How does a business get in to metal additive manufacturing? This is the dilemma faced not only by potential customers of the innovative machines that build up layers of metal from powder, but also the manufacturers of such machines who need markets to sell them into. The benefits of the process in general terms are well known: producing parts quicker than by subtractive means, using less material and designing parts impossible to manufacture using traditional subtractive means.
“AM offers benefits that are better than just cost reductions; it offers for example customisation of [medical] implants; heat exchangers with novel designs. There is a whole range of designs whose product performance is better,” says Marc Saunders, director of Renishaw global solutions centres (01453 524524).
BARRIERS TO AM UPTAKE
The problems are, AM is expensive and new. A Renishaw AM250 metal AM machine that uses the selective laser melting process costs about £400,000, including powder handling technology. Justifying that expense would require lots of guaranteed orders. However, winning those orders requires confidence in the reliability and capability of the process, that the part that turns up on the build plate exactly matches the design that was sent to the printer. Potential customers cannot justify buying an AM machine until they have perfected the build process by experimenting on an AM machine that they would need to buy.
“From a risk management point of view in regulated markets, customers need confidence that they have got a mature technology before they get involved. This is a barrier that they need help getting over,” Saunders states.
Next year, the AM machine and metrology equipment manufacturer will open a new kind of short-term R&D facility, a Solution Centre. There will be a number in the UK and overseas that will take customers through the steps of the AM process, including: design for concept; proof of concept; process validation; process capability/stability; and production deployment – all without having to buy a machine. Incidentally, Renishaw has first-hand experience running AM machines in production volumes: its dental implant business at Stone.
A Solution Centre houses a number of so-called ‘incubator cells’ centred around a single AM 250 and including a design workstation. Customers can take out a tenancy for, perhaps, a few months; the fee also pays for varying levels of support from on-site technicians, applications engineers and office space, too. In the cell, which is private, customers can develop design and build processes until they are confident about making a part.
Later, after the process has matured, they can run tests in the centres’ own pre-production lab stocked with multiple AM 250s. (This facility is only open to incubator customers; it will not undertake bureau work). Ancillary services at the centres include finish machining, metrology with on-site CMM room and heat treatment.
The first UK location, at Stone, Staffordshire, is expected to be up and running by March 2016; another is planned for Miskin, South Wales, next year. Renishaw says that the centres will be open to third-party software for design, will adjust to customers’ own machining parameters and material grades.
What they will not offer is AM processes other than Renishaw’s own powder-bed SLM offering, such as the DMG Mori Lasertec blown powder process (see also p19). That’s because part of the purpose of the centres is to expand the market for Renishaw’s products.
“We hope eventually to be able to sell not only AM machines but also metrology equipment, not just at the development level but also at the production level,” Saunders explains. The idea comes from a similar service run by Renishaw’s metrology business, offering manufacturers access to CMM labs to develop inspection methods for new factory lines.
Saunders concludes: “Most 3D printing to date is rapid prototyping or tooling or part remanufacture. That is worthwhile and the time compression performance is good.
But we don’t see a lot of series production of metal 3D parts. Our view is that the [AM] technology can be much more mainstream. Now we are making it easier for manufacturers to access this technology.”
This article was originally published in the November issue of Machinery magazine.
