MythbustingAdditive Manufacturing

Myth: “Soon everyone will have a 3Dprinter in their home...it’ll be just likeStar Trek.”

Reality: Sadly 3D printing takes a bitlonger than you might think.

CAD .stl fileSlicing

softwareMachine

setupManufacture

Clean-up andfinishing

There are a number of steps involved which require different software, user inputand equipment before you get to a useable, finished, 3D Printed part:

Myth: “3D printing will be the end of the traditional manufacturing industry. We’lljust 3D print what we want, when we want it”

Reality: Although it’s possible to manufacture really high quality parts and even acar (sort of), the speed of 3D printing is nowhere near fast enough to threaten

mass production – every 53 seconds a Nissan Qashqai rolls off the line inSunderland. In 53 seconds most 3D printers won’t have warmed up yet.

Myth: “Now it’s easy to steal someone else’sdesign or reverse engineer an existing product.You just laser scan it then 3D print it.”

Reality: Although scanning technologies haveimproved, they still give you ‘point cloud’ data,which is really difficult and time consuming toturn into useable CAD files for manufacturing.

Myth: “You can only make small partsusing 3D printing, it can’t make bigger

components”

Reality: This used to be the case, butnow systems such as Big Area Additive

Manufacturing by Cincinnatti havebeen developed to make very large

parts. These do come at a large cost,however.

Additive Manufacturing is…

• Not as quick and easy as you might think

• Not quick enough to threaten mass production (yet)

• Capable of manufacturing parts in high-grade materials

• Good value if time is important

• Able to make very large parts (with the right machine)

Using 3D Printing to Increase Productivity:How does it work for an SME?

Productivity with ALM

Faster New ProductDevelopment

Production-readyparts

Rapid turnaround,low-cost tooling

• Barton Coldform used ALM to speed up their new productdevelopment process from 12 weeks to 12 hours.

• This helped them win a £300k contract with a major automotivecustomer.

• Jewellery manufacturers such as Weston Beamor make extensive useof ALM to help them produce bespoke products faster.

• ALM is used to make wax-like patterns for investment casting in gold,silver or platinum.

• Silson make delicate sensing devices in silicon.

• They have invested in a small ALM machine and now make highvariety, low volume parts that act as jigs and fixtures for their sensors.They are the only company that offer this service to their customers inthis sector.

• We’ve worked with a number of companies to develop 3D printedtooling for low volume injection moulding and vac forming.

• Tooling can be designed and made within 24 hours, saving a hugeamount of time in the product development process, and preventingcostly mistakes in hard tooling.

• For up to 200 parts per set of inserts

• Great for TPE and PP

ALM can help you be more productive by:

• Helping generate new business

• Reducing development time

• Implementing high-variety/low volume production

• Reducing tooling cost/time for low volumes