Jabil
Jabil Engineered Materials
Pallets of Jabil Engineered Material in filament form are prepared for shipment to Jabil customers and distribution partners.
Jabil has announced the launch of Engineered Materials, a separate business unit which will work to deliver customised and specialised polymer additive manufacturing (AM) materials to the open market.
The company believes with this move it is filling a gap in the industry, and through its supply of new materials, will increase the confidence original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have in AM. These materials will supplement the standard ABS, PS, PETG and PA polymers, and feature advanced characteristics, such as reinforced with glass beads, or boasting electrically conductive capabilities.
Through communication with its global network of partners, Jabil understands users of AM want to build a ‘legitimate supply chain’ and one that isn’t solely reliant on the same supplier of additive machinery and materials. Jabil’s Engineered Materials will support the open platforms that manufacturers desire and look to deliver materials within weeks rather than months.
It says it can do this thanks to holding the capabilities to compound, develop, characterise, test, and handle system integration all under one roof. This facility is based in Chaska, Minnesota which houses a workforce of 40 people, including PhD chemists, engineers, lab technicians, and product managers who together have 80 years’ experience with AM and 40 years’ in materials.
Jabil’s VP of Digital Manufacturing, John Dulchinos described the move as ‘the last brick in the wall’ for the company’s AM drive that begun shortly after his arrival five years ago. It has been harnessing AM to boost its manufacturing capabilities for four of those five years, and through the launch of Engineered Materials, is not only enhancing its own internal manufacturing activities, but is working with OEMs to improve theirs too.
“From our view, materials really is the gating item to additive getting to broad base appeal,” Dulchinos told TCT. “The costs are just crazy, the material selection is extremely limited, and if you look at most of the innovation in other industries outside of additive over the last 100 years, materials innovation and the creation of specialised materials has been a big enabler for most production applications. Additive has such a limited set today that it really constrains what we can do for applications.”
Jabil Engineered will thus work closely, as it has been doing since the Chaska materials innovation centre opened a year ago, with industrial players from a range of vertical markets to develop specialised materials to suit the needs of their application(s). “Understand their functional requirements, translate that into leads that we can then engineer material around, certify that material and produce it in a ISO 9001 operation,” Dulchinos explained.
Anthony Rose
Jabil engineered materials
Jabil Additive Manufacturing experts and chemists mix different raw materials during the formulation of Jabil Engineered Materials
The new business has outlined aerospace, transport, healthcare, heavy equipment, industrial machinery, appliances, and footwear as target markets, and has also matched material attributes to categories of application. Conductive materials for jigs, fixtures and tooling which need to handle sensitive electronics without damaging them; flame, smoke and toxicity retardant materials for aerospace and defence components; UV stability for exterior applications like electronics housings; lubricated materials for gears, wear plates and other parts that move and rub against other components; and then reinforced materials for applications that require stiffness and toughness.
It’s a customer-oriented and application driven venture, and one that Jabil believes differentiates it from the larger chemical companies to enter the space in recent years.
“What we’re focusing on is the long tail of engineering, the specialised materials,” explained Matt Torosian, Director of Product Development, Jabil Engineered Materials. “We’re under no allusion that we’re going to be a player in the unfilled, neat material [market] like an Evonik or BASF or any of the major chemical companies, but those companies aren’t really set up, from a volume perspective, to service customers for reinforced materials, flame retardant materials, conductive [materials], special attributes that are compounded into the material and are needed in the market place. Their business model is really an asset utilisation model. They need to said rail cars, they need to sell bolt trucks, they need to sell large quantities of a few products.
“Where we’re trying to fill the space is in the compounding area where you need to add these attributes and you can do that in a smaller scale. It better fits additive volumes, no one is buying, or in the near future no one is buying, rail cars of powder for additive manufacturing. The applications just don’t use that much material, but they do need the specialisation.”
Jabil not only wants to deliver these specialised materials to market, but it wants to do so in quick time, not in the 6+ months it typically takes to show a customer sample parts made in the new material, but in two-three weeks. It’s why material development from formulation through to production occurs all in one place: “At most places, it’s done at different locations. We tried that. It’s an arduous, long task,” Torosian noted. Material samples will be shared with customers, feedback given, and then the product will be validated, qualified and certified, before the OEM or service bureau can begin running the new material on its additive manufacturing systems. Jabil says it can formulate materials in powders or filament.
