Additive manufacturing advantages

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for on-premise or on-demand manufacturing. It has also presented manufacturers with the opportunity to reconsider the supply chain and how parts are manufactured.

Few companies are fully aware of the benefits additive manufacturing offer, says Valeria Tierelli, CEO of Aidro Hydraulics. For her, this new technology is an enabling tool to improve business by delivering products faster by avoiding bottlenecks and other time-consuming processes. It also has the potential to drive down cost as fewer raw materials are used and end-products are often easier to transport and handle. “The products can also be manufactured closer to the site – even on-premises if required,” she said. Admittedly, additive manufacturing is still a relatively new concept and much testing of the final products is required. “I don’t see it ever replacing standard manufacturing. It will never become the way that we produce valves and other critical components. It is, however, a fantastic technology that brings added value to the manufacturing processes and that allows us to deliver certain components faster and more cost-effectively than before.” One of the major benefits of added manufacturing, she says, lies in the digital inventory that it creates. “For 3D printing, a 3D design is drawn up and once completed this is simply stored in a digital management file. Such a system can take thousands and thousands of designs. No matter the size of the component required once designed it is merely a matter of going to the digital file, getting the component or product information and feeding it into the 3D printer and printing it.” Faster, more efficient and far more productive it no longer requires a massive warehouse for valves and other parts. “Parts can be printed from the digital file as and when required after which it can be tested and machined if necessary and then installed in the field.” From a prototype perspective, there is also a benefit as this can be accelerated greatly as is the ability to customize. “There is no doubt, however, that additive manufacturing has a massive inventory stock reduction, while also reducing material waste.” She said there were two areas that she saw additive manufacturing successfully adopted by end-users. “The first is the design freedom it offers us to produce parts that would otherwise be impossible to deliver with standard manufacturing and the other is in printing it with little or no waiting time. Especially the replacement of standard parts will be faster and quicker.” She said another reason why it could be beneficial was that it offered improved performance through optimized design. It also offers production flexibility that is not necessarily possible with traditional manufacturing in large-scale factories. It allows the benefit of producers being able to quickly switch between different products delivering an inherent made-to-order scenario. Furthermore, said Tierelli, additive manufacturing would have a positive impact on the supply chain. Thanks to it reducing material waste, simplifying production and manufacturing products on demand, supply chain risk and cost was significantly reduced.

Aidro Hydraulics, aidro@aidro.it, www.aidro.it