Ivaldi's Parts Replacement as a Service aims to overhaul logistics for marine industry.
The world's largest maritime network, Wilhelmsen has partnered with the Ivaldi Group to create an in-port additive manufacturing (AM) micro factory designed to deliver 3D printed marine parts on-demand.
Located at Wilhelmsen's Singapore-based Ships Service' facilities within a busy port that receives more than 100 vessel visits a day, the factory will initially produce parts as part of an early adopter programme which the partners believe marks the start of a major opportunity to change the current spare part supply chain.
"Looking at the costs associated with our marine products sales, the supply chain costs are frequently at least as large as the Cost of Goods Sold" Kjell Andre Engen, Executive Vice President of Marine Products, Wilhelmsen Ships Service, commented. "Additive manufacturing with a technology partner like Ivaldi will enable us to reduce costs and environmental footprint while also increasing our service capabilities to serve our customers".
Read TCT Magazine's interview with Ivaldi Group CEO, Espen Sivertsen here.
Wilhelmsen is the first partner to be announced as part of the Ivaldi Group's Parts Replacement as a Service (PRaaS) model which aims to overhaul the logistics of spare part management with a digital inventory and on-site production close to the end-user. Starting with the maritime industry and non-critical components, Ivaldi believes that shipping files rather than parts offers benefits to both end-users and part manufacturers through reduced inventories, faster delivery times, lower costs and emissions.
"Factory in a box" style manufacturing facilities will enable 3D printing in ports on-demand.
"Ivaldi Group is working with stakeholders in the industry, from OEMs to vessels and their crews, to be able to revolutionise the marine parts' supply chain," Espen Sivertsen, CEO of Ivaldi Group explained. "Using the Ivaldi Group system to provide cost-efficiencies and pairing that with Wilhelmsen's global network and maritime expertise, we can better resolve the pain-points that customers face today. As an example, instead of having to buy a new welding mask because of a broken clip, a new clip was printed for one-tenth of the price. It was also delivered within 24 hours as opposed to having to wait the 3-4 weeks it would otherwise take to ship to the customer."
Ivaldi will provide its PRaaS model as a subscription service which enables OEMs to offer digital versions of their replacement parts in a cloud-based inventory where end-users can print them at the point of use. Ivaldi will also help deliver technology agnostic 'factory in a box' style facilities along with training and certification, similar to that unveiled today with Wilhelmsen. Ivaldi says that there is potential to roll this model out to other heavy industries such as mining and construction.
"The way we think about it is, it doesn't really make sense to have 500 different production facilities and then import," Siversten told TCT. "I think we've actually found the solution for people on the OEM side where you don't have to make all of these big investments and figure it all out yourself, you can work with us and we will radically simplify your distribution and support systems. It really comes down to that whole moniker of just "ship files not parts", it's a lot easier."
