Additive manufacturing gains acceptance in manufacturing community

A custom jig for a racecar component manufacturer is built on a Form 2 3D printer. Photo courtesy of Formlabs.

“The latest twist on manufacturing.”

That’s how additive manufacturing (AM) technologies were described in 2016 in a promotion for a panel discussion at FABTECH, North America’s largest metal fabricating technology tradeshow. Since then, advancements in equipment, materials, and understanding have captured the interest of manufacturers and moved AM, or 3D printing, onto many shop floors. Some industry observers feel that there is still work to be done before AM becomes generally accepted. Others feel that it has already made huge strides toward claiming its place as a mainstay within a diverse collection of production environments.

Carl Dekker, president of Met-L-Flo and 2016 panel moderator, and Jennifer Milne, product manager at Formlabs Inc., a participating company in that panel, were asked how they view AM’s progress since then and what they anticipate between now and the end of 2020. Met-L-Flo is a contract manufacturer specializing in AM and AM-enabled technologies for low-volume production. Formlabs designs and manufactures 3D-printing systems and materials.

The Additive Report: In the last two years did AM capture the amount of business your company anticipated?

Carl Dekker: We didn’t see as much business as we would have liked, but that was due in a large part to some changes we were making internally. We were definitely on target for 2018 and anticipate meeting our goals for 2019.

Jennifer Milne: Formlabs has been hitting some fairly aggressive sales targets year-on-year. This has contributed to both facility and employee growth, close to 100 percent, nearly tripling each year for the past five years. Growth has been explosive, but it varies by technology.

AR: Has the acceptance of AM technologies increased among fabricators, manufacturers, and their customers?

Dekker: I think it is still being evaluated but not yet readily adopted. Some of the hesitation is due to improper application and some to a just-get-it-done attitude that results in falling back to safer, proven technologies. Aerospace, medical, and defense are the big leaders. Automotive is definitely taking an interest and pushing the technology forward.

When it comes to customers, there is a lot of 3D or AM awareness, but the processes are not well-known as production technologies. It is unfortunate that 3D printing of final parts has taken a lot of the limelight when it works well as a production tool. A lot of technologies are supported and enabled by AM and although there are viable opportunities within manufacturing they are not getting as much attention.

Milne: Whether a company believes in 3D printing or not, there is momentum in the belief that everyone needs to incorporate the technology somehow. Manufacturers are finding that using 3D to replace an existing production method for an end product is only one use. There are many other advantages like using it to build jigs and fixtures, being more reactive on the shop floor, and using it to enable faster turnaround times. AM can be a step to improve production.

This complex part, which was printed from three different materials using selective laser sintering and stereolithography, won the Additive Manufacturing Users Group Technical Competition in 2013. Photo courtesy of Met-L-Flo.

AR: How is AM changing how business is done?

Dekker: If you look at an application—a hybrid auto fuel nozzle for example—the manufacturers are embracing AM capabilities by changing design paradigms and doing things like part consolidation. These actions help overcome the costs associated with the technology and it becomes a cost-saver as well as a product enhancer.

Then you have the connectivity to micromarkets that would not be possible with traditional manufacturing methods. Making low volumes of products for specialty markets, like toasters designed for individual kitchen motifs, is possible with AM and can be profitable. This ability plus the internet access that allows selling to micromarkets can open completely new opportunities for a manufacturer.

Milne: Recently I was with a jewelry caster in New York that was signing on an average of 13 new clients a month since it began promoting its 3D resin casting option. Using 3D printing allowed it to be more open, reactive, and flexible. The company adjusted its business model because of its ability to accept low-quantity jobs. The lean process opened up small-batch opportunities for its customers.

A similar thing happened with a gear box manufacturer that tried 3D printing for its jigs. It was able to print a workable jig overnight rather than outsourcing and save three weeks on a project. That time savings made the company more competitive for other jobs and gave it more control over its shop schedule.

AM business maturation is allowing many small businesses to be more competitive.

AR: How is AM evolving today?

Dekker: AM is continuing to improve starting with its hybridization. Multiple technologies are being blended together to create better manufacturing methods. Subtractive and additive are used simultaneously to get the desired output. We are still learning a lot in this area, but it is a total positive for the industry.

And using AM for repair or to enhance a build feature is becoming more accepted. Within the hybrid systems you are seeing technologies along the lines of directed energy deposition or the laser-engineered net shaping taking away from and adding to a piece that may have been forged. Let’s say you add 5 percent of material to a surface and machine it to create a wear surface; you can quickly extend the part’s use rather than taking months to manufacture a new part.

There are many new areas of opportunity opening for AM today, and many of them are being pushed by university research regarding materials.

Stereolithography 3D printing and a custom photo finishing process were used to create a Han Solo blaster. Photo courtesy of Met-L-Flo.

Milne: AM industry growth is continuing as new industrial printers are introduced. The low end of the market has been disrupted and there has been a bit of a lull, but then choices among the higher-end printers have expanded, and companies with larger budgets are purchasing them. As long as there is innovation across the equipment threshold that allows options of low- or high-end printers, the entire industry will remain competitive.

Automation is another big trend that will bring more efficiencies and new capabilities to 3D printing.

AR: What is happening in the materials realm?

Dekker: The general populous is still evaluating what has been learned about material behaviors. The companies that have gone through the battle of establishing enough data to design and manufacture a part using AM don’t usually share that information openly. We have gathered some material data but are lacking known properties that ensure that the materials are suitable enough to facilitate product design and build with the repeatability and strength parameters required by most applications.

Regarding metals, we are seeing from university research that the material structures, the crystalline structures in a lot of the metals, are influenced by the means of manufacturing. By using an AM process the structure you would have from a production technology like casting or forging can be altered. It’s understanding what these deviations are, what causes them, and how to influence and control them that we are still learning.

Plastics have not had the same level of scrutiny because they are typically not structural parts that can lead to a systems failure. You can look at plastics and say that they work, but material success is definitely application specific.

Milne: There are three routes that we see when developing materials. One is to develop a material that will fit with a number of applications and work in multiple markets. The second is more of a B2B approach where a material is developed to work very well with a specific brand or model printer. The third is when a company is interested in developing a proprietary, custom material.

What a manufacturer wants depends largely on whether it is going into 3D with an explorative mindset or if it has decided to use 3D as a production technology. If only one material is needed, the manufacturer is usually happy to partner with a material manufacturer for development.

As far as material trends, filled plastic resins like glass-filled resins are huge. They can be very strong but are harder to print because they are more viscous. We recently launched a ceramic resin that works interchangeably with other materials we offer on the same printers. When it is fired after printing, the plastic burns out and leaves a completely ceramic part.

When I talk to people about metals printing, I challenge them as to whether they really need metal because often they are only considering metals because it’s what they used in the past. We are partnering with companies to trial products for parts that are usually cast like architectural hardware and small automotive parts.

Combining 3D printing and electroplating also is interesting and in use by some consumer product manufacturers. They are building parts using a plastic resin and giving them a metal finish. The result is a lightweight product that looks like metal.

AR: What do you see in the next two years?

Dekker: More success stories, more consultants, a bit more data, and continued research. There will be a lot of development and activities directed at specific materials. And there is a lot of interest in securing intellectual properties. As that continues, we will see further development and a maturing of the competitive landscape. Competition is growing, and it won’t be slowing down. Shops will expand their use of AM as a production enabler.

There also will be continued efforts by the volunteer army that is developing and advancing standards. It is amazing what has already been accomplished, but there is a lot more to be done.

Milne: Patents on the base technologies that are out there now will expire, and we will likely see a lot of new printers. Manufacturers will be happy to have a different selection of tools with newly developed benefits that also will be more affordable. We’ll see more custom partnerships such as creating materials for specific applications.

There will be more people who have learned about AM in school and knowhow to design and engineer a product to take advantage of 3D printing capabilities. And there will be more industry hopping like we see now. We have people from the jewelry and dental industries applying for jobs with us because additive use within their industries caught their interest.

3D printing will continue to work its way into product manufacturing and be adopted on a large scale.

Formlabs, www.formlabs.com

Met-L-Flo, www.metlflo.com