3D Printing for resiliency & flexibility

WE LIVE in a world where business is globalised and interconnected. Production takes place in global value chains (GVCs), in which raw materials, parts, and intermediate goods are shipped back and forth around the world for sourcing, assembly and distribution before they reach a customer. We have grown accustomed to this happening quickly and with minimal friction. In turn, many companies have opted for just-in-time production to ensure lean supply chains and keep expenses down. This works…until the supply chain is disrupted.

Unfortunately, for most companies, disruptions are becoming the norm. For example, according to a June 2019 survey, uncertainties over the Brexit situation resulted in more disruption to supply chains over five years than cyber-attacks and natural disasters combined. Similarly, the US and China trade war has also caused uncertainty around supply chains, especially for those companies who have suppliers in either country. In the Chinese province of Wuhan alone, 51,000 businesses worldwide have at least one direct supplier in the region, while another five million have one or more tier-two suppliers based there. As a result, many companies made changes to their supply chains to avoid permanent disruption to their business.

But the biggest eye opener exposing the fragility of traditional supply chains has no doubt been the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a complete shut-down of production virtually overnight. Adidas, for example, saw a shutdown of 80-90% of its business, resulting in a loss of revenue of $100 million every week. When supply chain problems caused extreme production backlog, Jaguar Land Rover went as far as to ship urgently needed automotive parts around the world in suitcases. It is safe to say that for most businesses, the effects of a momentary standstill in production and the ripple effect of disrupted supply chains will be felt in the months and maybe years to come.

There’s a real sense that this is now the kind of world we need to learn how to operate successfully within. With this level of uncertainty looming over businesses, industries and economies, manufacturing and supply chain leaders are seeking solutions that bring speed and adaptability so production can ramp up and down, switch gears or even shift to new locations. This has put the spotlight on 3D printing.

Answering the call to arms

3D printing truly made its mark during the pandemic, offering manufacturers the ideal solution to facilitate an immediate switch in production. Traditionally, producing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is done primarily via the injection molding process, but it takes several weeks or months to produce the molds, and once they are created, the design can no longer be modified. Similarly, other products like ventilators require costly and time-consuming tooling work before manufacturing can begin.

In contrast, 3D printing is like an electric motor – flip a switch and it is on full power immediately. In particular, there’s no tooling required, and a 3D printer can make 10 different things in sequence as easily as it can make 10 parts that are identical. 3D printing provided a critical bridge for face shield production, enabling fast on-demand production while the volume injection molding process ramped up.

Automakers such as Daimler, Ford and Jaguar Land Rover used their 3D printing firepower to pivot production and create PPE. Stratasys’ own coalition of over 150 companies – among them the likes of Boeing, Toyota and Medtronic – produced over 100,000 3D printed face shields alone in just a couple months. Meanwhile, General Motors turned to 3D printed tooling to quickly convert production lines designed for automobiles into ventilator production lines.

In France, the University Hospital Trust (AP-HP) in Paris went one step further and invested in 60 F123 Series 3D Printers to bring this on-demand production capability on-site. Unable to wait any longer for its suppliers to traditionally manufacture vital medical equipment, the hospital took matters into its own hands and has since produced thousands of parts on-site using its farm of 3D printers. These include protective face shields and masks, electrical syringe pumps, intubation equipment and respirator valves. Post-crisis, the 3D printers will be allocated across AP-HP’s hospital network to enable even more distributed manufacturing capabilities. This will allow them to react faster in the event of another wave or other future crisis’. Moreover, outside of an emergency, the network of 3D printers will be available to address any local hospital’s needs for low volume part production, such as customised patient-specific medical models used to improve patient care.

Beyond Medical Products

In any instance in which the supply chain is impacted, the lesser the dependency manufacturers have on external suppliers, the better. Businesses fully exploiting 3D printing’s capabilities reduces such dependency, enabling increased agility and self-sufficiency to ensure continued production. AP-HP is a case in point. So is Deutsche Bahn.

In the industrial world, many of our customers tell us that should certain production-line tools break, this would result in a total shutdown of the assembly-line. In a period of supply chain disruption, needing a replacement tool can become a big problem. Progressive manufacturers, such as Deutsche Bahn, are reducing their dependency on the supply chain by leveraging 3D printing to manufacture spare parts in-house, on-demand, as and when required. When COVID-19 lockdowns took place across Europe, the company’s supply chain for spare parts was decimated. Turning to its in-house 3D printing capabilities, Deutsche Bahn was able to produce a number of these spare train parts on-site in the exact quantities needed to ensure production schedules were upheld.

Not just for bad times

While COVID-19 has highlighted the fragility of supply chains and put 3D printing into the spotlight, resiliency is a benefit in less unusual times too. Having 3D printers at each site enables manufacturers to move away from the traditional centralised production model reliant on supply chains to deliver parts, instead opening the door to decentralised production.

For example, transportation giant Siemens Mobility has been successfully deploying 3D printing to produce tools and spare parts for several years across sites. Responsible for maintaining and servicing over 100 trains a month, its RRX Digital Maintenance Center in Germany has completely digitalised its operations. Harnessing a company-wide digital inventory, Siemens Mobility is able to react quickly to changes in service requests by 3D printing essential tools and replacement parts for its trains on-site, as required. Importantly, this shift in business model has completely removed the company’s dependency on suppliers. Siemens Mobility now produces only what is needed, without warehousing. This has resulted in huge time savings for the business, as much as 95% for some parts.

Siemens Mobility isn’t alone; several other forward-thinking companies have embraced additive manufacturing at a strategic-level way before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The UK’s largest manufacturer, aerospace giant BAE Systems, places a raft of industrial Stratasys 3D printers at the heart of its successful Factory of the Future initiative, which as seen a large reduction in costs and time-to-market, as well as helping the company to improve its production flexibility. Likewise, industrial giant Schneider Electric has embarked on a large-scale Industry 4.0 implementation across its worldwide operations, designed to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs for its customers. As recently announced, Stratasys 3D printing also plays a key role within this initiative, with its factory in Navarra, Spain alone saving more than €20,000 a year on assembly-line tooling. The company also reports a reduction in supplier dependency, importantly increasing production flexibility and accelerating time-to-market.

Ultimately, businesses of all sizes should recognise 3D printing as a strategic asset and not just a tactical piece of equipment in the design lab or factory floor. While COVID-19 may have been 3D printing’s watershed moment in the eye of the mainstream, it’s only the beginning. As many businesses reflect on the pandemic’s impact on their supply chains and production operations, 3D printing may just hold the answer as ‘resiliency’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘profitability’ become the common objectives for businesses as they plan amidst an uncertain future.

Andreas Langfeld is president EMEA at Stratasys

https://www.stratasys.com/