Immediate savings of up to 90% in both time and money have been won since deploying Stratasys’ 3D printing solutions within its Grenoble, France, production operations.
Says Sylvain Gire, vice-president GSC Transformation-Industrialization at Schneider Electric: “This year, Schneider will launch around 400 new solutions, which is more than one a day. Therefore, it is critical that we adopt technologies that help us reduce time-to-market.”
Schneider Electric is a specialist in electricity distribution, automation management and the production of installation components for energy management. It is using a combination of Stratasys PolyJet and FDM-based 3D printing solutions for product development, prototypes and industrialisation. Comprising multiple applications, included are injection moulding and assembly-line tooling, the design and production of which is managed via the company’s internal model shop, Openlab.
In the case of injection mould tools, the company has slashed the cost of production to just €100 through the use of Stratasys 3D printing, compared to €1,000 when manufacturing the same item in aluminium.
Says Gire:“As well as the astronomical cost-saving enjoyed from 3D printing injection moulds, we’ve also drastically cut the time taken to produce them, so we’re looking at a win-win every time.
“Manufacturing the prototype moulds in aluminium necessitates – in some cases – a lead time of as much as two months, but with Stratasys’ 3D printing solutions, the whole process is completed within a week. That’s a roughly 90% saving again, which would be unfathomable with any other technology.”
The company is also gaining benefits in the area of the production of assembly, control and adjustment tools. This has seen the company utilise Stratasys 3D printing to produce prototype jigs and fixtures to validate the ergonomics and functionality of the final assembly tools.
Explains mechanical design and engineering department manager, Yann Sittarame: “We are increasingly using 3D printing to design and engineer assembly line tools for validation – thereby saving time in the production of the final tools.”
Using Stratasys’ Connex multi-material 3D printing technology, the department can produce new manufacturing tool prototypes in just one week. In the past, it would have taken at least three weeks to produce the same tools via conventional CNC machining, which amounts to a substantial time-saving of approximately 70%.
Adds Sittarame: “This technology has changed the way we work and changes the way we think about doing things in the future. Looking ahead, we plan to 3D print the final tools, which is perfectly achievable, given the accuracy and durability of our 3D printing process.”
Gire says Schneider Electric is firmly committed to its goal of creating the ‘Factory of the Future’ and sees Stratasys as a key partner and enabler to realise this. “We started utilising Stratasys 3D printing a few years ago for prototyping our new solutions. We will continue to leverage Stratasys 3D printing solutions for the ongoing development of our tooling process, predominantly for the production of small quantities of new products. We’ll also shortly be looking to use Stratasys’ 3D printing solutions for final production, such as for spare parts or for low-volume requirements.”
