far too often. I hope that gives you a good idea of where I’m coming from and the type of person I am. I’ll do my best to serve you well. I love feedback and want to make this into your dream 3D printing resource. Please email me directly at joris (at) 3DPrint.com should you have any questions, ideas or suggestions.