In 2018, BMW was already producing over 200,000 3D printed car parts a year, like this 3D printed air vent for Mini.
Avoiding unplanned downtime is the goal of every manufacturer. The impact of even a single idle line can be significant - especially in industries such as automotive where the average cost of downtime for a single line is generally considered to be more than 17,500 GBP a minute! However, be it due to a breakage or malfunction of tooling or a part, it's a fact of life that failures can, and do, happen. Fortunately, with additive manufacturing (AM)/3D printing, there are ways to minimise this downtime, especially, but not only, when the culprit is tooling.
With AM, manufacturers can quickly and cost-effectively 3D print tools on demand in-house or nearby. An inventory of one is also possible, making the switch even faster. This ensures the line is down for the absolute minimal time and replacement tools are always on hand - something simply not possible with traditional manufacturing technologies. Indeed, manufacturers of diverse items from beer to transportation are already using AM for their production and assembly line tooling and this use is poised to spread further.
Bringing Downtime to a Halt
AM can also help overcome other production line headaches like missing spare parts, which are another major cause of unproductive lines. Unlike tooling, machinery manufacturers own the designs of these parts, and they can offer them to their corporate clients as digital assets that can be consistently produced on demand and in limited quantities close to their production line.
Some hardware manufacturers may go even further. In some cases, AM can produce a replacement part but it is not as robust as a part manufactured in the traditional way. In this case, the equipment manufacturer can offer a 3D printed emergency spare part to keep the line going until the regular part arrives. This way, two short part replacement efforts can avoid weeks of downtime. The key is to get the line back up quickly without compromising quality. This comes down to consistent, repeatable tools and parts (across time and across production lines).
Thankfully, there are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions that can protect such items from being altered, produced on the wrong printer or accessed by an unauthorised party. This ensures correct, repeatable, and consistent production of the tool or part, which is a necessary ingredient to the shared goal of manufacturing managers everywhere: a functional line that's always (or almost always) running!
Part-ners in Production - Certification and AM
In addition to its ability to help minimise downtime, a fundamental benefit of AM is its inherent flexibility that allows for the manufacturing of different parts and products, sometimes on the same printer bed. However, this flexibility creates a challenge when it comes to certification - something that is a must in many industrial sectors.
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Exhibit at the UK's definitive and most influential 3D printing and additive manufacturing event, TCT 3Sixty.
With conventional manufacturing, normal practice is to certify the production line of the particular part or product made on it. The line is then used only for the certified production of this specific part. In most manufacturing techniques, this is a one-time certification that can last for up to a year and permits the line to produce the certified part during that period. To complete the part's certification, the material the part is made of is also usually certified as a prerequisite. In conventional manufacturing, certifying the material and the production process can be enough to certify the product. In more exacting certification cases, the workflow and other components (including, potentially, the people handling the workflow) must also be certified.
This kind of certification is sufficient for two main reasons: first, the material entering the process corresponds in a unique way to the material properties of the final item. That's to say that, it's either the same material (as in CNC) or it is a material with predictable properties (as in injection moulding or casting). Second, mass manufacturing lines typically produce the same part continually without interruption. Once the line is certified, you can't change anything (and typically don't want to). And, if the line is changed over to a different part, it is re-certified when returning to the specific part.
Software can help ensures correct, repeatable, and consistent production of tool or parts. In this example, Opel uses Stratasys 3D printed assembly tools to align the Vauxhall ‘Adam’ lettering.
Changing the game
None of this is true for AM, where the machine settings can and do change from one bed to the next. In addition, it's often the case that parts being produced will constantly change. It does not make sense to go through a certification process for each bed, nor does it make sense (except in mass manufacturing such as teeth aligner moulds) to limit a machine to one part - this robs AM of a big advantage (no switching cost and minimal batch size of one) and increases the cost of said part manifold. Also, changing the machine settings - and even the pre-processing of the item - can change the material characteristics of the actual part produced. This means that certification for AM needs to be re-thought with the specific characteristics of the technology in mind.
Fortunately, you can certify an AM protocol for a particular part, and with the right kind of SaaS solution you can enforce this protocol throughout the workflow every time the part is produced. This will give you tracking (essentially an audit trail) that will allow you to demonstrate that the part was produced according to the certified protocol with the certified raw material to yield a certified part produced by AM. Indeed, for those companies producing more than one kind of part using AM technologies, investigating such software solutions is a necessity in order to track complex production easily and make sure certification is adhered to.
Automotive in the additive manufacturing Lane
A great example of everything mentioned so far is the automotive industry, which is widely considered to be a pioneer in AM adoption. In 2018, BMW was already producing over 200,000 3D printed car parts a year (a leap of 40% compared to the previous year). In tooling, AM is even more prevalent. For example, Michelin 3D prints (in metal) over one million siping tools a year for use in its tire manufacturing line. The industry's adoption of AM is not surprising, as the technology provides the solution to OEMs' biggest challenges: reducing production line downtime, increasing customisation possibilities and, crucially, cutting costs.
As a result, the automotive 3D printing market is currently estimated at 1.4 billion USD and is forecasted to grow to 9 billion USD by 2025. A significant part of this market is attributable to tooling - the jigs, gauges and fixtures that are so critical to keeping the industry's increasingly complex manufacturing and assembly lines moving.
The cost of tooling to OEMs alone (i.e. not including tooling used by their suppliers) is estimated to be $550 per car. Some of these tools are already additively manufactured but there is much more to come. The ability to 3D print jigs and fixtures onsite (or locally) and on-demand can reduce tooling costs considerably as well as cut lead times, often from days or even weeks to hours.
In addition to minimising production line downtime this way, AM also allows manufacturers to respond quickly to part failures by either redesigning or re-printing the part, as required. This offers the flexibility to accept and respond quickly to any changes needed to the production or assembly line. For example, Ford's partnership with Trinckle is reported to have cut the time it takes to design a new jig from 4-6 hours to just 10 minutes. This, together with onsite 3D printing, means that in any failure or redesign event, Ford can get its production lines up and running in a matter of minutes, instead of hours or even days.
Securing digital assets and repeatability
Repeatability is a hallmark of manufacturing and assembly lines, especially in the automotive industry. Aside from envy-inducing, highly-customised super cars like the Bugatti Chiron, most cars are mass produced. This means that every car of a particular make and model must be identical, and so too must be the tooling that enables their production. Therefore, it is essential they are made in a way that is both consistent and repeatable.
However, as we mentioned, while repeatability sounds like a no-brainer, it is a challenge for AM, where parts are produced in small batches (or even batches of one), potentially in different factories or even in different countries. This makes it difficult to ensure that parts are always produced to the same specifications. Any variance in the 3D printer settings or other parts of the workflow can result in a faulty part or weak tooling that breaks and stops the assembly line. With a digital inventory of AM-produced parts, jigs, or fixtures, repeatability is therefore key - whether a file is printed once or a thousand times, in one location or dozens. This relies on securing AM blueprints and ensuring that parts or tools are produced in exactly the same way with exactly the same settings regardless of where or when the digital turns into physical.
There is no doubt that the flexibility and efficiency-enhancing aspect of AM will continue to be attractive to manufacturers. AM is shaping up to be an important manufacturing technology, provided relevant software solutions are in place to support it. It will not replace traditional manufacturing technologies, but it certainly is taking its rightful place alongside them in this 12 trillion USD market.
Lee-Bath Nelson, Co-Founder and VP Business at LEO Lane
Lee-Bath Nelson is Co-Founder and VP Business at LEO Lane, an Israel-based business that empowers industrial manufacturers to securely and consistently manage additive manufacturing, anywhere anytime, using the company’s cloud-based SaaS solution. She can be reached at info@leolane.com
