In this edition of Sliced, the 3D Printing Industry news digest, we cover the latest business developments, partnerships, and acquisitions across our industry. Today’s edition features a host of new partnerships from within the industry, new aerospace and army additive applications, reimagined 3D printing facilities, industry partnerships and of course, 3D printed 300 year old […]
3D Printing News Briefs: July 19, 2019
We’ve got a new partnership to tell you about in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, followed by a software update and some news about 3D printing in the hospital. FIT AG and Mitsui & Co. Machine Tech Ltd are partnering in Japan. Volume Graphics has released Version 3.3 of its CT software solution. Lastly, Rady Children’s Hospital is bringing the technology in-house with a new 3D printing lab.
FIT AG and Mitsui & Co. Machine Tech Ltd. Announce Partnership
Back, L-R: Alexander Bonke, CEO, FIT Production GmbH; Carl Fruth, CEO, FIT AG; Albert Klein, CFO/CSO, FIT AG)
Front, L-R: Shigeo Watanabe, General Manager, Business Planning Division, Corporate Planning & Strategy Unit, Mitsui & Co. Machine Tech Ltd.; Yasushi Murata, Director Project Management, Japan FIT AG, Takahiro Sueki, Business Planning Division, Corporate Planning & Strategy Unit, Mitsui & Co. Machine Tech Ltd.
German company FIT Additive Manufacturing Group (FIT AG) and Mitsui & Co. Machine Tech Ltd have announced that they will be partnering up to give Japanese manufacturing companies access to proven 3D printing solutions. Mitsui Machine Tech, which is a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co., Ltd. will propose that its Japanese customers use FIT’s engineering, manufacturing, and project management services in cooperation with subsidiaries FIT Production GmbH and FIT Japan K.K. In addition, it will offer FIT’s 3D printing solutions to customers in Japan who are looking to invest in their own AM capacity.
“The cooperation of Mitsui Machine Tech and FIT offers Japanese customers the combination of trust and expertise. This is essential during the introduction of new technologies,” stated Carl Fruth, the CEO of FIT AG. ” We have developed a well-defined set of services in the additive design and manufacturing of final products and volume parts, and now Mitsui Machine Tech and FIT offer this to the Japanese market. Our cooperation with Mitsui Machine Tech fills us with pride and joy. We have high expectations as to the results.”
The news about the partnership was announced at the recent German-Japanese Additive Manufacturing Forum.
Volume Graphics Releases Updated Version of Software
Multi-material surface determination
Volume Graphics GmbH has over two decades of experience in developing and providing software for non-destructive testing based on industrial computed tomography (CT). Now, the company has released the latest generation of its advanced CT data analysis software. Version 3.3 of its VGSTUDIO, VGSTUDIO MAX, VGMETROLOGY, and VGinLINE include multiple updates, such as multi-material surface determination and volume meshing for simulations, and Volume Graphics has also announced the addition of a Technical Consulting unit that will provide customers with professional consulting and evaluation services.
Christof Reinhart, the CEO and Co-Founder of Volume Graphics, said, “With version 3.3 of our software solutions, we are once again laying the foundation for customers to make their processes smarter.
“For example, using the new data export, metrology data derived with the tremendous measurement capabilities of our software can be seamlessly shared with QA systems, where the values can then be combined and checked over time. More than ever before, this new feature enables customers to better integrate leading-edge CT technology into their existing software landscape. The new export feature is based on the native support of the widely used Q-DAS format, which makes using results in third-party statistical or analysis software especially easy.”
Rady Children’s Hospital Opening 3D Innovations Lab
San Diego-based Rady Children’s Hospital – the largest children’s hospital in California and the region’s only pediatric trauma center – has decided to stop outsourcing its 3D printing projects and bring the technology in-house. The hospital knows the positive impact that 3D printing can have on the outcome of a patient, and is opening its first 3D Innovations Lab, which will be centered around the HP Jet Fusion 580 Color 3D printer. The system will be used to make anatomical models for specialists and surgeons to use in pre-planning, which can help lower the risk of complications in the OR. One example is that of Leanne Wilbert’s son, who needed open heart surgery for a condition where two of his main arteries were switched. A scale model of his heart was 3D printed to allow the surgeon to practice different approaches.
“3D printing and 3D innovations as a whole has a major role in a hospital,” Justin Smith, PhD, a research scientist at Rady Children’s Hospital, said in a video. “It helps our surgeons, helps our doctors, helps our students, helps the families themselves, helps the whole team. By creating a workflow that enabled 3D printing, we brought this incredible technology in house. It’s helping improve our patient outcomes, but also helping our economics, in helping new opportunities for device design and fabrication.”
In addition to 3D printing, the hospital’s new 3D Innovation Lab will also include virtual and augmented reality technologies.
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The post 3D Printing News Briefs: July 19, 2019 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.
3MF 3D printing file format adopted by Autodesk, HP, Microsoft, Siemens, and 13 others
The 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF), a Joint Development Foundation project established to develop an advanced 3D printing file format, has announced that 17 companies have adopted its 3MF platform to create 32 products. “Wide adoption of 3MF is occurring because 3MF is a modern 3D printing file format designed with manufacturing in mind. For additive […]
Roboze and FIT AG Announce 3D Printing Expansions to New Countries
As 3D printing continues to grow, the technology’s footprint is broadening on a global scale. More and more companies are seeing their 3D printing systems spread around the world with new installations, expansions, and partnerships. Recent news out of Dubai (via Italy) and Japan (via Germany) showcases two more 3D printing entities expanding their reach.
3D printer manufacturer Roboze, headquartered in Bari, Italy, has long had expansion on the mind. In the last two years, the company announced expansions into the US, the Balkan Peninsula, Asia and India, the Benelux region, Poland, the EMEA region, and the UK and Ireland. Now Roboze can add a new location to this long list – the United Arab Emirates, or more specifically, Dubai, which knows a little something about 3D printing.
In 2016, Dubai implemented its famous 3D Printing Strategy, which includes a multi-tiered plan focusing on construction, consumer products, and medical products. The plan, set up to ensure that Dubai and the UAE become world leaders in 3D printing, has an ambitious goal – to have 25% of the city-state’s buildings 3D printed by 2030. As the technology continues to evolve, and the market is forecast to reach $300 billion by 2025, this seems manageable. The project is set to start in 2019, beginning at 2% with a gradual increase toward the final goal.
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) is regulating standards for 3D printing use in the health sector, and is already exploring 3D printed prosthetic limbs and other medical devices. In addition, Dubai is increasing its focus on 3D printed consumer products, and has set a goal of reaching €6 billion on the market by 2025 for producing items like fast food products, household items, jewelry, optics, and children’s games.
Expansion-minded Roboze has now responded to the UAE market, and will use its high-precision, industrial 3D printers to provide cost and time-effective solutions. This week, the company’s founder and CEO Alessio Lorusso is in Dubai to introduce the company’s 3D printing solutions, including the ARGO 500, to the UAE in a series of meetings.
Roboze’s patented Beltless System is part of what makes its offerings so appealing. The system gets rid of the traditional rubber straps, replacing them with a unique movement of the X and Y axes, complete with directly connected helical rack and pinion. This makes the company’s 3D printers some of the most accurate in the whole world.
The company also counts metal replacement, especially in the aerospace and automotive fields, and its versatile materials among its strengths. Its desktop 3D printers can print using high-performance, industrial-strength materials, like PEEK and PEI, which help Roboze, in its own words, “pave the way in the creation of new divisions aimed at leading the medical technology sector.”
By exporting its extrusion-based technology to Dubai, which is rapidly developing its use of 3D printing in multiple sectors, Roboze is seizing an opportunity that just can’t be missed, as the UAE’s growing market is quickly becoming a stepping stone to a brighter future.
Another well-known company that’s focused on expansion is 3D printing specialist FIT AG, which is headquartered in Germany and has subsidiaries in Romania and the US, and began a joint venture in Russia in the fall.
This week, the company announced that it’s entered the 3D printing market in Japan by setting up a new fully owned subsidiary, called FIT Japan K.K. The company completed an analysis of the Japanese 3D printing and service market to confirm that a shift in the country’s business needs and manufacturing strategies was occurring, which meant that more substitution of prototypes with final tools and parts was needed.
Japan boasts many opportunities in the 3D printing industry. This growth comes from growing demand from multiple end-use applications, like the architecture, automotive, and healthcare industries. So the strategic decision for FIT AG to reach out to the Japanese market makes sense.
[Image: FIT AG]
“Step by step, we will evolve from a foreign contract manufacturer to an insider in the Japanese innovation system,” said Carl Fruth, CEO at FIT Additive Manufacturing Group. “To this goal, we have established a Japanese subsidiary to serve as a direct interface for our ADM services to the market and to introduce us to important Japanese customers. Starting from a position as a global technology leader, we intend to open up the Japanese as well as the Asian markets and to consolidate business in the long run.”
FIT AG specializes in volume manufacturing of 3D printed parts, and developed an approach called ADM, Additive Design and Manufacturing. The company offers a comprehensive service, which includes both additive design and engineering in the pre-production project phase, multiple technologies for production, and post-processing and quality assurance.
Yasushi Murata
“When learning about FIT AG and its ADM concept for the first time, I was immediately intrigued by its potential. I’m overjoyed to empower Japanese companies with FIT’s expertise,” said Yasushi Murata, FIT AG’s assigned leader in Japan. “I’m not exaggerating… I’m convinced that FIT AG can act as a game-changer for the Japanese productive industry of today.”
One advantage of FIT AG’s move to Japan is that, while the name FIT Japan K.K. may be new to the market, the company is not unknown in the country, as it already counts several Japanese companies as customers.
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