Rapid manufacturing pay-as you-go service

Engineering and manufacturing companies, large and small, as well as individuals in business or education, are being encouraged to use the facility. It is also open to designers from all fields, for example in the jewellery and furniture sectors, and to architects that may wish to build scale models of their new designs. The four-storey building will be an extension of the activities of Metropolitan Works, London’s first creative industries centre which currently operates on London Metropolitan University’s city campus in East London. Two additive layer manufacturing machines from EOS, one for laser-sintering plastic powders and the other for metal powders, were delivered during 2008. They joined other rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing processes on site that use either 3D colour printing or photopolymerisation of resin. An example of an engineering project currently being assisted by Metropolitan Works is a stainless steel component around one centimetre thick that has a mesh of sub-millimetre wide holes with material between them of 0.1 mm wall thickness. According to the Metropolitan Works technicians making the components from EOS GP1 powder, it would be very difficult to make the component in any way other than using EOSINT laser-sintering technology. Commented Matthew Lewis, manager of Metropolitan Works, “The new, pay-and-go centre offers a leading-edge, digital design and manufacturing workspace that is a flexible, economic alternative to renting workshops and studios on a fixed-term basis.”