Our prospects are proving day by day that components produced with additive manufacturing can meet stringent manufacturing requirements throughout aerospace, medical, robotics and shopper items sectors.
The measurable outcomes they see together with quicker cycles, decrease prices, diminished threat and verified high quality are the true drivers, not the know-how itself. And these are usually not speculative advantages however are documented outcomes drawn from hundreds of producing runs, design iterations and field-tested elements.
Right here we’ll share some anonymised case research exploring how our digital manufacturing platform interprets design freedom into production-grade outcomes.
Aerospace: From prototype to flight in weeks
One aerospace producer creating electrical plane wanted to design light-weight constructions that might stand up to aerodynamic masses whereas remaining serviceable in harsh out of doors circumstances. Conventional tooling would have meant six-figure funding and months of delay.
By shifting to additive manufacturing manufacturing for structural and non-critical elements, the engineering crew diminished design-to-flight time by greater than 40%. Every plane now integrates between 60 and 80 additively manufactured elements, together with housings, brackets, interface panels and sensor mounts all produced utilizing laser-sintered nylon and MJF PA12.
Over a whole lot of flight hours, none of those printed components have proven degradation inside design masses. The corporate’s lead engineer put it plainly: 3D printing has develop into “as routine as machining, however quicker, lighter and simpler to validate.”
For aerospace initiatives the place certification and reliability rule each resolution, that shift marks a real transformation: iterative engineering with out compromise.
Healthcare: Scaling innovation, defending property
order from a hospital.
In hospital environments, reliability is life-critical. A medical-equipment provider confronted recurring failures in cable administration techniques that precipitated downtime, issues of safety and value leakage. They labored with Shapeways to design a easy however strong 3D printed retention system — sufficiently small to miss, however highly effective sufficient to stop six-figure losses yearly.
Inside months, the provider had deployed over a thousand items, every digitally manufactured on demand from validated, biocompatible supplies. The end result: a projected $1 million in tools property protected and near-zero alternative delays.
Elsewhere within the medical subject, a design crew creating robotic-surgery coaching techniques used additive manufacturing to reinvent the way in which surgeons study delicate procedures. Their problem was to simulate complicated, dexterous motions with out counting on costly cadaver or artificial fashions.
Utilizing selective laser sintering (SLS), the crew created a whole lot of modular components, colour-coded and nested for environment friendly builds, and examined by fast iteration. The end result was a completely modular coaching platform that may very well be reconfigured for a number of talent ranges and shipped globally with out tooling. The designers estimate that Shapeways’ rapid-prototyping functionality minimize their growth time by greater than half — and opened new potentialities for data-driven medical schooling.
{Hardware} & Robotics: Manufacturing on the pace of innovation
In high-tech {hardware} growth, time is the enemy of innovation. A robotics startup specialising in micro-manufacturing techniques wanted to overtake a precision pick-and-place mechanism that wasn’t performing reliably. Early makes an attempt at in-house additive manufacturing manufacturing lacked precision and mechanical energy; injection moulding was cost-prohibitive.
Shapeways produced the redesigned part in PA12, delivering superior rigidity and constant tolerances. The half dealt with twice the payload of the unique model, and the crew moved from prototype to manufacturing in days as an alternative of weeks.
That single enchancment cascaded by the corporate’s growth cycle, enabling quicker iteration and higher-quality finish merchandise. The identical companion moved on to supply almost all manufacturing elements by Shapeways’ certified manufacturing community, citing repeatability, dimensional accuracy and pace of supply as decisive elements.
Client & Design: Scaling bespoke manufacturing
Designers and shopper manufacturers are equally demanding in aesthetics, precision and consistency. One luxury-goods studio makes use of Shapeways’ steel and polymer printing to create algorithmically generated jewelry items which can be every distinctive however manufactured with sub-millimetre repeatability.
One other designer working a web based storefront scales world gross sales by Shapeways’ automated fulfilment: each order is printed, completed and shipped below their model, with no bodily stock or tooling price. In each instances, the power to maneuver seamlessly from one-off creation to steady manufacturing is redefining the economics of bespoke manufacturing.
Their frequent denominator will not be creative expression however manufacturing reliability utilising the identical high quality techniques, inspection processes and traceability that energy Shapeways’ industrial prospects.
Throughout Industries: The metrics of recent manufacturing
Whereas all of those instances differ, the outcomes share a standard sample:
- 20–50% quicker growth cycles by fast iteration and digital validation
- Zero tooling funding and near-zero bodily stock, due to on-demand manufacturing
- Repeatable high quality and dimensional accuracy throughout batches and supplies
- Scalable workflows that stretch from prototype to serial manufacturing with out course of change
These are the metrics that outline next-generation {hardware} manufacturing: not hypothetical future states, however measurable, repeatable efficiency achieved day by day by Shapeways’ prospects.
Turning proof into partnership
The shift from 3D printing as a novelty to additive manufacturing manufacturing as infrastructure has been ongoing for a few years. Producers ought to now not ask whether or not it’s potential to print end-use components; they need to search the quickest path to integrating them into manufacturing.
Behind each prototype or half is a partnership constructed on high quality assurance, supplies experience and manufacturing self-discipline. That’s what allows corporations from startups to world OEMs to innovate quicker with out sacrificing reliability.