T GE Atherton Bikes: bringing AM in house
Innovation to commercialisation: Atherton Bikes and the journey of an SME bringing AM production in house Bringing Additive Manufacturing in house is a big step for any company, but when you are at the small end of the ‘SME’ spectrum, it can be an especially bold move. Robin Weston recently visited Atherton Bikes, based in rural west Wales, to see how this specialist bike producer is enjoying ramping up in-house production of its titanium and carbon fibre performance mountain bikes on a new, four-laser Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) machine from Renishaw.
Metal Additive Manufacturing is expensive, demanding and out of reach of 'normal' companies. “What?! Now you tell me,” I hear you cry. I speak as someone with over fifteen years of experience 'sweating the numbers' as a product manager in AM machines and it is often, although not always, the justification for the first machine’s purchase that seems to cause the most pain. It gets easier to make the numbers work once multiple machines are installed. Better economies of scale, division of labour, more efficient utilisation, etc. Even then, there must be a compelling reason to invest, whether that's performance materials, complex geometries, part consolidation, customisation, or any combination of reasons to go down the AM route. When Atherton first started using metal AM for its competition bikes, the project fell right into the AM 'Goldilocks zone'. The technical case was solid: titanium material – tick, demanding and unique geometry – tick, and customisation – tick.
Vol. 8 No. 1 © 2022 Inovar Communications Ltd
In my previous article in the Autumn 2020 (Vol. 6 No. 3) issue of Metal AM magazine, we took a deep dive into Atherton’s journey from a family of world-class, world cup-winning mountain bike riders to a company of ambitious bike
manufacturers and adopters of new manufacturing technologies and approaches. However, at this point, the Atherton team didn't own an AM machine: components were supplied as part of a machine vendor project to demonstrate the viability and
Fig. 1 Rachel Atherton and her brothers Dan and Gee have dominated in the downhill mountain bike world since 2004 (Courtesy Atherton Bikes/Dan Griffiths)
Metal Additive Manufacturing | Spring 2022
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