A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing is now a key competitive advantage for the 21st century, so how do you make it your competitive advantage? What you need is...

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

WRITTEN BY Oliver Smith CO-CREATED BY Kunal Mehta Aaron Hurd Loic Le Merlus David Busacker

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Contents Part one - An introduction to 3D printing 06/ A new century, a new approach 08/ The 3D printing landscape 10/ The 6 business drivers for 3D printing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Contents

16/ 3D printing technologies and materials 20/ The need for a holistic approach

Part two - 3D printing across the product lifecycle 26/ Prototyping 38/ Manufacturing 50/ Assembly 62/ Sales and retail 74/ Maintenance and aftermarket

Part three - Turning insight into action 88/ Calculating the value of 3D printing 90/ Building an additive business 92/ Taking the first step 94/ Additional resources

The first thing 3D printing should make for your business?

Sense.

While 3D printing continues to prove its value across industries and applications, the technology is still not readily adopted; although 3D printing is a $10B industry, it still amounts to only a fraction (0.08%) of a $12T manufacturing environment. Why haven’t organizations taken the final leap from experimentation to full adoption? Our research shows 84% of businesses are interested in moving beyond prototyping, and leveraging the benefits of additive throughout their business, yet 85% are unable to seize these advantages due to a lack of human skills, business acumen, and technical knowledge.

The team at Blueprint has over 16 years of experience making sense of 3D printing. This book is a collection of our experience and insight, which addresses some of the most common questions executives ask us - what is the blueprint for 3D printing? How will the technology add value to my business? What are the criteria to select the most appropriate additive technologies? How do I best deploy and sustain it within my organization? Where do i start?

In this book we explore the five stages of the product lifecycle — prototyping, manufacturing, assembly,

sales, and maintenance — in the context of additive manufacturing. At each stage, we break down the benefits and applications of additive, the archetypes of deployment, the criteria for identifying the most relevant technology, and the considerations when investing and implementing the technology. We close by sharing our tried and tested framework for deploying 3D printing within your business and articulating the value it provides.

As we say, the first thing 3D printing should make for your business is sense. We hope this book helps you make sense of the technology.

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

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Part one

An introduction to 3D printing What is 3D printing? In this section, we explore the various technologies behind the term, how it differs from conventional methods of manufacturing, and how it is enabling new forms of business value.

06 16

A new century, a new approach

3D printing technologies and materials

08 20

The 3D printing landscape

The need for a holistic approach

10

The 6 business drivers for 3D printing

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A new century, a new approach

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

Making objects layer by layer is more revolutionary than you might think

From the student’s study to the professional designer’s office, from the dental laboratory to the jewelry retailer, from the aerospace factory to the hospital basement, 3D printers have become invaluable business tools. Applications and reasons are as diverse as the users and industries. But what is it about 3D printing that enables these new innovations and opportunities?

What links all these applications and users is one underlying ability: to transition 3D information digitally and seamlessly from the virtual world to the real world with nothing but a computer and a 3D printer to go from bytes to bits.

This may seem innocuous at first; many modern production technologies are driven by digital data and controlled by computers. But let’s consider this in the context of how we have historically manufactured products. The modern manufacturing world is a plethora of different technologies, processes and tools, but they can be largely categorized into three families.

For as long as humans have wielded tools, we have had three methods at our disposal to manipulate our environment and “make things.” We have either removed material, joined materials, or reformed them to achieve a desired shape.

Whilst the discrete methods of how we do this are many, from backward impact extrusion to reaction injection molding, they all fit into one of these three categories.

Making objects additively, layer by layer, is an entirely new manufacturing methodology distinct from subtractive, fabricative, or formative processes. This presents a number of unique opportunities for how parts can be produced, and in turn, how supply chains operate, businesses sell, and manufacturers invest.

Because 3D printing uses a layer-by-layer, particle-by-particle approach to manufacturing, it is able to make complicated shapes that are unimaginable using traditional process such as molding, machining, or casting. Unlike these traditional processes, complexity with 3D printing is also dislocated from cost, making it a highly efficient way of making intricate shapes.

Couple this capability with the fact that 3D printing is entirely digital, and this dissolves the traditional relationship between part cost and production volume. We now have a process that is highly suited to low volume production applications where traditional tooling investment can be difficult to justify.

A new manufacturing methodology for the 21st century

Subtractive

Fabricative

Formative

Additive

Material is successively removed or subtracted from a solid block until the desired shape is achieved.

Common subtractive methods include drilling, milling, and turning and are capable of producing parts with superior tolerances and excellent surface finish quality, but can be limited in the geometries they can produce.

Elements or physical materials are combined and joined to create an object. This approach includes mechanical and chemical joining methods such as weaving, riveting, and glueing and is often used to create larger, more materially or mechanically complex parts such as performance composites or complex structures.

A combination of mechanical forces and heat are applied to material to form it into the desired shape.

Formative methods include casting and molding. These methods are suitable for high-volume production of individual parts or manipulation of high-performance materials, but can be costly when used for low volumes of parts.

Material is manipulated and deposited in a controlled way layer by layer to form an object. Unlike other production methodologies, the layer-wise approach allows for the creation of new geometries, mechanical properties, and part functionality that is only achievable via an additive process.

Est 2.5 million BC / Hominids

Est 6,000 BC / Western Asians

Est 3,000 BC / Egyptians

Est 1984 / Californians

Many of the manufacturing paradigms that govern our modern industrial economy stem from how we manipulate material to produce objects, parts, and products. Even as more advanced machining, assembly, and molding processes develop, these “rules” still remain. An additive approach comes with its own set of rules, many of which go counter to convention; complexity is free, economies of scale don’t exist, parts can be produced without the need for factories.

Claims that 3D printing was to usher in a 4th industrial revolution were over-hyped. But it does offer a 4th mode of manufacturing. The applications and benefits of this new, 4th

approach have been A/B tested for over two decades, with many companies already integrating additive as a production solution to solve problems or capture opportunities that can’t be addressed by conventional methods. As we move into the next decade, this 4th way of making will be seen less as a technological novelty and more as another manufacturing solution, with its own set of benefits and limitations, applications, and technology variations. It is a new approach for a new century, and those organizations that build a base of knowledge as to what, how, where, and when to use it will be the leaders that set the pace of competition in the years to come.

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The 3D printing landscape

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

From aerospace engines to mascara brushes, 3D printing is driving change in virtually every industry

Companies have used 3D printing for almost 30 years to make accurate and repeatable rapid prototypes and models to support the product design and innovation process.

However, it is only within the last decade that we have seen the technology transition out of the prototyping lab and into the wider world of manufacturing.

In the automotive industry, 3D printing is helping to streamline the production and assembly process, with leading automotive companies such as BMW and Volkswagon reducing costs by 3D printing manufacturing and assembly jigs and fixtures rather than relying on conventional high-cost machining or turning to tooling suppliers.

The aerospace industry has been a long-standing user of additive manufacturing, primarily focused on developing and certifying 3D printed parts to improve the engineering of airframes and engines. In the last several years, the usage of 3D printed parts on aircraft has increased dramatically thanks to new aerospace-grade materials and intensive R&D work.

Today, Airbus, GE Aviation, Rolls Royce, and other major aerospace players are integrating 3D printed parts into their new airframe and engine designs, a trend that will continue to grow in future designs.

One common assumption is that 3D printing is limited to lowvolume manufacturing due to printing speeds and part costs.

But numerous companies are disproving this theory.

In the consumer goods industry, Adidas is using 3D printing to mass produce a new line of footwear with printed lattice midsoles. In the luxury cosmetics industry, Chanel is 3D printing a novel design of mascara brush, with one million units printed a month.

Within the medical industry, mass customization comes in the form of 1.6 million patient specific 3D printed dental aligners a week, produced by Align Technologies, a leading medical device company, and one-off patient specific pre-surgical models used by Northwell Health to minimize risk and reduce time in surgery.

And in the services and aftermarket industry, 3D printing is used as a cost effective and agile method to source spare parts. Siemens Mobility is building a digital inventory of spare parts for rolling stock maintenance and Lufthansa Technik incorporates additive manufacturing within its aerospace maintenance, repair, and overhaul centers.

Graph Sources/ Wohlers Report 2019, 3D printing and additive manufacturing state of the industry.

Dimensional Research, Trends in 3D printing at scale.

20% Automotive

20% Industrial

17% Functional prototypes

20% Jigs and fixtures

11% Molds and tooling 12% Medical and dental 18% Aerospace

7% Other 14% Consumer goods

13% Limited production runs

12% Mass production

5% R&D 5% Military

12% Spare parts

10% MRO

6% End of life parts

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A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

The 6 business drivers for 3D printing With so many capabilities, applications, and opportunities, how do you define the business value of 3D printing?

3D printing is already being used by many organizations across an array of sectors to drive innovation, support manufacturing, and bring new products and service offerings to market. But, where it is being used, it is being used because of the business benefits it presents rather than simply because it is an alternative and “new” way of making. 3D printing presents a number of compelling business benefits, which are driving adoption of the technology globally.

The 6 drivers codify these benefits within an easy to apply framework, one based on business value and communicating the human and organizational implications of the technology.

This approach ensures that designers, engineers, managers, and executives understand the implications and benefits of what 3D printing can offer us. It shows us what these changes can look like in terms of an organizations processes, structure, and strategy, and empowers those to start the conversation about 3D printing from a “business mindset.”

Freedom of design The restraints of design-for-manufacture are substantially reduced allowing for the manufacture of highly complex geometries with little or no cost-penalty in one singular production process.

Embedded functionality The digital nature of 3D printing allows for the precise positioning of multiple materials at a micron-scale enabling embedded intelligence, advanced functionality, exotic material properties, and much more.

Streamlined supply chains The ability to produce parts on demand relative to traditional manufacturing processes allows for the reconfiguration of supply chains from traditional production and distribution to zero-inventory “digital stock.”

Hyper personalization By removing traditional economies of scale, personalization can go mass-market, opening up a huge opportunity across sectors to add value to products through personalization when it was previously cost-prohibitive.

Low volume manufacturing Unlike traditional production processes, 3D printing is entirely digital and tool-less, meaning there’s no capital cost difference between printing one part or a thousand.

Lifecycle sustainability From minimizing manufacturing material waste to reducing fuel costs by light-weighting parts, 3D printing can reduce environmental impact whilst simultaneously growing the bottom line.

Freedom of design Imagine being able to make almost impossible shapes. Shapes traditionally associated with nature or the hands of the most skilled and experienced artisans.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case for most of the products we buy today. As manufacturing has evolved and new production processes have developed, so have the constraints placed on the design and aesthetic of the products we make.

Design for manufacture and assembly (DMFA) has now become a vital consideration for any business, but it can also define the relationship between production economics and product desirability.

Now imagine what the products and assemblies of the future would look like if the DFMA rulebook were largely discarded. 3D printing processes are not constrained by traditional DFMA rules.

Unlike injection molding there are no split lines to consider or reentrant features to design out.

There is no need for jigs, fixtures, datums, runners, risers, gates, or tooling. This level of freedom allows the adopters of 3D printing to make beautiful yet highly efficient products with little or no cost penalty. Parts can be designed for optimum performance rather than manufacturability. Parts can be consolidated together, mitigating assembly and inspection. Parts can be designed around lattice structures and honeycombs or using genetic

algorithms, all producing parts that are lightweight yet structural and functional.

Embedded functionality There is more to an engineered product than just its shape.

Products are engineered to have function – whether this is strength and resistance to deformation, or resistance to extreme heat or cold. Other products provide insulation to prevent exposure to electric shocks, while others are designed to conduct electricity to the locations where it is needed. To achieve functionality, many products go through multiple manufacturing stages along the supply chain from primary production to heat treatment, coating and sub-system assembly.

With 3D printing it is now becoming possible to reduce some of these stages of the supply chain and to start to impart functionality during the 3D printing process. For instance, using a combination of insulative polymers and conductive metallic inks, it is now possible to embed simple electrical pathways into plastic components, something traditionally achieved only through multiple component assembly.

Metallic 3D printing can also be used to make parts with different mechanical properties, such as high tensile strength at the inner core of a part, but high wear resistance on the surface, something traditionally achieved only through coatings and heat treatment.

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

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By using multi-material 3D printing it is also possible to produce parts with anisotropic properties where parts resist loading in different ways in different directions. Although having limited uses today, unique material properties achieved solely by 3D printing will in the future present companies with exciting new options for product innovation.

supply chain, allowing consumers to become product designers and driving real-time, lean, and agile manufacturing. Smart companies are also digitizing their product catalogs, reducing stock holding and ensuring an almost endless supply of spare parts on demand.

Streamlined supply chains

There are 7.4 billion people on the planet. We are each a different shape and a different size, our cultures are wildly diverse, and our values and the things we hold dear are utterly individual.

The distance between production and consumption is getting shorter. The established supply chain models based on economies of scale are being challenged by new customer supplier relationships driven by the internet and social media.

Websites such as Etsy and Alibaba allow companies to sell directly to consumers without traditional wholesalers and retailers. Websites such as notonthehighstreet.com allow consumer makers to sell directly to other consumers with little or no corporate involvement.

Hyper personalization

Consumers and patients, it turns out, are individuals. As such, we want personalized products and need personalized health care. But personalization can be difficult to deliver for companies focused on the economics of mass production.

Companies therefore need to find highly responsive digital technologies to remain competitive. Moreover, companies also need to position technology at the heart of their business, with seamless integration between the customer defining and ordering the product, to the shop floor making the product, to the distribution business delivering the product.

Given that additive manufacturing dislocates the relationship between production economics and volume, it is perfectly suited to the manufacture of personalized products. For instance, the digital nature of the additive manufacturing supply chain makes it the perfect solution for manufacturing patient specific products using medical scanning and imaging data. In addition, additive manufacturing can also be used to make products designed

3D printing is one such digital technology. But smart companies are going further than just integrating 3D printing into their existing supply chains. They are using it to reinvent the supply chain by locating 3D printing machines in shopping malls, medical centers, hospitals, airport maintenance facilities, and hardware stores. Companies are then linking intuitive web based interfaces and 3D scanning technologies at the front end of the

This level of interaction also brings customers and brands closer together, allowing unparalleled insight into the wants and needs of the consumer. Personalized and customized products also sell for a premium, which is why smart companies are already using additive manufacturing to make everything from

by the consumer through a web browser or customized by the consumer from online data repositories.

3D printing vs. global megatrends Megatrends are re-shaping the world we live in. They are global, long-lasting, and largely beyond the control of companies or even governments, yet companies must respond to the challenges and opportunities that they present. We believe 3D printing offers a solution for companies wishing to exploit some of the emerging megatrends, while helping to offset the impact they will have on established businesses.

Freedom of design

Embedded functionality

Streamlined supply chains

Hyper personalization

Low volume manufacturing

Lifecycle sustainability

Individualization

Re-organization of healthcare systems

Technology convergence

From mass markets to micro markets Self-sufficiency and DIY-economics Dynamic biographic developments

New approaches to diagnosis and treatment Sharp increase in health expenditure New converging markets

Dynamic innovation of new materials Miniaturization and nanotechnology Expansion of biotechnology

Business ecosystems

New consumption patterns

Ubiquitous intelligence

New value-chain partnerships Expansion of the platform economy Flexibilization of production systems

Change in buying habits - hybrid and virtual Shifts in consumer spending and preferences Developing world enjoying greater prosperity

Breakthroughs in AI and robotics Emergence of IoT New interfaces and intelligent environments

Urbanization

Volatile economy

Anthropogenic environmental damage

Strong growth of urban conglomerations Expansion of localized services Generative and sustainable urban development

Growing vulnerability of infrastructure Greater number of natural disasters Erratic economic and trade policy

Tightening environmental regulations Cleantech investments Strategies for adapting to climate change

Megatrend framework from Z_punkt

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A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

personalized jewelery and toys, to prosthetic limbs, orthotic insoles, and sunglasses. As our lives become ever more digital and connected, personalization will no longer be the exception, it will become the norm.

Low volume manufacturing The first industrial revolution saw us move away from human power and craft skills towards mechanization. Industrial evolution then continued through wide scale automation and mass production to the place we are today.

However, Henry Ford’s philosophy of having “any color as long as it’s black” no longer applies, as society drives toward ever greater levels of personalization and customization. What society now wants from manufacturers is pre-industrial flexibility coupled with industrial efficiencies — a state that can now be achieved using 3D printing and other flexible digital technologies.

With 3D printing it is possible to go directly from digital design data to a final part with no intermediate production steps. 3D printing technologies therefore eliminate the need for tooling and the associated capital investment.

The result is that companies that adopt 3D printing can disrupt the traditional economies of scale, by allowing cost-effective production of single-unit or low-volume batches.

With low-volume part production, products can be customized to local markets, or even to individual customer tastes, driving adoption within industries as diverse as fashion, healthcare, and automotive. Moreover, with the ability to print on demand, businesses also have the opportunity to eliminate inventory and cut aftermarket lead times by providing digital spare-parts catalogs that can be printed when needed.

Lifecycle sustainability Whether it is through good corporate social responsibility, legislative compliance or an understanding that environmental good practice stimulates wealth creation, companies in all sectors are focusing more and more on their environmental impact. But this is not limited just to the impact of their factories, but the impact of their products during and after their effective working life.

3D printing can be used to reduce the lifecycle environmental impact of products in a number of ways. Firstly, 3D printing processes can be highly material efficient, using only the minimal material needed to make a part with little waste. This differs greatly from processes such as machining, which rely on billets of feed stock, often largely reduced to scrap.

3D printing can also be used to position material only where material is needed, making parts that have the perfect balance of strength and weight. Again, reducing the amount of raw material needed to drive the supply chain, but also the amount of energy needed to make the part.

Some parts with an optimized strength-to-weight ratio also have a lifecycle environmental benefit, as lightweight parts used on vehicles such as aircraft and cars reduce fuel consumption and the associated emissions. The efficiencies of a 3D printing supply chain can benefit the environment. For instance, shipping distances can be reduced through distributed manufacture and end of life stock need never occur nor require disposal.

Moreover, by coupling 3D printing with 3D scanning to enable reverse engineering, the support of legacy products can be continued long after traditional stock and tooling become obsolete.

The 50 tactics for 3D printing The 6 drivers help you frame how 3D printing can drive value at a fundamental level, but how do you begin to apply these principles at a more tactical level, turning theory into reality? To help you start applying the benefits of 3D printing to your business, we have created the 50 tactics; 50 industry-proven examples of how the 6 drivers are being applied to create tangible business value. To explore these 50 tactics in more detail, along with associated case studies, download the “Little Blue Book of 3D Printing� available online.

Freedom of design

Embedded functionality

Streamlined supply chains

Hyper personalization

Low volume manufacturing

Lifecycle sustainability

Lightweight structures

Embedded components

Reduced transportation time and costs

Ergonomic personalization

Mitigate CAPEX in tooling

Mitigate obsolescence

Assembly consolidation and part count reduction

Anisotropic properties

Reduced import and export costs

Aesthetic personalization

Eliminate economies of scale factor

Reduce waste materials

Dislocation of cost vs. complexity

Eluting parts and materials

Supplier consolidation

Functional personalization

Eliminate tooling lead times

Reduce lifecycle impact of parts

Non-linear holes, channels, and features

Shock absorption

Process displacement and supply chain compression

Product servitization

Increase layout efficiency

Increase product efficiency

Entrapped volumes and internal features

Variable stiffness

Availability of legacy parts

Co-design experiences

Service smaller market segments

Design for repair, refurb, and remanufacture

Biomimetic structures

Predictable degeneration and absorption

Stock mitigation and digital inventory

New point of sale experiences

Increase design-change responsiveness

Convert waste into production materials

Variable porosity surfaces and volumes

Embedded traceability and sensing

Manufacture to order or need

Mitigate OPEX for personalization

New styles and aesthetics

Programmable shapechange properties

Manufacture lineside or at point of use

Metamaterial structures

Embedded part-wear indication

Production automation and flexibility

Manipulation of difficult-towork and next-gen-materials

Hydrophobic/phylic properties

Consumer driven supply chains

Integrated mechanisms and actuators

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A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

3D printing technologies and materials With hundreds of processes, platforms, and materials to choose from, where do you start?

ASTM definition

Powder Bed Fusion Thermal energy selectively fuses powdered material together in successive layers to create an object.

Direct Energy Deposition Thermal energy is focused and directed to fuse material as it is being deposited, similar to a welding process.

Material Jetting If you follow the news, every day there is another 3D printing technology on the scene. But through the noise, all 3D printing technologies can be categorized into one of the seven fundamental additive processes as defined by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). These seven processes define the fundamentally different ways in which materials can be deposited layer by layer. From fusion to extrusion, polymerization to lamination, all 3D printing technologies and platforms can be categorized into one of these seven processes.

Droplets of one or more material are selectively jetted onto a substrate where they are solidifed to form an object.

Within each of these ASTM categories sit the many more diverse 3D printing systems that employ one of the seven different additive methodologies to build objects layer by layer. These are the more recognizable 3D printing processes such as FDM, SLS, and SLA. Even though many different systems may sit within the same ASTM categorization, each of these systems can be distinct from one another in terms of the materials they can print, the mechanical properties of the parts printed, or the speed and cost of printing. The additive ecosystem table (right) shows

Material is extruded from a nozzle or orifice along a specific overlapping path to create an object.

the relationships between the seven ASTM additive processes, the main commercial 3D printing systems, their materials, and material formats.

Flat sheets of material are bonded together using bonding agents or energy in successive layers to form an object.

Binder Jetting Liquid bonding agent is selectively deposited or jetted onto successive layers of powdered material to form an object.

Material Extrusion

Vat Photopolymerization Liquid photopolymer contained within a vat or container is selectively cured by lightactivated polymerization.

Sheet Lamination

ASTM classification

Powder Bed Fusion

Directed Energy Deposition

Material Jetting

Binder Jetting

Material Extrusion

Vat Photopolymerization

Sheet Lamination

System classification

Available materials

Selective Laser Sintering

SLS

High Speed Sintering

HSS

Multi-Jet Fusion

MJF

Direct Metal Laser Sintering

DMLS

Electron Beam Melting

EBM

Electron Beam

EBAM

Wire Arc

WAAM

Laser Metal Deposition

LMD

Kinetic Consolidation

KC

Aerosol Jet Technology

AJT

Polyjet

PJ

Multi Jet Printing

MJP

Drop On Demand

DOD

Silicone

Nano Particle Jetting

NPJ

Metal

Binder Jetting

BJ

Polymer

Metal Binder Jetting

MJ

Metal

Cold Extrusion

CE

Ceramic

Fused Deposition Modelling

FDM

Bound Metal Deposition

BMD

Fused Granular Fabrication

FGF

Metal

Stereolithography

SLA

Polymer

Digital Light Processing

DLP

Continuous Liquid Interface Production

CLIP

Two Photon Polymerization

TPP

Adhesive Lamination

CBAM

Polymer

Ultrasonic Consolidation

UAM

Metal

Laminate the Sinter

-

Ceramic

Polymer

Material formats

Composites Powder

Metal

Wire Metal Powder Polymer

Metal

Polymer Liquid Ceramic Metal

Ceramic

Organic

Organic

Liquid Binder

Powder

Paste Filament

Polymer

Rod Granules Composite Liquid

Polymer

Composite

Organic Sheet

Tape

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Big A Blueprint Blue Bookfor of 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing Prototyping

Over the last 30 years, the breadth of printable materials has grown from commodity materials to specialist and performance materials demanded by industrial applications.

As technology vendors continue to work with established materials companies such as IndoMIM, BASF, DSM, and Sandvik, the range of materials available will continue to increase.

Today, there are over 3000 different 3D printable commercial materials available from technology vendors and 3rd party suppliers. Though this is a higher number than most would expect, these materials can be separated into a few simple categories:

Thermoplastics Thermoplastics are a family of polymer that can be melted and solidified. This makes them ideal for processes such as injection molding to mass produce parts, but also for material extrusion and powder bed fusion processes where heat is used to melt or fuse material together to create an object. A high number of 3D printing plastics fall within this category such as ABS, Nylon, and polypropylene. These materials are easily printable and very low cost compared to other materials.

Thermosets This family of plastics has a different chemistry than thermoplastics, and typically starts life as a liquid which is then turned solid via the application of heat, light, or a catalytic material (or a combination of these.) Vat photopolymerization and material jetting processes print in thermosetting photopolymers using light as a curing mechanism. Thermosets have greater strength, chemical resistance and heat resistance than their thermoplastic counterparts. This category also include materials offering elasticity, such as urethanes and silicones.

Commodity metals The process of 3D printing metals is expensive (direct metal laser sintering platforms can cost $1M or more) so 3D printing commodity metals has historically been an unattractive proposition. However, in the last several years, binder jetting platforms have enabled the printing of metal parts at a far lower cost. This has opened up potential for commodity metals such as steels, aluminums, and other widely used alloys to be cost effective for 3D printing at scale, with the caveat of having inferior mechanical properties than that of directly sintered metal parts.

Performance metals High performance metals encompass a range of specialist alloys and metals that can withstand extraordinary heat, stress, or corrosion and are used in demanding applications.

With powder bed fusion systems capable of reaching printing temperatures of thousands of degrees, these specialist materials such as titanium and supernickel alloys can be printed in more complex, advanced geometries than conventional processes, increasing their functionality through more effective, advanced designs.

Ceramics Ceramics are used far beyond flatware. Today there are many advanced ceramic materials from insulating silicon carbides to biocompatible synthetic ceramic bone. Many of these ceramics can be 3D printed by a variety of means, from binder jetting to vat photopolymerization. The advantage of using 3D printing is the ability to form ceramic material in new ways that would be near impossible traditionally, such as highly dense lattice structures or as exotic composites for experimental or specialist applications.

The printable table of additive materials With over 3000 materials available today for 3D printing, where do you start? Although not exhaustive, the table below lists the 3D printable materials that are most commonly used today.

Organic

Ceramic

Polymeric

Metallic

Waxes

Alumina

ABS

Tool steel

Living cells

Mullite

PA

Stainless steel

Wood and paper

Zirconia

PLA

Maraging steel

Foodstuffs

Silicon carbide

PEEK / PEKK

Titanium

Pharmaceuticals

Inconel superalloy Beta-tri calcium phosphate

PP

Hastelloy superalloy

Silica and sand

PS

Aluminium

Plaster gypsum

PC

Cobalt chrome

Graphite

PEI / ULTEM

Tungsten carbide

Concrete

PMMA

Silver / gold / platinum

Glass

Polymer coated metal powder

Aluminium oxide

Polyphenylsulfone

Ceramic loaded polymers and epoxies

Copper Bronze

Hydroxyapatite

Silicone urethane

Silicon nitride

Urethane methacrylate Thermosetting epoxies Thermosetting acrylates Polyurethane Cyanate ester

Shape memory alloys

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The need for a holistic approach

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

A 3D printing success story is a combination of long term vision and short term experimentation

Ask any business leader the question “How can 3D printing benefit us?” and observe one of two conversations take place: the first hearkens back to the headlines pushed by The Economist, The New York Times, Wired, et al. In one conversation, the hands of VPs, marketing directors and executives are clasped behind heads and the phrase “4th industrial revolution” is used with abandon. The outcome is often 3D printing strategies that will “make us industry leading disruptors.” This looks plausible and forward-thinking on a whiteboard and in investor relations press releases, but when these revolutionary propositions are handed down to departments, process managers, and product owners to implement, they often quickly reveal themselves to be technically, economically, or operational untenable.

or conservative business leaders who do not want to stray from orthodoxy, this attempt at making sense of 3D printing is limited to a narrow window of “improving on the now” rather than “developing what’s next.”

The alternative conversation is a cacophony of technical speak, datasheets, and process guidelines, with a laser-focus on the nuts and bolts of 3D printing. While far more tactical than the strategy-focused conversation, the starting position of this debate is that 3D printing must comply with the status-quo: material for material, process chain for process

Both approaches to deciphering where and how AM sits within the business provide their own benefits and blockages.

While capturing the value of the transformational change that 3D printing can enable demands fundamental shifts in organizational structure and business model design, those initiatives are the ones that will return significant value to the company in the mid to long term. Although big ideas offer big reward, they also present big risks. Pivoting an entire business function or process around 3D printing is an extremely complex and precise undertaking that requires a comprehensive and well-tested understanding of how the technology works, integrates, and operates within that specific company. Forming an additive strategy for long-term highvalue return without having developed a well thought-out plan for deploying additive manufacturing within the business is the functional equivalent of diving into the ocean not knowing how

chain, part cost for part cost. Whether it’s engineers who do not have the authority to change operating procedures

to swim; there is a chance you will figure it out, but the odds are against you.

What is your additive persona?

The additive persona model below will help you visualize your exectations of 3D printing within your business, from how it will generate value to how you intend to integrate and deploy it. For each question, select the one personas you believe best represents your organization’s additive ambitions. This activity will highlight whether your organization has a more transformational and evangelist ambition for 3D printing, or a more opportunistic and realist expectation of the technology. Run this exercise with multiple business functions to gain a clearer picture of your organization’s additive persona. This exercise will help visualize your strengths and reveal your blindspots.

How do you expect 3D printing will support your value proposition?

• • •

Create new value propositions Enable diversification Drive transformational breakthroughs

Blue water

Red water

Improve existing value propositions Enable line extensions Help optimize the core

•

Preserve structure Operate within current parameters Remain financially risk adverse

•

Low risk, low return initiatives Short-term, quick wins Quantitative, tangible Focused

•

Preliminary pilots Structured focus with plan Apply existing solutions Business unit initiatives

•

• •

How will you integrate 3D printing into your organizational structure and business model?

• • •

Shake up the status-quo Diversify and reorganize our structure Be more financially risk tolerant

Experiment

Maintain

• •

How do you intend to measure the value of 3D printing to the business?

• • • •

High risk, high return initiatives Long-term, strategic value Qualitative, learnings Broad

Big hairy goal

Low-hanging fruit

• • •

How will 3D printing initiatives be executed and deployed across the business?

• • • •

Full scale release Move fast and break things Develop bespoke solutions Enterprise wide initiatives

Ambitious

Measured

• • •

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

An introduction to 3D printing

/22

The need for basic technical competency is the other side of the equation: How does 3D printing work? Where can we use it today? What are we confident we can accomplish? Above all else, how can 3D printing support the business in the here-and-now with minimal change to the current status-quo?

This approach is often technically driven with a tight focus: opportunity is not measured by scale of value across the business, but by technical feasibility of specific applications.

The benefit is that a tighter focus on smaller, singular applications and projects allows a company to begin building a foundational understanding of 3D printing, something often overlooked and cited as a blocker for many companies looking to implement additive outside of the prototyping lab and more broadly across the organization.

These smaller initiatives return quick, short-term value (most often via cost-saving and operational efficiency gains) with minimal risk and cost, while simultaneously building a community of practice. Unfortunately, the focused nature of this approach also leads to this new knowledge being siloed within teams, departments, or facilities, with larger value opportunities for additive that require cross-department collaboration, executive level involvement, and organizational restructuring put out of reach.

For any organization to make the most out of additive demands both approaches: long-term vision supported by real-world practice. Look behind any of the most well known 3D printing success stories, from GE’s turbo-prop engine to Adidas’s Futurecraft running shoes, and you will discover years of investment, education, pilot projects, and strategy development. These well known additive pioneers reached the moon because they built a sturdy launch pad.

This book is written to provide you, your colleagues, and your business a shortcut to building that additive launch pad, providing the information and inspiration for you to holistically understand the full breadth and depth of 3D printing’s potential, from redesigning tooling to radically transforming your market proposition.

For the visionaries and strategic thinkers, it provides a counterweight of technical knowledge and investment considerations to ensure your big ideas are not only impactful, but are technically feasible and can be deployed in the real world. For the realists and tactically minded, it challenges assumptions of what’s possible with 3D printing. It enables you to go beyond low-risk incremental improvements within a department, procurement procedure or plant. It provides the context and confidence to examine how today’s additive technologies and capabilities have driven wholesale process, supply chain, and business model reconfiguration within a wide array of industries.

Making sense of 3D printing can often seem like a mysterious art, only achievable by multi-million dollar organizations or revered individuals with decades of insight. In fact, much of the required knowledge exists today, but is often overly complex, fragmented, and difficult to find. This book distills this information down into a single repository, defined by familiar business functions — prototyping, manufacturing, assembly, sales, and maintenance — so that any person, from any business unit, from any industry can answer the question, “How can 3D printing benefit us?”

How to use this book Although we encourage you to read this book cover to cover, we have formatted the contents to make it easy for you to quickly look up the relevant information you need at any time. Chapters are defined by distinct milestones within the product lifecycle, from prototyping to maintenance and aftermarket. Within each of these chapters, we have segmented the information into the following four key knowledge areas so that the contents are not only informative, but actionable.

1/

2/

Applications

Archetypes

The application space for 3D printing goes far beyond creating more complex products. This section categorizes the various applications for 3D printing across product design, process efficiency, and market strategy.

There are numerous ways companies have adopted 3D printing. This section explores some of the best models and methods used to bring additive into the business depending on organizational culture, technology, and objectives.

3/

4/

Technologies

Implementation

3D printing is a complex ecosystem, with new platforms and materials appearing daily. This section describes which additive processes are best matched to meet different requirements, be they mechanical, economic, or organizational.

Once a company has identified the right technology and business case, it needs to determine how to make it happen. This section details the people, process, and technology actions that must be considered when deploying 3D printing.

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Contents 3D printing across the product lifecycle

/24

Part two

3D printing across the product lifecycle 3D printing has the potential to impact every part of your business in a variety of ways. In this section, we examine how 3D printing impacts five major business functions, describing where, why, and when it makes sense to adopt 3D printing.

26 62 Prototyping

Sales

and retail

38 74

Manufacturing

Maintenance and aftermarket

50 Assemby

A Blueprint for 3D Printing 3D printing across the product lifecycle

/26

Prototyping

01

If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 meetings David Kelly, Founder of IDEO

From ideation to pre-production, prototypes are essential to the product development process, whether it’s designers realizing their ideas in physical form, marketers having a tangible concept to share with focus groups, or engineers getting to grapple with production implications of a part. For many companies, prototyping is an expense, and the benefit of iterating concept models, visual aids, and functional prototypes can quickly be outweighed by the time and cost it takes to fabricate them. Ultimately, a business must balance two opposing forces in the product development process: the need to iterate and perfect versus the pressure to get to market. 3D printing changes this equation.

KUKA Robotics / Using Makerbot 3D printers, KUKA is more cost effectively prototyping components in the design of their KR 3 AGILUS robotic arm

3D printing is becoming a ubiquitous tool within prototyping departments. An Ernst & Young report on 3D printing adoption found 84% of companies use 3D printing within their product development process. This makes sense when we consider 3D printing supports two seemingly

contradictory goals: enabling more iterations of prototypes whilst simultaneously reducing development time. Unlike many traditional prototyping processes - artisanal handcrafting, costly machining, and material working - 3D printing is a toolless, digital fabrication process.

This means that in the time it takes a talented designer to create a single visual prototype using conventional techniques, a 3D printer can produce ten variants of the concept using CAD produced by the same designer.

Whether it’s ideation models or pre-production surrogates, 3D printing is having a significant impact on the modern product development process. It is empowering designers and engineers to more closely achieve perfection while simultaneously meeting or beating deadlines set by product managers and executives.

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01/ Prototyping

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Physical ideation in the digital age Iteration, speed, fidelity. The benefits of 3D printing to the product development cycle are many

Prototyping is certainly the most established, well-defined, and applied use of 3D printing. More often referred to as “rapid prototyping,” it is becoming a common and indispensable feature of a streamlined and agile product development process. From accelerating development time

But 3D printing brings other advantages beyond cost savings.

Unlike many subtractive or craft processes, 3D printing does not penalize design complexity by increasing production cost or time. Designers can now create far more complex, intricate and functional models much earlier in the design cycle for as

to reducing prototyping costs, increasing design opportunities to improving communication, rapid prototyping should be considered the first area of investment for a company setting out on their 3D printing journey.

much as it would cost to print a simpler model. This allows for truer communication and critique of what can often be complex concepts or propositions. As David Kelly, founder of the renowned design firm Ideo puts it, “If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 meetings.”

As the title of rapid prototyping suggests, the primary advantage of 3D printing is the speed at which a model can travel from the mind of a designer to the desk of a manager.

This increase in speed equates to more rapid design cycles and a reduction in time to market for new products.

Ultimately, a company adopting 3D printing within its product development process should expect to see value returned as both hard and soft cost savings. As an example, aerospace companies who have integrated 3D printing within their notoriously long, multi-decade development cycles have seen an average prototyping cost reduction of 65%. This cost reduction is even more stark within the industrial engineering sector at 85%.

Some 3D printers can also simulate multiple manufacturing techniques within the parts they print, such as a 3D printed toy car that has a solid body, rubber wheels, transparent windows, and a colorful logo. In this example, casting, overmolding, thermoforming, and hydrography have been consolidated down from four distinct operations into one. This vastly reduces the time and cost to create a complex, hyper realistic or functioning model.

The transition away from more conventional prototyping techniques to a singular digital thread also has its benefits.

Each iteration of designing, 3D printing, critiquing, redesigning, and reprinting is documented digitally.

63%

reduction in product development time on average for companies applying 3D printing within their prototyping processess1 This unlocks something often relied on by designers in the digital space: an “undo” button on reality. Whereas a modelmaker may struggle to exactly reproduce an older design accurately or within time, a 3D printer can act as an “undo” on real life, reproducing a previous model design with exact repeatability.

Ultimately, rapid prototyping is more than a speedier way to create models. It is the digitization of what has historically been a physical, artisinal, and unpredicatable process. 3D printing will not erase the skill of the modelmaker’s hand or the accuracy of the CNC bit. What it does is provide a digital alternative to many prototyping requirements where 3D printing technologies can meet or beat the speed, cost, or quality of a more conventional process.

1 / Ernst & Young

Benefits of rapid prototyping

01/

3D printed models can greatly improve concept visualization and communication. This gives designers the power to share ideas with colleagues far more effectively than relying on digital models on computer screens.

02/

As a digital production process, 3D printing eliminates the need for costly tooling. Numerous conventional prototyping processes can be consolidated within one platform, vastly increasing prototyping production speed and reducing cost.

03/

The ability to produce numerous models far quicker than conventional methods gives designers and engineers the power to iterate more often, enabling more exploration, testing, and refinement of concepts before going to production.

04/

With the variety of 3D printers and printable materials available, engineers can create functional prototypes for many different test scenarios, often at a lower cost than conventional fabrication processes in a much shorter time.

05/

Designers and marketeers can conduct more representative human testing of ideas with stakeholders, focus groups, and target customers much more often, providing greater levels of user and stakeholder feedback.

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01/ Prototyping

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Applications and drivers The product development cycle is well codified, with many well known design methodologies describing the various undulating and circuitous pathways to get from idea to fully realized product. But in all of these theoretical models there is a dependence on physical prototyping. The functions of these models go by many different names, but below are the four broad categories of prototypes used in any good design process, and how 3D printing can support each one.

01/ Concept and form models

02/ Assembly and fit models

Proof-of-concept models are used at the earliest stage of the design cycle, where ideation and creative thinking rule. These models are often abstract, simple, and quick to make, as it is more important to capture and retain a design in physical form than to create a full-realistic model. 3D printing is an ideal tool to support this stage of ideation as designers can rapidly design more complex, descriptive concepts digitally and send them to print in the same time it would take to make them by hand.

Whereas form models are used to communicate the value and aesthetics of a concept, fit models are used when determining the exact design, shape, and dimensions of the physical product. These parts are often machined due to the need for tight tolerances and dimensional accuracy. Many 3D printing technologies can produce models with a very high-degree of dimensional accuracy suitable for fit tests far cheaper than their machined, molded, or cast counterparts.

03/ Functional prototypes

04/ Pre-production models

Functional prototypes are key to ensuring that the final design performs to expectations. These prototypes are subjected to all manner of tests, but are often costly to fabricate or outsource. 3D printing not only allows for these models to be produced in-house eliminating supplier lead times, but more advanced 3D printing can produce parts in high-performance materials suitable for a variety of testing demands at a far lower cost than conventional outsourcing.

Design for manufacturability (DFM) is where a final product design is broken down into an assembly design where each component can be economically and repeatably manufactured. 3D printing greatly reduces the cost and risk of the DFM process by allowing engineers to design and 3D print low volumes of assembly designs. 3D printing also allows engineers to print and validate the designs of manufacturing tooling.

How the 50 tactics for 3D printing can support prototyping Oakley The ability to rapidly produce multiple iterations of concepts for its performance eyewear products has enormous value to Oakley. Having been an early adopter of the technology in 1992, 3D printing has even influenced the design aesthetic of the brand. Oakley continues to leverage 3D printing within its design model shop to take designs from paper to physical model within 24 hours, with design teams free to continue iterating and exploring design ideas while parts are in print.

Not only does this process provide rapid design feedback, but it does

Tactics used DISLOCATION OF COST VS COMPLEXITY + NEW STYLES AND AESTHETICS + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + INCREASE DESIGN CHANGE RESPONSIVENESS

so at a lower cost than alternative prototyping methods.

Google ATAP In the creation of a novel wearable device, Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects lab faced a challenge. The wearable required a complex series of overmolds which required production validation, but to source pre-production prototypes relied on a complex and costly supply chain. Instead, Google used in-house 3D printing to quickly create inexpensive surrogate parts which could be used to test, re-engineer, and validate the intricate overmolding process long before first articles would arrive. This reduced turnaround time of a crucial prototype by 85% and saved over $100,000.

Tactics used ASSEMBLY CONSOLIDATION & PART REDUCTION + DISLOCATION OF COST VS COMPLEXITY + ENTRAPPED VOLUMES AND FEATURES + REDUCED TRANSPORTATION TIME AND COSTS + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + ELIMINATE TOOLING LEAD TIMES

Volvo Construction Equipment Tasked with the challenge of reducing development costs and lead times on large engine projects from 36 to 24 months, the engineering teams at Volvo Construction Equipment decided to bring prototype production in house using 3D printing. In one instance, the functional prototype of a new water pump housing design for their articulated haulers would have required tooling costing approximately $9000 with a lead time of 20 weeks. Instead, the team 3D printed the large housing design in a high-temperature resistant material in under two weeks at a cost of $770, a time and cost saving of 90%.

Tactics used REDUCED TRANSPORTATION TIME AND COSTS + SUPPLER CONSOLIDATION + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + MITIGATE CAPEX IN TOOLING

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01/ Prototyping

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Additive archetypes There are many ways in which a business can implement rapid prototyping as part of its development process.

Selecting the right approach depends on many factors from the size of the business to its workplace culture. Ultimately, a business must clearly outline the purpose of investing in rapid prototyping before it can decide on the most optimal set-up that aligns with the structure, culture and strategy of the business. The additive archetypes for prototyping described opposite demonstrate how the implementation of rapid prototyping can vary greatly in response to the size, shape, and objectives of a business.

“

We’ve seen the number of project delays drastically reduced thanks to our eight-hour print time. Even with redesign, we can get files, prototypes and review them all within a 10-hour span. Design validation literally takes half the time with our 3D printer Kenny Krotzer / Footwear Developer at Brooks Running

Brooks Running / The athletics footwear company use 3D printing to produce highly accurate and functional shoe sole prototypes

01/ Makerspace

02/ Center of excellence

03/ Sprint shop

Makerspaces are communal centers containing tools, materials, and resources accessible to people wanting to build, make, and innovate. Originating as a social movement, this approach is being adopted by organizations who want to foster a culture of innovation by setting up internal makerspaces accessible to their entire workforce.

A center of excellence (COE) is a dedicated organization or group within a business that specializes in a particular subject matter. By concentrating resources, research, and skills, a COE can promote best practices and develop technologies and applications that would be beyond the scope or capability of individual departments or teams.

Like the Google design sprint approach, a sprint shop is a prototyping set-up configured for production speed primarily through in-house 3D printing and other digital fabrication technologies.

Sprint shops are best suited for scenarios where prototyping availability is causing delays due to unreliable suppliers, tooling wait-times, or lengthy manual modelling practices.

Characteristics

Characteristics

Characteristics

. . . .

Contains a range of making tools including 3D printers, most often easy-to-use desktop printers Requires induction for access to specific processes Often supervised by technicians Competitions and innovation challenges can be used to focus creativity towards specific objectives

WeWork Labs WeWork is going beyond the concept of shared offices to shared production by introducing 3D printing and other fabrication technologies at select sites. These WeWork labs are freely accessible to their resident entrepreneurs and start-ups so they can innovate, prototype, and experiment.

. . . .

Requires executive buy-in as a part of the organization’s long-term strategy Features cross-disciplinary skills and experience Has a distinct governance structure that reports to the larger organization Has access to a variety of 3D printing technologies, from entry level to industrial

Johnson & Johnson To create a centralized 3D printing organization, J&J consolidated and networked their 3D printing technologies, talent and resources, creating a dedicated 3D printing organization. This enabled J&J to have a single pool of experts and machines to deploy 3D printed solutions across many different divisions.

. . . .

Majority of prototypes are produced using digitally driven technologies such as 3D printing A range of additive and other digital technologies within a dedicated room or facility Formalized process for design teams to submit designs and receive 3D prints Highly automated and centralized prototyping management

Brooks Running Often missing incredibly tight deadlines in the design validation process due to prototyping supplier delays, Brooks began 3D printing its running shoe models in house, cutting the time required to receive and validate a prototype by 50% and saving up to $800 per model.

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01/ Prototyping

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Technology selection In its broad definition, 3D printing has numerous advantages over traditional prototyping techniques. But the technology is not monolithic. As with most other processes, there are trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality. Each business must clearly understand its priorities in order to make the right investment decision.

The decision tree below shows which technologies are most suited to addressing common prototyping needs.

Use this to identify the number of different technologies you should consider investigating to meet your prototyping requirements.

Concept modeling

Speed CLIP SLA MJF Color

Single FDM SLA PJ BJ

Functional testing

Surface quality Strength Tolerance PJ FDM MJP CLIP SLA SLS <0.3mm >0.3mm MJF DLP PJ SLS CLIP Transparency CLIP FDM SLA MJF

Multi BJ PJ MJF HSS

Clear PJ SLA

Multi-Colored PJ

Thermal SLS FDM PJ

Flexibility

Resistance

Chemical SLS FDM CLIP

Soft PJ CLIP

Dieletric FDM

Medium PJ SLA CLIP SLS

Kärcher With their portfolio of cleaning systems updating every 5 years, the design teams at Kärcher selected the Stratasys J750 as a solution to consolidate multiple prototyping processes under a single machine. The ability to 3D print large numbers of true-to-life models that simulate the look and feel of a production part helped streamline the prototyping process and accelerate development time.

Stratasys J750

. Material Jetting . Photopolymer acrylics (various colors and shores) . 19 x 15 x 8in build volume . 0.0005in or 0.014mm layer thickness . Machine price $349k* . Material price inch $3.8 g$7* 3

Bose For the design of its next build-ityourself headphone product, the BOSEbuild team needed to produce flexible, adaptable prototypes for testing and audience feedback quickly and cheaply. The team relied heavily on the Ultimaker S5 as a speedy, low-cost, and easy-to-use printer to produce many more disposable iterations of parts for use in customer testing 98% cheaper and 95% faster than traditional outsourcing.

Ultimaker S5

Aptiv (formerly Delphi) Aptiv needed a solution to produce prototypes that were both visually true to their design intent as well as functional. Whereas traditional materials could only half meet the mechanical properties required for functional prototypes, Carbon’s M1 system could produce functional, high-performance parts in hightemperature, insulative, and strong materials.

Carbon M1

. Material Extrusion . PLA, ABS, PA, PC, CPE, TPU ‡ . 9 x 7.5 x 8in build volume . 0.001in or 0.020mm layer thickness . Machine price $6k* . Material price inch $1.3 g$2*

. Vat Photopolymerization . PU, Epoxy, Cyanate Ester, Silicone † . 7.4 x 4.6 x 12.8in build volume . NA layer thickness . Machine price $40k/year (3 year lease)* . Material price inch $2.2 g$9.5*

3

3

* Approximation

† More materials available

‡ Open material format

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01/ Prototyping

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Investment and implementation

Actions and considerations Prototyping is a secure investment for 3D printing. With a 30 year track record and well-defined benefits to the design and engineering processes, it is also one of the easiest stages in the product lifecycle for a business to implement the technology.

To effectively implement rapid prototyping, examine how bringing the technology in house will affect your existing development process. Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people skills, organizational change, or investment in additional technologies, a transition to a rapid prototyping approach will require investment in technologies, people skills, management, and organizational change beyond the model shop.

People Invest in digital design training for 3D printing If necessary, hire required 3D printing design skills Ensure resources are in place to maintain equipment Be aware of a reluctance to change within the model shop and design teams

. . . .

Process Update processes to incorporate 3D printing into the design cycle workflow Define and put in place KPIs to ensure maximum utilization of 3D printing Set up process to integrate 3D printing into craft-focused model shops Put in place processes to ensure all design data is digitized

. . . .

Technology Purchase necessary digital design tools/software packages Identify model requirements and purchase suitable 3D printing platforms Ancilliary tools required to hand finish 3D printed parts

. . .

Is prototyping the best place to invest in 3D printing?

Not relevant

Of interest

Aspirational

Urgent

The set of questions below describes common issues and opportunities within prototyping that can be addressed by 3D printing. A high score indicates 3D printing can return significant value as a prototyping solution, whereas a low score suggests you not invest in 3D printing for prototyping and look elsewhere in your business for a better return on your additive investment.

Reliable repetition

We need a more consistent method of reproducing multiple prototypes and iterations at a consistent quality

0

1

2

3

Digitized workflow

We need to streamline and digitize our prototyping workflow to make it more agile, cost effective, and repeatable

0

1

2

3

Full fidelity

We need to increase realism of our prototypes, making them more true-to-life in their appearance and function

0

1

2

3

Make it form and fit

We want to create more accurate and low-cost models for form and fit testing

0

1

2

3

Democratized design

We want to empower more people across our entire organization to create and submit designs, products, and ideas to the design team

0

1

2

3

Sell it to me

We want to improve the quality of feedback from our focus groups by providing more true-to-life and functional prototypes

0

1

2

3

Against the clock

We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get enough different designs tested before design freeze by the engineering and pre-production teams

0

1

2

3

Get to market

We need to reduce our new product development times so we can accelerate our time to market

0

1

2

3

Better communication

We want to improve communication between our siloed designers, prototype shops, and other business functions

0

1

2

3

Lost in translation

Our prototyping suppliers sometimes misinterpret our design intent or design data and provide incorrect models

0

1

2

3

A Blueprint for 3D Printing 3D printing across the product lifecycle

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Manufacturing

02

A real manufacturing Renaissance is under way, not just in the US, but around the world Jeff Immelt, Former CEO of General Electric

Situated between a company’s research and development organization and its sales engine is one of the most important functions of the business: manufacturing. It doesn’t matter how well an organization designs, markets, sells, or services its products if those products aren’t manufactured well.

SmileDirectClub / One of the largest single users of HP’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D printers, SmileDirectCLub’s 3D printing factory produces 50,000 unique molds for patient specific dental aligners a day

Manufacturing is usually one of the largest expenses in a company. In 2019, Apple spent $169B on manufacturing, compared to only $16B on research and development. Because manufacturing represents such a significant cost for most businesses, there is always pressure to reduce costs. This pressure has recently been accelerated by several factors, including faster product development cycles, globalization, diversified supply chains, and increased focus on reducing manufacturing waste.

While it can be tempting to respond to the pressure to slash costs in manufacturing, business leaders must be careful not to do so at the expense of either quality or supply chain reliability. The savings from short-term cost cutting can quickly turn into escalating costs when fixing a newly-created downstream quality issue.

Like many other areas, true innovation in manufacturing technology happens not out of inspiration, but desperation. Businesses are scrambling to find ways to control costs while delivering unprecedented levels of innovation in their products. Manufacturing leaders spanning consumer goods, automotive, aerospace, and medicine are recognizing the potential for true manufacturing innovation using additive manufacturing.

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02/ Manufacturing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Manufacturing a new paradigm Additive manufacturing is growing in popularity as a core technology for series production

3D printing is beginning to reshape the manufacturing landscape. No longer considered just a tool for prototyping, 3D printing is enabling companies to retool, reconfigure, and rethink both how they make their products, and how they do business. The medical, aerospace, and automotive industries have pioneered the use of additive manufacturing for series production, but additive manufacturing for production is expanding rapidly into other sectors, including agriculture, consumer electronics, oil & gas, and rail. The driving force behind this growth in adoption is that 3D printing possesses many unique capabilities compared to conventional manufacturing technologies and these advantages are becoming more well-defined and understood. This increased knowledge base is allowing companies across a growing number of industries to employ additive manufacturing to bring new products to market, reduce production costs, and streamline their operations.

Where additive manufacturing is distinct from conventional manufacturing processes is in its ability to produce complex geometries that would be difficult or impossible to produce by any other means. As 3D printing is an additive process, there

are far fewer restrictions on what geometries can be produced compared to molding, machining, and forming processes that must abide by far more restrictive “design for manufacture” rules. Companies are taking advantage of these new design freedoms and bringing new and advanced products to market that would have been cost-prohibitive or simply not possible to manufacture otherwise.

Additive manufacturing also differs from more conventional production methods in that it breaks the long established rule of “economies-of-scale.” As a digital production process, additive manufacturing can print many different parts directly within a single production run with no need for the fabrication and installation of costly tooling. This flexibility and scalability is something not economically achievable with many conventional processes that depend on tooling; in order to recoup the cost of the tool, many thousands of parts need to be produced, resulting in smaller production volumes becoming uneconomical. In contrast, additive manufacturing is an agile, low-volume production solution that does not depend on economies of scale. This opens up new opportunities where lower production volumes were previously

46%

of companies expect to use 3D printing for series production by 2022

Proportion of adoption

18%

of companies use 3D printing in series production today

2.5% Innovator

13.5% Early adopter

34% Early majority

34% Late majority

16% Laggard

Source: Ernst & Young

uneconomical, or as on-demand production method to provide component parts, spares, jigs, and fixtures far more rapidly than what was previously possible.

Taken individually, design freedom and low volume manufacturing are enabling new possibilities for product design and operational improvement. When applied in combination, these two capabilities have the potential to transform decades-old supply chains and business models.

From distributed manufacturing to mass-customization, demand-responsive supply chains to fully-digital production centers. Today, forward-thinking companies are introducing additive to support existing manufacturing processes through

the production of more efficient tooling. In other instances, more radical reconfigurations are underway, with companies going into series production for additive products ranging from flight critical components to beauty products.

With 18% of manufacturing companies surveyed by Ernst & Young reporting that they use additive manufacturing for series production or to support production operations, business leaders need to begin taking note and start approaching this technology as a key technology for a futureready supply chain.

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02/ Manufacturing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Applications and drivers When considering additive manufacturing as a series production technology, it pays not to fixate on how it can allow for new, more complex product designs. One should also consider how it can allow for new business model designs. By combining low volume production and design freedom, organizations can bring new, more advanced products to market that incorporate topological optimization or consolidate assembly designs into a single part. This combination also allows for the reposition of manufacturing closer to demand or the compression of supply chains by in-housing some elements of production.

Batch size of one + minimal design constraints = = Product advancement

= Agile production

= Next-shoring

The ability to 3D print complex lattice structures, topologically optimized designs, and organic forms can improve the performance of parts, enabling superior strength-to-weight ratios and functional lattices.

With no line setup or tooling lead time, additive manufacturing is an agile and flexible manufacturing solution, allowing for on-demand production of parts and production of different parts within the same build.

As a fully-digital production platform additive manufacturing allows companies to distribute production closer to the customer, allowing for better access to serve and compete in emerging local markets around the globe.

= Personalization potential

= Process consolidation

= Operational improvement

Economies of scale do not favor personalization, as individualization often leads to a premium. The ability to

Rather than rely on multi-stage manufacturing and assembly processes to produce complex parts, additive

Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s injection mold tools with advanced conformal cooling systems or lower cost, individualized thermoforming molds,

3D print unique parts at scale helps to minimize this penalty, allowing companies to offer this option on far more products.

manufacturing can print complex parts directly, allowing for the consolidation of long and costly process chains.

additive manufacturing can print superior tools on demand to improve the effectiveness of conventional manufacturing processes.

How the 50 tactics for 3D printing can support manufacturing

Laika Studios The art of stop-start animation has undergone a digital transformation.

While traditional hand sculpting and painting of characters is a tedious process that limits production, the award-winning stop-start animation studio Laika used full-color 3D printing to produce hundreds of thousands of unique facial animations. Empowered with the ability to mass produce unique, fully colored character faces within a single process, Laika is ushering in a new era of stop-start animation of unprecedented quality, with its latest release “The Missing Link” having one unique face per frame.

Tactics used DISLOCATION OF COST VS COMPLEXITY + EMBEDDED COMPONENTS + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + PRODUCTION AUTOMATION AND FLEXIBILITY + INCREASE LAYOUT EFFICIENCY + INCREASE DESIGN CHANGE RESPONSIVENESS

Stryker Corporation Stryker, a leading medical technology company uses the geometric freedom of 3D printing to print highly porous, repeatable structures within a 3D printed titanium implant that closely mimics natural bone and better encourages bone fusion. This “Tritanium In-Growth Technology,” a combination of highly-tuned, 3D printed microstructures impossible to create by any other method and advanced titanium alloys, greatly improves both the fusion of the implant into the body as well as its mechanical performance, with over 30,000 “Tritanium” implants having been sold.

Tactics used BIOMIMETIC STRUCTURES + VARIABLE POROSITY SURFACES AND VOLUMES + METAMATERIAL STRUCTURES + HYDROPHOBIC AND HYDROPHILIC PROPERTIES

Airbus Helicopter Airbus has been a long standing user of 3D printing for series part production. Airbus Helicopters, the company’s manufacturing division, has added another set of components to the growing list of additive production parts. The group redesigned the existing titanium latch shaft system for the A350 with a more lightweight design and consolidated assembly. This reduction in material led to a 45% weight savings.

Additionally, producing the parts in house using 3D printing reduced the cost of the components by 25%. When 3D printing production is fully operational, Airbus expects to produce 2,200 of the latch systems a year.

Tactics used LIGHTWEIGHT STRUCTURES + ASSEMBLY CONSOLIDATION AND PART REDUCTION + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + REDUCED LIFECYCLE IMPACT OF PARTS

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02/ Manufacturing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Additive archetypes The first industrial revolution saw us transition from craftsmen toward mechanization and mass production.

Since the industrial revolution, industrialization continued to accelerate, incorporating new technology innovations to drive efficiencies, automation, and eventually globalization.

Today, virtually every business on earth is in some way tethered to vast, interconnected, and interdependent supply chains. From small electronic manufacturers to international automotive companies, the trend of the last century has been one of economies-of-scale, specialization, and comparative advantage.

The emergence of additive manufacturing is enabling businesses both large and small to break from this trend and radically reconfigure their supply chains, operations, and business models. The additive archetypes for manufacturing demonstrate how companies are benefiting from the preindustrial flexibility coupled with the modern day industrial efficiency of additive manufacturing to not only reshape their business, but streamline their supply chain, and more effectively serve their customers.

Companiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; expectations of how 3D printing will affect their value chains have increased significantly in the past three years 17% 34% In-sourcing will become an important consideration in the value creation processes

16% 46% Plant locations will be able to reduce their operational costs and become more competitive

15% 65% Production will be transferred downstream in the supply chain, closer to the end customer Source: Ernst & Young

2016

2019

01/ Future factory

02/ Cloud manufacturing

03/ Toolless toolmaker

Popularized by “Industry 4.0,” the future factory concept proposes fully automated, highly flexible, lights-out factories. These production centers leverage digital technologies such as 3D printing to eliminate the need for manual labor, line setup, and tooling, allowing for production runs to change nearly instantaneously between different work orders.

As a digital, toolless production platform, 3D printing is enabling companies to distribute and relocate their manufacturing capacity more freely, moving it further downstream or closer to customers. This ability to localize production capacity can be advantageous when responding to hyper-local demand, meeting critical lead times, or avoiding import/export delays.

OEMs and manufacturers often rely on machine shops to supply production tooling.

With the freedom of design offered by 3D printing, OEMs (some who may already have 3D printing capacity in their prototyping department) are now utilizing the technology to bring a portion of their tooling production in house, reducing supplier costs and lead times.

Characteristics

Characteristics

Characteristics

. . . . .

3D printing is a core production technology Process chains and plant operations are highly automated Few human operators on site All processes and technologies are connected by a digital thread Can run 24/7

Premium AEROTEC A founding partner of the NextGenAM project alongside EOS and Daimler, the tier 1 supplier to Airbus is developing a fully automated additive factory qualified to manufacture industrial-grade aluminium parts for the next generation of Airbus aircraft.

. . .

3D printers positioned across multiple sites Centralized monitoring, reporting, and management of the 3D printing network 3D printing-specific work order management systems for balancing and

. . .

High performance polymer printers or metal 3D printers Access to tool design data, or ability to design tooling Testing equipment to validate tool designs

prioritizing work orders

Jabil One of the world’s largest manufacturing service companies, Jabil now boasts an “agile manufacturing” platform; a cloud-based network integrating the 100+ 3D printers scattered across their global facilities, allowing for the quick relocation of work orders to locations closer to the customer.

ClearCorrect To produce the patient-specific dental aligners necessary for a patient’s treatment, and to serve the tens of thousands of patients worldwide, ClearCorrect relies on 3D printing to rapidly produce high-tolerance, disposable thermoforming molds for each and every patient-specific aligner.

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02/ Manufacturing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Technology selection When identifying which additive technology is most suitable to produce your parts, whether as one-offs or in series production, there are considerations beyond mechanical and performance requirements. Do you need a platform that can be highly integrated and automated? Do you need part or process certifications? Can you drastically improve current manufacturing processes by producing more advanced and cost-effective tooling using additive?

Direct

Process Automation

Removing parts FDM SLA CLIP/DLP

Remove support FDM SLS MJF Certifications HSS

Indirect

Batch volume

Low FDM CLIP/DLP DMLS

High SLS MJF HSS MJ

Aerospace Rail Medical device Sand BJ FDM FDM SLS DMLS FDM EBM Temporary/external Permanent/internal DMLS PJ DMLS CLIP/DLP SLS SLA

Casting

Plastic injection DMLS SLA

Investment DOD SLA

Forming

Molding

Blow PJ FDM SLA

Thermo Sheet metal FDM FDM SLA DMLS CLIP/DLP

Chanel Having been patented in 2007 and undergone 100 design trials, the “Le Volume Révolution de Chanel” 3D printed mascara brush has been 11 years in the making. The specialized brush contains a complex system of microcavities and bristle geometries for the perfect mascara application. With demand for one million units a month, selective laser sintering provided the best combination of production capacity and piece-part cost, with a “Révolution de Chanel” retailing at $35.

EOS P 396

. Powder Bed Fusion . PA, PS, PP, PEEK, TPE . 13.4 x 13.4 x 23.6in build volume . 0.0024in or 0.06mm layer thickness . Machine price $285k* . Material price inch $1.35 g$2.2* 3

ABB Producing millions of injection molded cabling grommets per year, ABB wanted to increase yield by reducing the cycle time of the mold tools. Working with SLM Solutions, several metal 3D printed tooling inserts were designed and tested containing non-linear conformal cooling channels only achievable via 3D printing. The redesigned tool reduced the complete cycle time by 75% from 60 seconds to just 15.

SLM Solutions 280 Twin

GE Aviation In the development of their next generation of GE9X aircraft engines, the jet design team looked for a more effective way to shape titanium aluminide, a notoriously brittle and difficult material to mold, into complex designs using 3D printing. The high temperatures required to 3D print parts in this titanium alloy narrowed the platform possibilities to the Arcam A2X, which could reach process temperatures of up to 1100°C or 2000°F.

Arcam EBM A2X

. Powder Bed Fusion . Stainless Steel, Al, Ni, Ti, CoCr . 11 x 11 x 14in build volume . 0.001in or 0.02mm layer thickness . Machine price $490k* . Material price inch $23 g$35*

. Powder Bed Fusion . Titanium alloys, Nickel alloy . 7.9 x 7.9 x 15in build volume . 0.0027in / 0.07mm layer thickness . Machine price $800k* . Material price inch $17 g$30*

3

3

* Approximation

† More materials available

‡ Open material format

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02/ Manufacturing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Investment and implementation

Actions and considerations To successfully implement additive manufacturing within your manufacturing supply chain, you must consider both product strategy and business operating model.

Additive manufacturing can support and advance your product strategy by speeding your time to market and enabling you to out-compete rivals or keep pace with customer trends.

Through enhanced design freedoms, it can also open up new opportunities for customization, modularization, and superior efficiency.

Second, you should consider how additive manufacturing can change how your business operates. As an on-demand production technology,

additive manufacturing can both produce end-use parts and support operational improvements across your business, such as preventative maintenance, increasing machine throughput, reducing assembly procedures, or lowering tooling costs. It can also enable radical reconfigurations of your business, such as localization of manufacturing, consumer driven supply chains, or digitization of facilities.

The companies that gain the most value from embedding additive within their manufacturing supply chains will leverage both product and business strategy to maximize their return on what can be a significant investment in equipment, people, and business transformation.

People Develop understanding of basic technical elements of additive manufacturing Plan and execute progressive training programs Integrate additive manufacturing into existing process improvement initiatives

. . .

Process Integrate part value (beyond part cost) into sourcing processes Develop internal fnancial processes for assigning asset management costs to multiple departments and projects

. .

Technology Create relationships with technology providers to influence technology development Invest in equipment to test the technical feasibility of printed parts and solutions

. .

Should you invest in moving to additive production?

Not relevant

Of interest

Aspirational

Urgent

With so much potential to support your manufacturing supply chain, from enabling customization to repositioning production centers, it can be overwhelming to determine whether these benefits align to the goals of your company. The question set below details ten areas in which additive manufacturing can support your manufacturing operations. The higher the total score across these ten examples, the stronger the investment case for implementing additive within your manufacturing operations.

Variety on a dime

We need to find ways of making more product variants with less capital investment

0

1

2

3

Switch it up

We need to find more cost effective ways of switching between production batches

0

1

2

3

Smaller batch size

Trends in our market are pressuring us to cater to smaller and smaller market segments and niche customer demands

0

1

2

3

Weak links in the chain

We want to eliminate some unreliable or at-risk suppliers from within our supply chain

0

1

2

3

Sole supplier risk

We need to reduce reliance on subcontractors and suppliers who control acces to tooling

0

1

2

3

Forecast calls for uncertainty

We struggle to forecast market demand, often under or over producing parts

0

1

2

3

Human nature, human error

Some of our manual or â&#x20AC;&#x153;craftâ&#x20AC;? processes can introduce variation and defects in the final product

0

1

2

3

Nearly just-in-time

Our just-in-time production systems can sometimes cause stock-outs and stall production

0

1

2

3

More productive tools

We need to improve the efficiency, reliability, or cycle times of our production tooling

0

1

2

3

Tall order

Our subcontractors struggle to manufacture specific parts or locate/make the required tooling

0

1

2

3

A Blueprint for 3D Printing 3D printing across the product lifecycle

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Assembly

03

Things move as fast as the least lucky and least competent supplier you know Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla

Often overlooked but vitally important components within any production center are jigs and fixtures. These tools ensure that products are manufactured to the highest degrees of quality and repeatability. To most companies however, jigs and fixtures are not discussed at the senior levels of the business. Instead, the creation and provision of these tools is often left in the hands of floor level engineers, operators, and managers. Only when specific fixtures or tools are required to interface with machine equipment central to the production process, and where a failure would incur significant costs, does the subject of jigs and fixtures gain a higher degree of attention and budget.

Heineken / To maintain production continuity and uptime within their brewery and bottling plant in Seville, Spain, Heineken is 3D printing a variety of production aids, spare parts and tools on site

This has led to the ownership of jigs and fixtures within business operations becoming fragmented, undocumented, and untraceable.

Some jigs may be supplied by an OEM while some fixtures may be off-the-shelf. Operators may modify tools to improve their effectiveness,

but fail to document those modifications. Most manufacturing plants are littered with unseen and unreported examples of â&#x20AC;&#x153;cardboard engineering,â&#x20AC;? hastily pieced together solutions often comprising of cheap, temporary materials.

3D printing provides a single, digital solution to the disarray that is sourcing jigs and fixtures. Just as the technology provides new opportunities for more agile and flexible manufacturing of products, these same advantages can be applied to the sourcing of jigs and fixtures. Advantages include on-demand production, customization, digitization of designs, and unrestrained design flexibility.

In combination, these benefits allow a business of any size to cut costly or unreliable suppliers, compress lead times, build digital libraries of advanced tools, and accelerate manufacturing floor productivity.

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03/ Assembly

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

It pays to pay attention Across the production floor, 3D printing is driving ever greater levels of efficiency

Additive manufacturing is demonstrating its value not just as a direct production method, but as a complementary solution that improves the effectiveness of other conventional manufacturing operations and overall optimization of the

lightweight, multi-functional, or durable. Most significantly, 3D printing can enable process consolidation, reducing the number of operations needed to assemble a tool, and minimizing points of failure. Alternatively, multiple jigs and

production floor. As a digitally driven, on-demand, and flexible production platform, 3D printing eliminates many of the costs and limitations faced by companies looking to produce jigs and fixtures in-house: high overheads of skilled machinists and capital tied up in machining equipment. It also reduces the risks of supplier lead times and fabrication prices for those choosing to outsource tool production. Additionally, the business case for investment in tooling, jigs, and fixtures can be difficult to make, due to high costs. 3D printing improves this business case by allowing companies to design, print, and deploy jigs and fixtures more cost effectively, more timely and in more applications than what was previously possible.

fixtures can be consolidated down into fewer, more advanced 3D printed tools, reducing the number of individual operations and unique tools in total.

A significant advantage of 3D printing over conventional machining and fabrication processes is that “complexity is free.” This opens up new opportunities for tool configurations that were previously cost prohibitive or limited by “design for manufacture” constraints. Existing jigs and fixtures can be reviewed and their designs improved upon to be more

Another important consideration within the production floor environment is the health and safety of human operators.

Whether it’s moving parts between stations, assembling components, performing quality control, or applying hand finishes, operators often use a range of tools, jigs, and fixtures

75% of global manufacturing operations will be using 3D-printed tools, jigs, and fixtures to produce end-use parts2

2 / Gartner

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Seems to me that, in the long run, all fixtures and jigs will be 3D printed, some will be in plastic, some will be in metal, but ultimately it just makes perfect sense John Dulchinos, VP Digital Manufacturing at Jabil

External supplier

Traditional jigs and fixtures workflow Identify need

Determine requirements

Create design documentation

Request quote from supplier

Process purchase order

Determine requirements

Manufacture order

Receive and deploy parts

Average cost saving 50-90%

Additive jigs and fixtures workflow Identify need

Design for manufacture

Design part

Print and deploy parts

to ensure accuracy and repeatability in their work. 3D printing can not only improve the efficiency of these manual functions by producing more advanced jigs and fixtures to increase operator speed or reduce fallout rates, but can also produce operator-specific tooling that is customized to the ergonomics of the user. Tooling that is personalized to the individual can reduce strain and injury, keeping them healthy, happy, and in work.

Quite often jigs and fixtures, particularly those for discrete, non-critical operations, are created ad-hoc by local teams or even individual operators, with little documentation of their design and fabrication instructions. These â&#x20AC;&#x153;unseenâ&#x20AC;? solutions maintain the operations of many production facilities the world over. Necessary but imperfect, the downsides to this approach are many. Often the fix will be lost in a changeover or retooling, resulting in the need to recalibrate.

Some solutions are highly effective and could be scaled to other lines or operations, but a lack of documentation and communication prevents this. 3D printing, as a digitally driven process, can allow designers to rapidly create jig and fixture

designs in CAD and have a printed solution far superior in performance than a jerry-built alternative far more quickly and cheaply than relying on conventional fabrication or outsourcing. Not only does this deliver better jigs and fixtures, but by building a digital library of designs, improvements become available to the wider company. These improvements can be audited, measured, and scaled to further increase productivity and enable other groups to adapt and customize existing designs and print on-demand.

Applying additive manufacturing as a jigs and fixtures solution eliminates costs, lead times, and design barriers. What is more impactful however is the switch to a digital jigs and fixtures strategy allows an organization to iteratively improve operations, scale each and every solution, and mobilize the ingenuity of their operational workforce far more effectively than a non-digital approach reliant on traditional sourcing methods, siloed initiatives, and untraceable solutions.

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03/ Assembly

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Applications and drivers From small assembly jigs to production critical machining fixtures, additive can support a broad number of behind-the-scenes operations that take place across the production floor. Rather than list each and every jig and fixture application that makes sense for 3D printing, it is more prudent to review the four major opportunity areas where 3D printed jigs and fixtures have proven to reduce costs, eliminate lead times, improve repeatability, ensure quality, and identify how 3D printing aligns to your unique situation.

01/ Production and assembly

02/ Health and safety

Fixtures, assembly jigs, machining and alignment guides, and other part holding devices are used throughout the production and assembly process to ensure accuracy and repeatability. Although many of these tools are often machined from aluminum or performance polymers, the performance requirements and tolerances can often be met with plastic 3D printed designs at a much lower cost, with an on-demand solution also allowing for constant iteration and improvement on designs.

A key imperative for any manufacturing organization is the safety of its factory floor staff. Assembly aids help minimize the strain and impact of certain operations, reducing worker fatigue and injury. With 3D printing, assembly aids can be greatly improved, with more ergonomic, lightweight designs for easier use. These tools can even be fully personalized to an operatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ergonomic profile, further reducing fatigue whilst simultaneously increasing productivity.

03/ Quality control and inspection

04/ Packaging and logistics

Nests, cradles, coordinate measuring machine (CMM) fixtures, go-no-go gauges, and other high-precision devices used to check the accuracy of parts are often machined at a high cost to achieve the required tolerances necessary for quality inspection. However many 3D printing processes can meet the required dimensional accuracy of quality control procedures while producing parts that are cheaper, lighter, and have nonmarring surfaces.

Rarely considered as an opportunity for 3D printing, packaging and logistics activities rely on a host of simple tools, many of which lend themselves to being 3D printed. Dunnage trays and kit boxes can be customized to fit within specific spaces or take certain tools to improve layout efficiency, tool guards can be printed and replaced more readily at a lower cost, and holding fixtures for transportation can be customized to securely carry delicate or intricate parts.

How the 50 tactics for 3D printing can streamline your assembly operations Jaguar Land Rover Musculoskeletal disorders make up 30% of workplace injuries, with manufacturing being particularly prone to repetitive stress injuries.

Engineers at Jaguar Land Rover’s Graydon, UK site saw an opportunity to use 3D printing to improve worker comfort and safety. Using a latticestyle structure and a flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material, engineers developed a specialized glove that reduced muscle fatigue and improved worker comfort. After receiving positive feedback, engineers are now working on a second iteration of the glove and other applications of

Tactics used VARIABLE STIFFNESS + ERGONOMIC PERSONALIZATION + FUNCTIONAL CUSTOMIZATION + INCREASE PRODUCT EFFICIENCY

3D printing to support their journey toward their goal of zero injuries.

John Deere Fifteen years ago, 3D printing at John Deere was one of the company’s best kept secrets. No longer. In the last 18 months, John Deere has deployed more than 40 3D printers across all technologies to support applications throughout the business. The Moline Technology and Innovation Center, the heart of 3D printing at Deere, sees tooling as its biggest success story, creating an impact in every region where John Deere manufactures. “When it either takes you a long time…or costs a lot of money to make the part, that’s where we can help,” says Craig Sutton, manager of technology innovation strategy.

Tactics used DISLOCATION OF COST VS COMPLEXITY + ASSEMBLY CONSOLIDATION AND PART REDUCTION + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + MANUFACTURE TO ORDER OR NEED + FUNCTIONAL CUSTOMIZATION + ELIMINATE TOOLING LEAD TIMES

Medtronic As a global leader in providing life-saving medical devices, Medtronic’s time to market is critical and its manufacturing uptime is paramount.

Medtronic’s restorative therapy group in Warsaw, Indiana uses 3D printing to produce tooling and manufacturing fixtures in hours or days, rather than six to eight weeks with an outside machine shop. This reduced lead time allows engineers to compress manufacturing start-up timelines, iterate on their designs faster, and be more responsive to factory needs, ensuring the steady flow of life-saving innovations to clinicians and patients.

Tactics used PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + MANUFACTURE TO ORDER OR NEED + MITIGATE CAPEX IN TOOLING + ELIMINATE TOOLING LEADTIMES

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A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Additive archetypes Having access to the necessary jig or fixture on the production floor is vital. From ensuring continued operations and minimizing inefficiencies to conducting necessary preventative maintenance and avoiding unplanned downtime scenarios. While jigs and fixtures on the production floor may be essential, the means of accessing these tools can often be complex, costly, and protracted.

The two solutions to access these tools are to either outsource to a specialist and purchase high-cost tools with extended lead times, or invest in machining equipment and specialist engineers to produce the necessary units in house, trading additional capital and payroll costs for speed.

3D printing is providing organizations with a third route. With low-cost 3D printing technologies and a shift to an entirely digital workflow, allowing for more iteration and testing of designs, more and more manufacturers are bringing the design and production of jigs and fixtures in house. But not every firm employs the same strategy to make this happen.

As the archetypes for assembly describe, methods can vary from in-housing tool creation through new, lean, and efficient â&#x20AC;&#x153;additive tool centersâ&#x20AC;? to new contracts with suppliers where digital designs remain with the supplier but production is carried out on-site via 3D printing.

Indian Motorcycles / The century old motorcycle company Indian Motorcycles are using 3D printing to accelerate the production of jigs and fixtures for motorcycle assembly

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

The technology can help us localize part of our production. When you look at Africa we see that delivery times to get parts imported is really challenging.

We are now able to produce them locally in our breweries instead of shipping them around the globe Isabelle Haenen / Digital Transformation Manager at Heineken

01/ AM vending system

02/ Additive nomad

03/ Lean machine shop

Industrial vending systems are secure lockers that dispense, track, and replenish inventory, often located on factory floors for quick access. 3D printing can be deployed in a similar fashion, with banks of printers positioned on site allowing for individual “orders” to be printed on demand and picked up by the user.

To maximize ROI as well as utilize 3D printing’s benefits beyond a single facility, companies can institute additive nomad programs that expose multiple facilities to the technology and its benefits, encourage them to identify shop floor opportunities, assign printing time for different groups, and, depending on the printing platform, physically move printers between facilities to encourage usage.

Whereas conventional machining shops contain numerous pieces of machining equipment and specialized machinists, designers, and engineers, a lean machine shop consists of a few 3D printers and an operator. This setup can be far more responsive in producing parts, digitally checking designs, and providing low-cost, rapid solutions often not worth the investment for a conventional machine shop.

Characteristics

Characteristics

Characteristics

. . . .

Multiple 3D printers configured in cells Work order management and print order functions made accessible to internal staff Individual user profiles to monitor usage by individuals and assign costs to departments or specific budgets Training of staff to design and submit print orders

BMW Many factories use a vending system to manage common tools and personal protective equipment. BMW took this one step further by combining a vending model with 3D printing for tooling. Workers at BMW’s plant in Regensburg, Germany can order customized tools which are 3D printed on demand.

. . .

3D printing education and awareness programs encouraging experimentation and usage System to assign printing capacity/time to specific teams or facilities Periodic review of all solutions across all facilities and formal implementation of those demonstrating significant value

Caterpillar To open up access and allow bottom-up innovation, Caterpillar organized deployable additive expertise, 3D scanners, and printing capacity, that can travel around regional facilities, with those facilities using this deployable capability seeing a decrease in development time and labor costs.

. . .

3D printers capable of each supporting a specific need (e.g. high-temp, low-cost, wear resistance) Small, responsive operator team capable of handling design fixes to ensure printability Additional finishing and post-processing technologies to improve part performance where necessary

Heineken Launching a lean machine shop using low-cost 3D printers in Seville, Spain, engineers quickly found applications in every facet of their manufacturing operations. Tooling and fixturing can be 3D printed in hours rather than the several days it previously took to source, generating a 70-90% cost savings.

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A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Technology selection 3D printing provides a range of options for producing jigs and fixtures to meet a range of requirements, with some cheaper options more than meeting the performance requirements of the tool. When identifying an appropriate 3D printing technology, consider whether it meets the actual requirements of the jig or fixture, and not whether it can match the often over-engineered material properties or tolerances offered by conventional machining. With this approach, you can begin making savings by no longer using high-cost machining methods to produce lower-value tools, jigs, and fixtures.

Function

Hold

<10kg CLIP SLA FDM SLS HSS MJF

>10kg FDM DMLS BMD

Stability FDM DMLS

Requirement

Grip

Vice grips FDM DMLS Inspect

Complexity PJ/MJP CLIP/DLP

Non-maring SLS MJF/HSS PJ/MJP FDM

Resistance

Chemical SLS MJF/HSS FDM

Thermal DMLS EBM FDM

Flame retardant FDM SLS Impact resistance SLS MJF/HSS FDM

Citizen With wrist watches that are accurate to within one second for every 100,000 years, Citizen Watch prides itself on accuracy. When it came to using 3D printing to create assembly and inspection jigs for their highly intricate timepieces, Citizen required a high degree of precision and tolerance. The 3D Systems ProJet 3500 HD multijet printer with a layer resolution of 32 microns allowed Citizen to not only create these precise detailed jigs, but to do so 96% faster than their current process.

3D Systems ProJet 3500 HD

. Material Jetting . Photopolymer acrylics, wax . 11.7 x 7.3 x 8in build volume . 0.001in or 0.032mm layer thickness . Machine price $79k* . Material price inch $5.4 g$10* 3

Bosch With a culture of encouraging regional facilities to pursue innovation, the Bosch facility in Mondeville, France, purchased multiple Zortrax 3D printers to build support tooling and replacement parts for its production facilities.

This low-cost 3D printing solution allowed savings of 99% over machined parts, with the open-material option of the system allowing Bosch engineers to continue experimenting on new cost saving opportunities with various materials.

Zortrax M200

Philips Working with 3D printing service provider Materialize, Philips Lighting turned to 3D printing to solve a production line problem: a lamp holder prone to failure. The new 3D printed bracket design consolidated three parts into one, creating a highly-reliable, design-optimized bracket. 3D printed in metal due to the hight heat environment, the superior printed bracket is saving Philips €9,000 a year in maintenance time and can be manufactured in 10 days, in house, reducing inventory costs.

Renishaw AM 400

. Material Extrusion . PLA, ABS, Nylon, PETG, TPE, PS † . 7.9 x 7.9 x 7.1in build volume . 0.0035in or 0.09mm layer thickness . Machine price $2.3k* . Material price inch $0.9 g$1.4*

. Powder Bed Fusion . Stainless Steel, tool steel, Al, Ti, CoCr, Ni . 9.8 x 9.8 x 12in build volume . 0.007in or 0.02 mm layer thickness . Machine price $350k* . Material price inch $23 g$35*

3

3

* Approximation

† More materials available

‡ Open material format

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03/ Assembly

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Investment and implementation

Actions and considerations Implementing an additive jigs and fixtures strategy is a good next step for any company looking to expand 3D printing outside of the prototyping department. With many lower-cost, desktop 3D printing technologies capable of producing jigs and fixtures, the technology barrier is comparatively low.

Ensuring you have access to the design data of your existing jigs and fixtures and the CAD skills available to re-engineer and optimize these designs for additive is most often the biggest challenge. An additive jigs and fixtures strategy is as much about skills development and design integrity as it is validating printed parts.

People Assign ownership of an additive jigs and fixtures initiative Train or hire CAD skills sufficient to design and optimize parts Put in place additive training programs to enable operators and engineers to identify additive jigs and fixtures opportunities

. . .

Process For in house 3D printing, establish a work order system to manage jigs and fixtures production Educate procurement and establish KPIs that recognize the financial benefit of higher-cost, but higher-productivity jigs and fixtures Negotiate with jigs and fixtures suppliers where necessary

. . .

Technology If 3D printing is outsourced, develop relationships with additive service bureaus Invest in an asset control system to catalog 3D printable jig and fixture files Purchase necessary testing and measuring equipment to ensure accuracy and integrity of 3D printed jigs and fixtures

. . .

Can 3D printing streamline your assembly processes?

Not relevant

Of interest

Aspirational

Urgent

The questions below outline some of the common issues faced across the assembly process, with many of these challenges rarely being registered beyond the operator or station they were identified in. Use the question set below to measure the degree by which 3D printing could support your assembly processes and overcome these common challenges.

Hands off, automation on

We need to remove or reduce costly, labor intensive activities within our assembly processes

0

1

2

3

Holding up the line

We sometimes do not have required parts at a specific assembly station creating backlogs and queues

0

1

2

3

Lean machine

We need to update our assembly line and operations toward 5S lean manufacturing principles

0

1

2

3

Low cost assistance

We need to find more cost effective methods of sourcing tools, jigs, and fixtures

0

1

2

3

More jobs, more tools

We need increasing variations of assembly aids, jigs, and fixtures to improve repeatability, speed, and quality control in our assembly processes

0

1

2

3

Operator training

We need to train our assembly teams and operators on assembly processes to allow us to improve assembly layout efficiency before first articles arrive

0

1

2

3

Operators are people too

We need to find ways to improve the ergonomics and usability of our tools, jigs, and aids for our operators and workers

0

1

2

3

Timely tooling

We need to find more agile and responsive methods of sourcing or fabricating tooling, jig, and fixture solutions

0

1

2

3

Central supplier

We need to find new ways of reducing sole-supplier risk for jigs and fixtures, or localize the production of these closer to the relevant facilities

0

1

2

3

Cardboard engineering

We need to find new methods of fabricating more durable jigs and fixtures instead of relying on ad-hoc solutions from low-grade materials

0

1

2

3

A Blueprint for 3D Printing 3D printing across the product lifecycle

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Sales and retail

04

You walk into a retail store, whatever it is, and if thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a sense of entertainment and excitement, you want to be there Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks The history of retail demonstrates how successful companies are the ones who leverage new technologies to meet the consumer attitudes and social trends of the time. Until the latter half of the 20th century, mom & pop shops were the primary sales channel for the majority of goods.

They were local, responsive, and specialized.

Then came big box retailers and category-killers such as Walmart, Target, and Carrefour who gathered everything you could buy under one roof, beating mom & pop on convenience and price. The dawn of the Internet and e-commerce did to these big box retailers what they did to mom & pop shops, with the likes of Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress offering even more goods, more convenience, and lower prices.

Starbucks / To add a different aesthetic to their Teavana Bar, the Singapore Starbucks Roastery commissioned a 3D printed concrete bar

Today, consumers have undergone a transformational shift in what they value most.

Rather than value convenience and price above all else, they are inclined to spend more money on personalization, experience, and creating memories. This is the â&#x20AC;&#x153;experience economy,â&#x20AC;?

primarily driven by younger generations of consumers who were born into a world of digital convenience and are looking for something more from their retail experience.

3D printing is one technology that both digital and physical retailers should begin to leverage to compete in this new experience economy. Retailers are using 3D printing to turn manufacturing into an experience by 3D printing products in store enabling heightened levels of consumer personalization. Some have opened up new revenue streams, created new customer touch points, improved inventory replenishment, and enhanced point-of-sale design and brand positioning. 3D printing is a technology for the modern retail era, where customers demand not only hyper-responsive convenience, but also highly-personalized products, deeper brand connections, and for every trip to a store to be an experience, not just a necessity.

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04/ Sales and retail

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Retail isn’t dead, it’s just different Technology has reinvented the retail experience, 3D printing is poised to reinvent it again

The notion of the experience economy is not new. The idea of adding value by layering on customer journeys, delightful interactions, deep brand engagement, and personalized experiences atop the core product or transaction goes back over 40 years with companies like Starbucks leading the charge. Starbucks turned something as mundane as buying a coffee into an experience. Today, this approach of “product plus experience” is the new normal, with 67% of customers saying they expect memorable experiences and 51% saying most companies fail to deliver according to a Salesforce survey.

In the subsequent 40 years since Starbucks rewrote the rules for buying coffee, new entrants and incumbents are doing the same in their industries, from Dollar Shave Club to Delta.

But in this same time frame, technology has also advanced significantly, creating a double-edged sword scenario for retailers, manufacturers, and brands. Where technology offers evermore deeper, connected, and personalized solutions to capture the consumer, it is also accelerating the speed of change, lowering the bar to entry for new disruptors and enabling them to scale fast. To stay ahead, brands need to stay at the forefront of technology adoption.

One technology that is seeing experimental adoption in the retail space is 3D printing. While much of retail innovation has been driven by digital technology, such as behavioral analytics, automated cashiers, and augmented reality shopping, 3D printing adds something new to the mix: it enables brands and retailers to experiment and innovate across the customer journey, delivering new products and new experiences.

One such concept is “co-design,” where customers can manipulate or co-design their purchase using a variety of methods such as modularity of parametric modification. In a co-design concept, a customer can change the geometry, size, features, and more using a digital configurator, and the finalized co-designed product is 3D printed. In addition to opening up more products for customization, a co-design experience elevates the role of the customer into a pseudodesigner, giving them a deeper connection to both the product and the brand.

Another opportunity is serving markets-of-one. Technology is driving expectations of personalized and on-demand experiences. This is forcing traditional players to reinvent their organizations to better capture these opportunities as

“

The only companies that will exist in 10 years’ time are those that create and nurture human experiences. This learning and growth will come from maximizing opportunities, including the reinvention of retail spaces, new models of engagement, and an understanding of experiences as perhaps the most important form of marketing World Economic Forum annual meeting 2019

they arise. Adidas has begun experimenting with the notion of 3D printing products within market cities to be as responsive as possible to changes in trends and demand. 3D printing provides the means for retailers to serve these “momentary markets” by accelerating product development and production setup or even switching to direct additive production to deliver localized products or limited editions to meet these niche trends.

3D printing also allows retailers to reach the customer and deliver products in new ways. In-store 3D printing has seen some experimentation in recent years. Although less efficient that conventional delivery in most cases, it can add value through additional engagement. It entices the customer to come in store where other products and services can be promoted and can incite word-of-mouth promotion. The fashion house Louis Vuitton demonstrated the impact of this concept by using 3D printing to fabricate unique popup shops and point-of-sale designs, creating an immersive shopping experience through product display design.

For brands and retailers to prosper in the coming years, they must consider every product, transaction, and touch point with the customer as a means of adding value through experience. While digital technologies have advanced the on-line customer journey, 3D printing carries the potential to enable experience-focused brands to reimagine the physical journey, from the design of their stores to the configuration of their sales channels.

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04/ Sales and retail

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Applications and drivers When 3D printing burst into the mainstream, many promises were made about how the technology would rejuvenate the retail space, from the supply chain to the storefront. With years of technology development and trial-and-error experimentation, several of these applications are increasing in viability, all of which are focused on enhancing the storefront consumer experience.

01/ Theater

02/ Brand

The “retail apocalypse” is forcing brick and mortar outlets to find new ways to move foot traffic from the street to the store.

From live music to cooking classes, adding theater to a retail environment hooks audiences and improves conversion. 3D printing can be used in a similar fashion. While it cannot replace in-store inventory, having on-the-shelf products being printed in real time adds a sense of attraction and theater that can pull in customers and attract positive media attention.

Brand image is everything, particularly in today’s world of social media, word-of-mouth promotion, and discerning consumers. 3D printing can help to support a brand’s in-store experience through signage and elaborate pointof-sale displays or augment marketing through promotional advertising, giveaways, and limited edition products with the goal of promoting or reinventing a brand.

03/ Personalization

04/ Channel

No longer constrained by part cost and economies of scale, 3D printing allows for meaningful personalization beyond modular alteration and cosmetic changes. Retailers can offer customers the experience of personalizing almost every aspect of a product, limited only by imagination and the need to protect the integrity of the brand. Further, the act of customizing a product can be an experience, from touch pad configurators to audio recordings to whole-body scans, all of which can be done in-store.

Although unlikely to be capable of producing all the inventory for a shop’s shelves, 3D printing can open up new ways of delivering product and value to a customer. For brands that are rich in digital trademarks, they can license this content to be 3D printed, opening up new passive income channels while offering new products to the customer. Alternatively, some brands may supplement their products with 3D printable digital files, both promoting existing products and increasing their appeal and usability.

How the 50 tactics for 3D printing can support your sales and retail activities IKEA IKEA teamed up with design houses for its ThisAbles project, an initiative to produce a series of 3D-printable design modifications that increase accessibility. The ThisAbles project has produced modular modifications that address a range of special needs cases, from limited hand functions, to mobility issues, to visual impairment and provides the modifications as 3D printable models free for download on its website. Not only is IKEA reinventing how it brings its products to market, but the use of downloadable modifications for their furniture is the marriage of fine-tuned mass production

Tactics used MANUFACTURE TO ORDER OR NEED + ERGONOMIC PERSONALIZATION + FUNCTIONAL CUSTOMIZATION + MITIGATE OPEX IN PERSONALIZATION + SERVICE SMALLER MARKET SEGMENTS

with a hyper-niche market focus, specifically for those with disabilities.

BMW MINI Car buyers today certainly have more options than “any color as long as it’s black” but too often those options are limited to one of five paint colors and half a dozen option packages. For its limited run MINI Cooper S GT Edition, BMW employs 3D printing to offer customizable trim elements, which had previously been impossible to produce in such low volumes. In addition, BMW recently launched its online customizer tool, which lets clients choose 3D printed accents and accessories to make their MINI their own. In offering a truly one-of-a-kind customized car, BMW MINI has created an experience and a differentiated connection with its customers.

Tactics used CONSUMER DRIVEN SUPPLY CHAINS + PRODUCTION AUTOMATION + AESTHETIC PERSONALIZATION + CO-DESIGN EXPERIENCES + NEW POINT-OF-SALE EXPERIENCES

Cadbury If any food can be said to be deeply connected with our most intimate human relationships, it is chocolate. Although the act of chocolate being shared, consumed, and celebrated is highly personal, production and purchasing are still largely commoditized. Cadbury Australia sought to create a unique in-store experience and found an opportunity to use 3D printing to enable customers to create customized chocolate charms. Customer designs incorporated letters, shapes, symbols, and iconic Australian symbols such as kangaroos and sandals. Customers walked away, with not only a 3D printed chocolate, but also having had a unique in-store experience that truly impressed.

Tactics used NEW STYLES AND AESTHETICS + MANUFACTURE LINESIDE OR AT POINT-OF-USE + AESTHETIC PERSONALIZATION + NEW POINT OF SALE EXPERIENCES

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04/ Sales and retail

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Additive archetypes Unlike many other 3D printing applications, from prototyping to maintenance support, the ownership of 3D printing for sales and retail can vary greatly depending on the purpose. Where it is being used to support in-store experiences, product launches, and brand campaigns, marketing should take ownership and manage the deployment of the technology. Where it is being applied to deliver customized products, product owners should ensure these offerings conform to quality and maintain brand integrity. And when service bureaus and contract manufacturing suppliers are 3D printing and white labeling products through a license agreement, procurement should manage and monitor the relationship. The additive archetypes described lay out some of the ways 3D printing can be deployed and show several models of successful deployment, management, and investment.

“

You’d have to be hiding under a rock not to look at the experience economy and everything that’s going on there, and we’re a drinks company, so we’re in the business of providing fantastic experiences in social areas Sophie Kelly / Senior VP of North American Whiskeys at Diaego

Bulleit Bourbon / 3D printed bourbon cocktails printed at the bar, where customers were able to create a unique pattern into their drink

01/ Additive experiences

02/ Hands-off channels

03/ Backstore production

To differentiate in a crowded field, many brick and motor retailers are turning to events and experiences to drive foot traffic. Showcasing 3D printing or 3D printed products can add a wow factor to an in-store visit, providing customers and visitors with shareable moments and media coverage, all of which can drive brand and product promotion.

With service bureaus increasing capacity and access to 3D printing, brands can establish new, hands-off sales channels and passive income streams with minimum investment. Service bureaus can handle production, white-labelling and shipping of products under license by brands, with each party receiving a percentage of the sale and customers getting access to new products.

A distributed approach to producing niche products, limited edition runs or customized products, placing production nearer to the point of need through digital production centers, backstore printing capacity or local service bureaus can reduce inventory, with orders printed on demand, as well as provide a higher-value service for “click-and-collect” services similar to in-store 2D printing services.

Characteristics

Characteristics

Characteristics

. . . .

3D printers actively running in-store or within a consumer space 3D printed products available for purchase (not necessarily printed in store) 3D printing is tied to a larger in-store brand engagement initiative/marketing campaign Managed and coordinated by the marketing team

Bulleit On a mission to explore the “cultural frontier” Bulleit Bourbon is teaming up with artists and innovators to appeal to new and different kinds of whiskey drinkers. The 3D printed bar, complete with 3D printed drinks, is their latest exploration, adding a sense of magic and modernity to a perceivably traditional spirit.

. . .

Contract production agreement with service bureau Often specialized bureaus are used that focus on a product category or industry Branded digital portal for customers to

. . .

order parts, likely managed by service provider

.

Star Trek Online The online game Star Trek, in partnership with GamePrint, has launched a new in-game feature, giving their 10,000 starship captains the ability to have their spaceship, lovingly piloted and customized across hundreds of hours of gameplay, 3D printed as a collectible, full color model.

Printers in store only when product volumes and product value justify investment Contract production agreements with one or multiple service bureaus local to stores or outlets Distributed production centers contain multiple digital production technologies Integration of dedicated inventory and fulfilment management tools

Adidas In line with its strategy to be more responsive to regional demand and open up potential for personalization and partnership, Adidas has piloted highly automated production centers in proximity to their largest markets, complete with 3D printing as a flexible production platform.

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04/ Sales and retail

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Technology selection When selecting an additive technology for sales and retail, it is just as important to consider the aesthetic and usability aspects of the printer as its ability to print the parts you want to produce. For producing parts, consider the technology selection criteria described for manufacturing. If the intent is to position 3D printing within the retail environment, either to produce parts for sale, or to provide experiential value, consider the size and operation of the printer. Can customers clearly see the printing process? Can retail staff be trained to operate it? Can the printer produce parts fast enough to fulfill an order?

Product

Edible CE BJ

In-store experience

Full-colored Displays & architecture In-store printing PJ FDM BJ FGF MJF High resolution Easy to use Visible printing PJ FDM FDM Wearable MJP SLA SLA SLS SLA CLIP CLIP/DLP MJF DLP BMD Low-cost system HSS CLIP PJ FDM DMLS SLA Small form factor FDM CLIP FDM SLA BMD

Rapid printing CLIP

Nespresso To add a splash to its window displays, Nespresso wanted to add a 3D component to its new Vertuo Nespresso machine advertising. Using the Massivit 1800 machine for its large build chamber and comparatively fast print speed, Nespresso 3D printed a large model of a liquid splash that affixed to a 2D display to create a 3D image of a milk splash, giving the window display an extra sense of motion and flair.

Massivit 1800

. Material Extrusion . Photopolymer acrylic gel . 57.1 x 70.9 x 43.3in build volume . 0.003in or 0.08mm layer thickness . Machine price $350k* . Material price inch (not published) 3

Gillette To mark the 50 year anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon, Gillette launched the Apollo collection of limited edition razor blades. An exclusive online product, the handles were 3D printed using Formlabs Form2 machines as they offered the best combination of part detail and cost, with the Apollo priced at $62. As this was a limited edition run, the production volume was appropriate for a desktop system.

Formlabs Form2

. Vat Photopolymerization . Photopolymer acrylics (various colors and shores) . 5.7 x 5.7 x 6.9in build volume . 0.001in or 0.025mm layer thickness . Machine price $3.5k* . Material price inch $2.4 g$4.9* 3

* Approximation

Leroy Merlin Offering its customers more than just paint mixing and wood cutting services, the international DIY superstore Leroy Merlin installed a maker-space called the Bricolab.

Containing, among other making tools, ZMorph VX 3D printers due to their ease of use and low cost of maintenance, the store hopes to roll out this new service to 40 stores across Brazil. The Bricolab is a new value-added service for a store looking to rebrand as a modern, technologically advanced marketplace.

ZMorph VX

. Material Extrusion . PLA, ABS, PET, Nylon, HIPS, PC, PP ‡ . 9.25 x 9.8 x 6.5in build volume . 0.001in / 0.05mm layer thickness . Machine price $2.3k* . Material price inch $0.9 g$1.43* 3

† More materials available

‡ Open material format

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04/ Sales and retail

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Investment and implementation

Actions and considerations Investing in 3D printing to support your retail and sales activities requires careful consideration both in the method of deployment and how value is recognized.

As described, many of the benefits additive brings into this space are intangible, recognized through crosspromotion and the increase of brand equity. It is critical to clearly establish the KPIs for bringing additive into your retail and sales activities so you can correctly calculate your ROI. Additionally, 3D printing will likely be a new concept for many individuals from store workers to marketing managers, all of whom may have contact with the technology. Educating your staff is paramount.

People Provide 3D printing education workshops amongst staff to develop awareness and understanding of the technology Adjust mindset of marketing, product development, and sales teams to understand the potential for 3D printing to add value in non-conventional ways If 3D printing is positioned in-store, train store workers to operate these machines

. . .

Process Where 3D printing is positioned in store, establish guidelines for health and safety as well as machine operation training Where 3D printing is enabling customization of products, integrate CRM systems including product configurator and work order management systems to manage customer orders

. .

Technology For in-store printing, consider partnering with technology vendors for machine showcase discounts or other partnership opportunities For licensed production of products, build relationships with additive service bureaus capable of providing white-label contract manufacturing

. .

Is sales and retail the best place to invest in 3D printing?

Not relevant

Of interest

Aspirational

Urgent

As the pace of competition, technology development, and consumer expectations accererate ever faster, identifying how 3D printing could support your retail and sales activities can become chaotic. The questions below highlight ten areas within sales and retail where 3D printing can add value or provide a solution. The more of these you score highly, the stronger the investment case is for positioning the technology as a solution to support your sales and retail strategy.

Differentiation, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal

We want to differentiate our brand and increase our value offering by providing more personalized products to our customers

0

1

2

3

Getting in the door

We want to drive more foot traffic into our retail stores and increase new customer exposure to our products and brand

0

1

2

3

Give the people what they want

We want to allow our customers to configure our products to meet their exact functional needs

0

1

2

3

Intangible value

We want to move from transactional sales of physical products toward licensing our design data, brand assets, and intellectual property

0

1

2

3

Leave them wanting more

We want to incorporate more services within our product offerings to increase repeat purchase and customer stickiness

0

1

2

3

New entrants, new pressures

We are facing increased competition from start-ups and incumbents offering new, higher-value offerings

0

1

2

3

Online, on foot

We want to create a customer journey that better connects our e-commerce presence with our retail stores

0

1

2

3

Personal competition

Personalization and customization are becoming growing trends in our market and unique selling points amongst our competition

0

1

2

3

Print me an experience

We want our purchasing experience and in-store customer journey to be more meaningful, memorable, shareable, and personalized

0

1

2

3

So last season

Our product lines and value offerings need to be more agile to keep up with rapidly changing consumer trends and tastes

0

1

2

3

A Blueprint for 3D Printing 3D printing across the product lifecycle

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Maintenance and aftermarket

05

Create an exceptional and sustained experience of genuine value for customers, a performance that endures John Deere, Founder of John Deere

Although it is a popular (and proper) criticism to bemoan our throw-away society in the consumer space, the aftermarket is an increasingly important business in many industries. Providing maintenance and aftermarket services is also highly-lucrative in many industries, with aftermarket margins being 250% of what they are for new equipment.

Siemens Mobility GmbH / One of the largest rail companies have integrated 3D printing within their first digital rail maintenance center, allowing for the rapid production of select parts through 3D printing instead of relying on storing these parts in inventory

In some industries, such as automotive, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are required to supply parts for 10 years or more. Companies like John Deere pride themselves on supporting machines for decades; you can still order OEM parts for a 50-year-old 4400 series combine.

Many industrial and aerospace companies support their equipment for generations; the 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s era B-52 Stratofortress is expected to remain in service through 2050, almost 100 years after the aircraft was introduced.

Having parts available to service the aftermarket needs of customers is an expensive proposition and always presents difficult choices to companies. Do you run production lines and store inventory for a decade or more? Do you accept the costs of setup and tooling storage so that you can do small batch production runs in the future? What happens when you inevitably run out of inventory, or when tooling becomes lost or unusable?

3D printing is becoming increasingly relevant in the aftermarket space, as companies look to cut costs in tooling, storage, and setup and seek to find new and innovative distribution and repair models for spare parts. While we are a long way from the dream of producing any part, anywhere in the world within hours, many innovative companies are looking to 3D printing to drive both top-line growth and bottom-line savings in their aftermarket operations.

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05/ Maintenance and aftermarket

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Maintaining a competitive advantage Additive manufacturing is changing the game in the aftermarket and maintenance business

3D printing is the enabling technology that is allowing both massive cost-savings and new opportunities in the aftermarket. Where businesses embrace 3D printing as a production mechanism for spare and replacement parts, entire

thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of parts, so that the cost of each part approaches the marginal cost of production. In the aftermarket, volume needs are often much smaller, so costs that were once rounding errors suddenly

warehouses of plastic and metal parts can be replaced with a bank of 3D printers, producing parts on a just-in-time basis for customers, or even replaced with a service bureau contract manufacturer.

become the major drivers of component costs.

To be sure, 3D printing will never completely replace traditional production for all aftermarket parts. Some parts must be stocked for critical needs, some parts are infeasible to 3D print, and there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a drop-in 3D printing replacement for all (or even most) manufacturing processes. 3D printing can, however, significantly reduce the number of parts that are required to be stocked at a warehouse for aftermarket needs.

Often, the problem with producing for the aftermarket comes down to efficient production volumes. Most manufacturing processes have some fixed costs of supply chain, tooling, and manufacturing setup that must be absorbed, regardless of how many parts are produced in a production run. In high-volume production runs, these costs are amortized over

One way to solve this problem is by over-producing during full-run production and storing parts inventory for the duration of your aftermarket service commitments. But this method has its own problems. First, it requires that you can accurately predict the future: How long will you need to provide service?

Will customers repair or replace your product in 2, 5, 10, or 50 years? Which parts will break because of unknown design or production defects? In the worst case, you get it wrong, you overproduce, and you end up absorbing huge inventory carrying costs and scrapping excess inventory. In the other worst case, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t produce enough parts and you end up reabsorbing the fixed costs of production for additional production runs. Very rarely do even the most able supply chain professionals get this exactly right.

For many manufacturers, 3D printing can solve this problem by providing a production mechanism that is similarly efficient

Total cost per part vs. production volume Fixed costs of production Supply chain

Tooling

Setup

Production

Inventory

Total cost per part

Costs incurred in setting up each production run/order

Designing, tooling fabrication Re-order volume for spare parts

Full production volume

Sourcing, purchasing, logistics

Re-order Re-tool Re-source

across any volume. But economic low-volume production is only half of the story. When you contemplate, design for, and produce parts using a 3D printing platform, you gain the ability to produce at low volumes anywhere, in house or at a service bureau. Concepts such as centralized depots which produce parts and incorporate those parts in rebuilds become possible. Redesigning parts for the aftermarket, based on failure modes learned from the input of millions of customers becomes feasible. Remanufacturing one-off parts from an era of craftsmen using 3D scanning and advanced engineering is suddenly an option.

Beyond direct production or replacement parts, 3D printing can play roles that support aftermarket manufacturing and

repair processes. Many companies are using 3D printing for fixturing, making their repair processes more consistent and deployable. Some are even using 3D printing to add material to existing parts, giving them a new lease on life.

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05/ Maintenance and aftermarket

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Applications and drivers Even though we live in society where disposability is the norm, maintenance and repair is still relevant and necessary across almost every industry, whether you are restoring a decades old Piper Cub aircraft, or maintaining precision machinery. Here are the four primary ways in which 3D printing is aiding both providers of aftermarket parts and maintenance and repair organizations.

01/ On-demand inventory

02/ Digital tooling

Using additive for direct production is the most certain way to eliminate lead times, ensure availability, and reduce carrying costs.

A digital catalog of aftermarket parts can reduce the need for warehouses of inventory, while ensuring that you can continue to produce parts to service aftermarket customers. It also opens up the opportunity for new business models in aftermarket: Print-ondemand parts, drop-shipping, parts created at service bureaus, or even open-sourcing service parts so that customers can print parts in house or at a service bureau of their choosing.

When additive is not an option for direct production, often it can be used to augment traditional manufacturing methods, making them cheaper, more flexible, and quicker at low volumes. Rather than keeping warehouses full of production tooling, or recreating tooling for scratch, some companies are 3D printing molds and forms for short-run tradition production. These 3D printed tools, suitable for runs of a few hundred of thousand parts are often an order of magnitude cheaper than traditional tooling and can be made in days, rather than months.

03/ Repair aids and fixturing

04/ Reengineering

Consistency underpins quality in any repeatable process and being able to mistake-proof processes using customized tooling and poke-yoke devices is one of the hallmarks of methodologies like six sigma and the Toyota Production System. To that end, several repair shops use 3D printing to produce custom tooling.

Everything from fixtures that ensure proper component placement, to custom tooling which can be printed on-demand. Having a toolset that can be 3D printed ensures that tooling is always available, can be rapidly deployed to any location, and can be easily updated in response to continuous improvement initiatives.

In high-value, specialized applications, sometimes you need just one unobtainable part to get up and running again. This is especially true for aging equipment with a long service life: think a classic car restoration aficionado getting a 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s era Ferrari ready for a show, a defense contractor servicing a fleet of 50-year-old planes, or a manufacturer maintaining a 30-year-old production line. Artisans in many industries use 3D printing to create unobtainable parts for everything from Porsches to planes.

Additionally, some users of 3D printing are using the tools to design new parts, consolidate assemblies, explore light weighting applications, and improve reliability.

How the 50 tactics for 3D printing can support maintenance and aftermarket FedEx Forward When most people think of FedEx, they think of global movement of letters and parcels. Less often, they think of what happens within FedEx Forward Depots: just-in-time delivery of service parts and electronics repairs. By producing critical spare parts, tooling, and job aids in house using 3D printing, FedEx both shortens the supply chain and lowers the logistics overhead for its Forward Depot business. This enables FedEx to repair electronics more quickly than even the original manufacturer, sometimes as soon as next-day.

Tactics used SUPPLIER CONSOLIDATION + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + AVAILABILITY OF LEGACY PARTS + STOCK MITIGATION AND DIGITAL INVENTORY+ MITIGATE CAPEX IN TOOLING + ACCESS SMALLER NICHE MARKETS + INCREASE DESIGN-CHANGE RESPONSIVENESS + ELIMINATE OBSOLESCENCE

Porsche When spare parts for classic cars become impossible to find, it is devastating for classic car collectors; those impossible-to-source parts keep cars out of shows and off the road. As a leader in supporting its classic cars, Porsche supplies over 52,000 parts for the classic car market. But for cases where original tooling isn’t available or volumes can’t support traditional production, Porsche has turned to 3D printing as a manufacturing mechanism to support a digital inventory of spare parts, providing new revenue streams, engagement amongst its most loyal collector cohort, and the ability to have more of its classic cars in shows and on the road.

Tactics used AVAILABILITY OF LEGACY PARTS + STOCK MITIGATION AND DIGITAL INVENTORY+ MANUFACTURE TO ORDER + MITIGATE CAPEX IN TOOLING + ELIMINATE ECONOMIES OF SCALE + ACCESS SMALLER NICHE MARKETS + ELIMINATE OBSOLESCENCE + INCREASE PRODUCT EFFICIENCY

Siemens Most 3D printing starts with a build tray as a base and adds material.

Siemens took the concept of adding material and started from the base of an already existing component within its remanufacturing operations.

Much like the process of retreading tires, Siemens uses 3D printing to add material to the worn interface surfaces of industrial components, saving time and money during remanufacturing. Using these repair processes, parts for industrial gas turbines and compressors can be repaired up to 60% faster and sometimes upgraded to the latest part designs.

Tactics used ASSEMBLY CONSOLIDATION + DISLOCATION OF COST VS COMPLEXITY + PROCESS DISPLACEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN COMPRESSION + MITIGATE CAPEX IN TOOLING + ELIMINATE TOOLING LEAD TIMES + INCREASE PRODUCT EFFICIENCY + DESIGN FOR REPAIR, REFURB AND REMANUFACTURE

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05/ Maintenance and aftermarket

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Additive archetypes Companies have many different models for how they service the aftermarket; some supply spare and replacement parts to consumers directly, some sell through a network of authorized resellers and dealers. Others service machines and devices in house, either as a massive repair organization, or in specialized maintenance shops for repairing complicated, high-value equipment. And there are the countless endcustomers who service their own equipment and businesses that reverse-engineer and sell parts to the aftermarket where OEMs fail to provide solutions.

Jay Lenoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Garage / With 3D printers on site, Jay Leno can reproduce hard-to-find replacement parts for his many vintage vehicles

Your choice of how to implement additive manufacturing in maintenance and repair will be guided by your current business model, but will almost certainly present opportunities to expand your reach in the space. The archetypes to the right will give you an idea of how 3D printing for aftermarket and maintenance might look in your business.

Pratt & Whitney / 3D printing is now in use to produce aero-engine components for the maintenance, repair, and overhaul of their commercial engines

01/ Inventory on demand

02/ Additive MRO

03/ Reverse manufacturing

Rather than rely on warehousing of inventory, organizations can digitize some of their parts catalog and have them 3D printed on-demand when required. Either through on-site 3D printers or via service bureaus, supporting a “digital inventory” reduces carrying costs and ensures indefinite part availability, eliminating the risk of obsolescence.

The maintenance, repair, and operations supply chain commonly includes a high number of manufacturers, distributors, and logistics providers. To side-step the long lead times these intermediaries cause, MRO facilities can deploy additive manufacturing in house to produce parts locally such as tools, spares, and critical parts more efficiently than relying on outsourcing models.

When suppliers go bust, design specifications are lost, or obsolete parts are no longer available, reverse engineering is required to recreate parts.

Where this typically requires multi-stage machining or refabrication of tooling by a specialist supplier, a combination of digital scanning and 3D printing can produce parts with perfect accuracy.

Characteristics

Characteristics

Characteristics

. . . . .

Contract manufacturing agreement with 3D printing service bureaus Digital repository of validated 3D printed parts Professional 3D printers located within inventory warehouses Order management system to coordinate 3D printing inventory requests Approved use of 3D printed parts

Whirlpool The white goods giant Whirlpool has curated a digital catalog of spare parts for many of their white goods and appliances, which it can now 3D print on demand for customers across the globe, without the need for large inventory warehouses or the costs of lowvolume traditional production.

. . . .

3D printers positioned within MRO facilities 3D printers managed within specialist additive center Dedicated management and organizational structure Partnerships with 3D printing vendors/ specialists

Pratt & Whitney Using 3D printing to develop a component for a jet engine fuel system, Pratt & Whitney is demonstrating how 3D printing can solve repair issues. The company expects to develop a catalog of similar parts that can be printed on demand at airline maintenance bases.

. . .

Scanning and measuring equipment to varying degrees of accuracy based on need In house 3D printing capacity to test-print accuracy of scans Specialist software to convert scan data into CAD files

Jay Leno’s Garage The legendary petrolhead uses 3D printing to recreate and redesign parts to restore his collection of more than 200 classic cars. Using 3D printing, the artisans at Jay Leno’s Garage can recreate “unobtainium” parts to original design specifications and get classic cars out to shows and on the road.

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05/ Maintenance and aftermarket

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Technology selection The first step in selecting a technology is understanding which archetype will support your current or target business model. Are you looking to replace direct production of parts with additive? Are you looking to support more consistent processes in your internal maintenance and repair organization? How you plan to use additive in your maintenance business will determine technology selection as much as your specific technical requirements.

Indirectly produce parts

Directly produce parts

<0.3mm PJ CLIP

Rail FDM

>0.3mm SLS FDM Volume

Low frequency FDM BMD SLA

Casting

Certification

Tolerance

Small batch FDM DMLS SLA

Large batch MJF/HSS MJ

Aero interior FDM SLS DMLS EBM

Small SLA FDM Strength

Impact Stiffness FDM FDM SLS DMLS MJF/HSS SLS

Flexural FDM CLIP

Large SLA BJ FDM

Remanufacture EBAM DMLS LMD

Forming

Thermo Sheet metal PJ/MJP DMLS FDM BMD SLA FDM CLIP/DLP

Bombardier As one of the world’s largest rail equipment manufacturers and providers, Bombardier looked to 3D printing as a solution to accelerate part production as well as prototyping and tooling. With the printed parts installed on rolling stock required to meet specific rail certifications, the Stratasys F900 3D printer met the certification, part performance and print volume demands for producing series parts, spares, and tooling to support the demands of Bombardier’s German, Swiss, and Austrian rail clients.

Stratasys F900

. Material Extrusion . ABS, Nylon, PC, ULTEM, PEKK † . 36 x 24 x 36in build volume . 0.007in or 0.178mm layer thickness . Machine price $400k* . Material price inch $4 g$40* 3

Stanley Infrastructure Offering nearly 200 hand-held and mounted hydraulic tools to its construction customers, providing spare part inventory is challenging. Engineers at Stanley Infrastructure managed to cut inventory and manufacturing costs by replacing casting with 3D printing for small-batch replacement parts.

They used the Markforged Metal X system as it provided the right balance between part performance, machine cost, and usability compared to direct metal laser sintering systems.

Markforged MetalX

. Material Extrusion . Stainless steel, Tool steel, Inconel, Copper † . 10 x 8.6 x 7.8in build volume . 0.002in or 0.05mm layer thickness . Machine price $99.5k* . Material price inch $16 g$40* 3

* Approximation

Wabtec With over 100 manufacturing plants positioned around the world to serve their enormous customer base, Wabtec must keep an enormous volume of inventory.

Looking to reduce carrying costs, Wabtec has invested in GE’s H2 binder jet metal 3D printing system as a high-volume production method for low-cost metal parts.

The company has already identified 250 components that can be moved from their production line and onto their 3D printer.

GE Additive H2

. Binder Jetting . 316 Stainless steel, 17-4 Stainless steel † . Build volume: To be announced . Layer thickness: To be announced . Machine price: To be announced . Material price: To be announced

† More materials available

‡ Open material format

/84

05/ Maintenance and aftermarket

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

3D printing across the product lifecycle

Investment and implementation

Actions and considerations Using additive manufacturing for maintenance and aftermarket will necessarily touch many business areas, including product development, manufacturing, customer support, and distribution. Naming not just executive level champions, but also leaders within each business unit who can drive, coordinate, and coach, will be paramount to any initiativeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success.

Unique to the aftermarket is defining how you ingest new parts and concepts into your additive ecosystem. If your business involves providing parts to customers in the aftermarket, do not underestimate the amount of attention that must be given to business processes like order management and fulfillment.

People Define the stakeholders and assign an executive level champion to drive the initiative Add new staff or adjust job roles to ensure that your additive deployment receives priority Educate workforce (engineering, quality, manufacturing) on the design freedoms and technical limitations of additive manufacturing Adjust culture to recognize a new business model for aftermarket/inventory/maintenance

. . . .

Process Integrate additive manufacturing within your order and inventory management processes For in house production, put in place processes to manage work-in-progress Put in place a part evaluation process to identify, validate, and document 3D printable parts Adjust aftermarket KPIs to reflect a new business model using additive manufacturing

. . . .

Technology Integrate 3D printers into order management system and workflow Hire and training staff to operate 3D scanning apparatus and associated software Develop plan for asset control of digital data/CAD of inventory parts

. . .

Should you invest integrating additive as part of your maintenance operations?

Not relevant

Of interest

Aspirational

Urgent

The questions below detail the typical issues and pain points associated with maintenance operations and effectively providing aftermarket and after-sale services. A high score across these ten questions would suggest that the investment case for 3D printing is strong and can greatly support your maintenance and aftermarket activities.

The price of a long life

We need to hold excessive amount of stock to support the long life or warranties of our products

0

1

2

3

Costeffective care

We want to find more cost-effective methods of providing warranty services to our customers and installed base

0

1

2

3

Cost of storage

Keeping spare part inventory to supply the aftermarket requires expensive storage

0

1

2

3

Direct service

We want to increase our revenues by supporting our aftermarket directly rather than using 3rd party suppliers

0

1

2

3

Error 404, spares not found

We struggle to forecast spare part demand for our aftermarket customers, often over (or under) stocking at great cost

0

1

2

3

Make it last

Our customers are increasingly refurbishing and repairing our products rather than purchasing new products, equipment, or parts

0

1

2

3

Missing tooling

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve run out of spare parts to supply our aftermarket and the required tooling is no longer available

0

1

2

3

Market forces

Changing market and political forces such as buying trends or regulations are forcing us to extend the period we have to hold costly inventory

0

1

2

3

Reverse engineering

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for new tools to reverse engineer spare and inventory parts so we can continue to service our aftermarket and installed base

0

1

2

3

Upload the warehouse

We want to reduce our carrying costs by minimizing our total value of inventory

0

1

2

3

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Contentsinsight into action Turning

/86

Part three

Turning insight into action Now you understand where and how 3D printing can benefit your business, how do you apply this new insight? In this section, we provide the tools to begin turning your new insight into action.

88 94

Calculating the value of 3D printing

Additional resources

90 Building an

additive business

92 Taking the first step

/88

Calculating the value of 3D printing

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

Quantifying the cost of 3D printing requires a calculator, quantifying the value it brings requires a new mindset

For every business investment, you need a business case. How do you make a compelling business case for 3D printing? Too often, we see business cases that are simply an addition of cost savings across a few manually identified parts. While this type of business case can justify a machine purchase, it will never justify a business transformation.

Understanding costs is a matter of evaluating a simple formula of fixed and variable costs. In manufacturing, fixed costs include tooling, sourcing, and setup and are amortized across volumes.

Variable costs include labor and materials. Any analyst can add up these figures to compare costs, but that is far from a fully developed business case for additive.

Focusing solely on piece-part cost reduction means you’ll miss 90% of the iceberg. Once you’ve determined the cost, to correctly calculate the value of using 3D printing requires a different mindset. In this book, you’ve seen stories of leading companies leveraging the multiplicative effects of changes to products and processes and the exponential effects of new business opportunities enabled by 3D printing. Many of these examples go beyond part-for-part cost reduction and instead identify value as both tangible and intangible, near term and long term benefits.

How do you calculate the cost?

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 a 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 printing failure

Machine MachinePrice PartBuildTime x Depreciation = Cost DepreciationYears (326 x 24 x MachineUtilization)

Once you calculate the costs, how do you quantify the value?

How your organization derives value from 3D printing will depend on how and to what ends the technology is deployed within your organization.

Some organizations will derive value from incremental replacements and improvements to parts and processes, but some will use the technology to enable transformative change in their businesses, enabling new products and services never before possible.

1/ Substitution

2/ Augmentation

3/ Transformation

Often the simplest case for additive value involves substituting conventional processes and parts with 3D printing to reduce costs.

Substitution can make sense in cases where the economics of traditional production make it less attractive than additive.

Many businesses have discovered that 3D printing enables them to do the things that they do, but better. 3D printing can automate manual processes by converting physical work into digital manipulation. It can also produce more robust products, through assembly consolidation.

Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new avenues of personalization and customization or completely new ways or delivering product, 3D printing can create opportunities for new product categories, new ways of servicing customers, or fundamental changes to how products are made.

Benefits from substitution will usually come in the form of reducing fixed costs of production: Sourcing, production setup, tooling, and other

Gains from augmentation will happen in increased efficiency and lower lead times, or

Because 3D printing can enable entirely new business and product lines, in a transformational 3D printing initiative, most of the value will come

fixed costs may make 3D printing highly attractive, especially at lower volumes.

improvements that lead to simpler processes or more robust and functional products.

in the form of revenue growth, new market opportunites and new business models.

Examples of substitution

. Reduced cost of producing spare parts

. Cut costs from sourcing jigs and fixtures

. Reduced lead time and costs for prototypes

Examples of augmentation

. More realistic facial expressions and movements

. Increased yield from advanced mold tools

. Additional premium customization options

Examples of extension

. New luxury product lines

. Digital library of vintage spare parts

. More iterations of prototypes

/90

Building an additive business

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

To turn yourself into an additive-powered business requires much more than just buying the machine

In a recent survey with 200 CEOs, Blueprint identified that 84% of business leaders are interested in moving beyond prototyping, and leveraging the benefits of additive throughout their businesses, yet 85% are unable to move forward due to a lack of human skills, business acumen, and technical knowledge. The good news is that this isn’t an uncommon problem. For most transformations, the key is capability.

Using a capability model helps assess the maturity of your organization’s 3D printing adoption and enables you to close the capability gap. It ultimately increases and sustains the impact of 3D printing across your organization by aligning your 3D printing initiative to the overall business strategy to deliver larger and more lasting impacts.

Too often we hear our clients think 3D printing is as simple as buying a machine and pressing ‘print.’ Our experience has taught us that companies that have harnessed the power of 3D printing have taken a holistic approach. They begin by answering stakeholder questions and reaching a consensus on the desired results and impact of 3D printing. They then focus on the decisions needed to develop governance and operating models and finally evaluate existing system and supply chain limitations.

The result? A practical and profitable 3D printing operation driven purely by your strategic priorities. Here is how Blueprint assesses the maturity of our customer’s 3DP capability to see if they are Thinking Additively.

“

Not all transformations or organizational-excellence programs succeed. But, on average, companies that implement effective capabilitybuilding programs as part of their transformations beat the odds: their transformations are 4.1 times as likely to succeed and derive 2.2 times the benefits from earnings before interest, taxes and amortization as those of other companies McKinsey 2017

The 3D printing capability model Use the 3D printing capability model below to asses the readiness of each function of your business in the context of 3D printing. If you have yet to adopt 3D printing but are looking to do so, have you quantified the expected AM impact? If you are an existing user of 3D printing, have you implemented a skills development plan as part of your current operating model? By assessing your business with this model, you can quickly self-score your 3D printing organizational capability and identify gaps that can be resolved with further investment.

Deployment strategy

Focuses on how AM will enable your overall business strategy, goals, and impact

Organizational governance

Focuses on business models, organizational alignment, funding, and ongoing management

Operating model

Focuses on the organizational execution and structure

Ownership

Org structure

Workforce

Skills development

Change management

Operations and systems

Focuses on the ongoing tactical execution and operational support

Processes

Production quality management

Software and systems integration

Capacity management

Operations support

Logistics and supply chain

Focuses on the technical set-up, design, and infrastructure

Technology and materials

Expected AM impact

Areas of enablement

Business model

Enablement impact management

Alignment and buy-in

Sourcing

Facility planning

Supplier management

/92

Taking the first step

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

The secret to getting ahead is getting started

Throughout this book, you have seen companies across an array of industires using 3D printing to transform their businesses, create new revenue opportunities, and gain competitive advantages. But what you will have also come to realize is that organizations that successfully deploy 3D printing in their business do not simply buy a machine.

While engineering-driven initiatives can produce interesting concepts, true business transformation requires a strategy to drive and sustain change; understand what 3D printing can do in the context of your business, develop the future state, and execute the change management needed to get there.

3D printing, properly deployed, will also challenge the ways that program management, designers, engineers, and procurement have traditionally operated. As many of the examples described in this book demonstrate, conventional methods of design, purchasing, ROI calculation, and supply chain configuration wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work when adopting additive; your organization must be prepared to break down the status quo and start thinking additively.

Furthermore, in order to sustain an additive initiative, you must develop KPIs that encourage adoption of 3D printing.

Most likely, your current metrics will be tailored to optimizing your existing business processes. Reevaluate these metrics

and ensure that they are providing incentives to take risks, experiment with 3D printing, and discover new opportunities for value creation.

It is the purview of the executive to drive long-term change that impacts not just the next quarterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s results, but the long-term trajectory of the business. A leader needs to live in the future. In order to deploy 3D printing throughout your organization, the journey must be leadership driven.

Leadership must define 3D printing as a business priority, develop the strategy, and provide the resources to build an ecosystem and enable people. Perhaps more important, you must build a culture that is willing to change in pursuit of the better and you must provide incentives that sustain that culture.

Reading this book has hopefully inspired some ideas of how and where 3D printing can make changes in your business.

Certainly, you have identified benefits that your organization can leverage in the near-term, but we hope that you have also identified opportunities for long-term transformational business benefits that 3D printing can enable. Achieving the kinds of transformational impacts that some of the companies featured in this book have will require executive level leadership and a long-term commitment to investing in people, processes, technology, culture, and incentives.

Now that you have made sense of 3D printing make it happen

/94

Additional resources

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

A knowledge base to round-out your additive expertise, from technical guides to legal counsel

Newsites 3DPrint.com is a news organization reporting on the latest developments in the 3D printing industry / Follow Fabbaloo tracks developments in the 3D printing industry, publishing news and analysis daily / Follow TCT Magazine is the newsite of Time Compression Technologies, reporting the latest news in the industry / Follow 3D Printing Industry provides a dedicated resource for anyone interested in 3D printing and 3D scanning / Follow All3DP offers the latest news on 3D printing developments, as well as printer reviews, buyer guides and design guidelines / Follow 3D Printing Media Network provides news on the 3D printing industry as well as other resources and business directories / Follow Additive Manufacturing is a newsite focused on the latest industrial applications of 3D printing technology / Follow

Magazines TCT Magazine is a monthly magazine covering business-critical insights and the latest developments in the 3D printing industry / Subscribe 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal focused on 3D printing / Subscribe Metal Additive Manufacturing is a quarterly magazine focused on technical developments in the metal 3D printing industry / Subscribe Develop3D is a monthly magazine covering the latest news in product development including 3D printing / Subscribe Additive Manufacturing is a bi-monthly magazine reporting on the latest updates in 3D printing industry / Subscribe The Additive Report is a quarterly digital magazine focusing on 3D printing applications and technology developments / Subscribe

Books The 3D Printing Handbook provides practical advice on technology selection and design / Buy 3D Printing (MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) provides a solid introduction of 3D printing technologies / Buy The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D Printing: Designing and printing practical objects describes methods to increase 3D printing efficiency / Buy The Little Blue Book of 3D Printing is a reference of 50 tactical applications for 3D printing as well as 50 case studies / Download

Whitepapers The Digital Factory Report provides a high-level overview emerging technologies and the strategies that arise from these / Download The Additive Manufacturing Landscape 2019 provides essential insights into the additive manufacturing market, key trends and analysis / Download 3D Printing: A Guide for Decision Makers provides guidance on how to deal with business and policy changes resulting from 3D printing / Download 3D printing: hype of game changer? surveys the trends and developments with industrial users of 3D printing / Download It will be awesome if they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t screw it up is an examination of how 3D printing will affect intellectual property laws / Download The current status and impact of 3D printing within the industrial sector examines the IP implications of 3D printing in six case studies / Download

Videos Additive Manufacturing, from Prototyping to Production is a 90 minute virtual classroom from MIT / Watch Disrupting An Entire Industry by Jay Rogers explains in 35 minutes how additive manufacturing can reinvent an industry / Watch Introduction to Generative Design Technology demonstrates in 30 minutes the possibilties of 3D printing with generative design / Watch

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About the authors

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

A collection of strategists, engineers, innovators, and analysts

Oliver Smith Lead Author, Ideator, Sense-maker

Kunal Mehta Coauthor, Strategist, Future-proofer

Aaron Hurd Editor, Networker, Value-hunter

Oliver Smith is an additive innovation consultant, writer, entrepreneur and on-demand speaker who formerly led innovation and strategy projects at Blueprint. With over seven years experience in the 3D printing industry, he

Kunal Mehta is a strategy consulting executive, formerly the Managing Director of Blueprint, the world’s leading 3D printing consultancy. Prior to joining Blueprint, Kunal spent 12 years as an

Aaron Hurd has 15 years of experience across product engineering, supply chain, consulting, and startups. He has served as an advisor, consultant, and board member for organizations

has led 3D printing innovation projects with numerous

executive at Accenture Strategy, a global consultancy,

across a variety of industries, including healthcare,

fortune 500 companies from energy generation to cosmetics. Having developed many unique methodologies and tools for additive ideation, business model design and innovation management, Oliver’s

transforming industries with emerging technologies such as Digital, IoT, Cloud, Customer Experience and AI. With his extensive experience deploying numerous technologies, Kunal possesses a unique perspective

aerospace and defense, oil and gas, software, industrial equipment, and manufacturing. He is at his best when he plays the role of “connector,” bridging the divide between disparate groups of

strength is his ability to understand and communicate how the technology intersects with business strategy

in helping organizations achieve high performance by designing and executing strategies that reshape his

experts to make awesome things happen. Aaron has degrees in computer engineering from Iowa

and work with his clients to identify, prioritize, develop and deploy 3D printing innovation, from feature improvements to supply chain reconfiguration.

client’s business - consistently providing customers with a differentiated, more profitable, and more satisfying experience.

State University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

LinkedIn / olivermarksmith Twitter / olivermsmith1

LinkedIn / kjmconsulting

LinkedIn / aaronhurd Twitter / aaronmhurd

Loïc Le Merlus Coauthor, Number cruncher, Tech Guru

David Busacker Coauthor, DFAMer, Educator

Loic works closely with his clients, applying his propriatory software and decade long experience to analyze complex data and understand the economic impact that 3D printing and additive

David Busacker is an advanced technology consultant with experience in additive manufacturing, manufactiring engineering, and business consulting. David has developed and

manufacturing could have on their businesses.

deployed a world-leading “design for additive

In other words, he puts the numbers behind the hype. Loïc has an in-depth understanding of the entire additive technology spectrum, having worked closely with users and vendors across the

manufacturing” course, focused on educating designers and engineers on how to use 3D printing more efficiently and creatively. He has also developed several technical analysis

industry. With both an engineering master from Art & Metiers Paristech and a mechatronics master,

frameworks to enable more effective additive transformation, as well as teach 3D printing at

Loïc has a broad knowledge of what technologies are required to make additive manufacturing technologies work.

the University of Minnesota.

LinkedIn / lemerlusloic

LinkedIn / davidbusacker

/98

References

A Blueprint for 3D Printing

Turning insight into action

pg8/ Source by Wohlers Associates via https://wohlersassociates.com/2019report.htm pg8/ Source by Dimensional Research via https://essentium3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/3D_Printing_at_Scale_A_Study_by_ Dimensional_Research_and_Sponsored_by_Essentium.pdf pg13/ Source by Z-Punkt via https://www.z-punkt.de/en/themen/artikel/megatrends pg13/ Source by Ernst & Young via https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-global-3d-printing-report-2016-full-report/ pg41/ Source by Ernst & Young via https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/advisory/ey-3d-printing-game-changer.pdf pg41/ Source by Ernst & Young via https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/advisory/ey-3d-printing-game-changer.pdf pg52/ Source by Gartner via https://www.3ders.org/articles/20161231-gartner-3d-printing-to-be-increasingly-adopted-by-manufacturingindustries-in-2017.html

Stratasys is a global leader in additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology and is the manufacturer of FDM® and PolyJet™ 3D printers. The company’s technologies are used to create prototypes, manufacturing tools, and production parts for industries, including aerospace, automotive, healthcare, consumer products and education.

Blueprint is an independently-minded consultancy owned by Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS), bringing together more than 15 years of knowledge and experience across the industry. As the world’s leading additive manufacturing consultancy, Blueprint regularly assists futureready companies achieve additive success.

For 30 years, Stratasys products have helped manufacturers reduce product-development time, cost, and time-to-market, as well as reduce or eliminate tooling costs and improve product quality. The Stratasys 3D printing ecosystem of solutions and expertise includes 3D printers,

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

materials, software, expert services, and on-demand parts production.

online at www.additiveblueprint.com.

Online at: www.stratasys.com, http://blog.stratasys.com and LinkedIn. Stratasys and FDM are trademarks or registered trademarks of Stratasys Ltd. and/or its affiliates. ULTEM™ is a registered trademark of SABIC or its affiliates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and Stratasys assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of these non-Stratasys products.

www.stratasys.com

A Blueprint for 3D Printing is a practical handbook for managers, executives, and business leaders striving to fully grasp the benefits 3D printing can bring to their business. In this book you will find all the information you need to make those benefits a reality...

45 case studies detailing how companies across a wide range of industries are applying 3D printing Decision making tools that allow you to determine the most effective investment decisions for 3D printing for maximum return 5 additive technology maps helping you to identify the most suitable 3D printing technology for an array of different requirements 50 questions to help you value and prioritize the opportunities for 3D printing across your organization 15 additive archetypes describing how best to deploy 3D printing within your organization and supply chain

www.additiveblueprint.com www.stratasys.com A Blueprint for 3D Printing

by Oliver Smith, Blueprint, Stratasys is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0CC