Opening the door to metal additive manufacturing

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2016 is turning out to be quite a landmark year for all sorts of interesting reasons. Putting aside several very notable global political events, I can say with a high degree of confidence that from Renishaw Inc’s perspective, 2016 is a significant year for us as we are close to consolidating our US business in a brand new state-of-the-art facility, in West Dundee, to the west of Chicago.

It’s also turning out to be an exciting year for the additive manufacturing (AM) industry with high profile companies positioning themselves for increased use of AM technologies in mainstream manufacturing. What is clear is that manufacturing companies are increasing their commitment to using AM technologies and with that they become dependent on the future development and success of AM. It is becoming increasingly clear that to be competitive, the viability of some products is completely dependent on AM to deliver the required performance improvements.   The dominant factors are also changing; we are moving from questions about the possibilities for AM to concerns about a secure and dependable supply chain and manufacturing processes that are capable and stable. Some companies are now reaping the rewards of adopting metal AM technologies early; some already have experience going back ten years or more. However, for new users who recognise that AM must play a strategic role for their businesses to compete, it can be quite a daunting prospect.  

At Renishaw we have been working with industry for over 40 years, helping companies use our measurement technologies to control their manufacturing processes and operate efficiently. If we look at the way machine tools use our probing products and how sophisticated CMM measurement technologies deliver valuable data into today’s manufacturing processes, and then compare it to the way things were done 20 or 30 years ago, the differences are startling. Yet, this level of progress was only delivered with strong collaborations and specialist applications knowledge.

Renishaw has always invested around 13 to 18% of its revenues in research, engineering and technology to support our product development, but importantly we have also invested for the long-term in our infrastructure and global support network. Many of our larger customers operate globally across multiple manufacturing sites and having a partner who is both local and global (we have over 70 offices in 35 countries) is a deciding factor when they do business with us.

What’s this got to do with your AM technologies, I hear you ask? Good question. Up until recently many of the companies using AM technologies have been prepared to make their own way, often seeing the relative immaturity of the technology as something they can exploit to their advantage, by developing specialist expertise to use as a differentiator. Clearly this does not help the new user and neither does it help the technology become more widespread and accepted by manufacturing engineers. One key step that we are taking, besides our commitment to making robust, productive factory floor machines, is to significantly enhance and further simplify the pre-production design and file preparation activities. In our QuantAM build preparation software, from its next release in January 2017, users will be able to import and use native CAD data as well as STL data to drive the AM print process.   We are also working closely with software vendors to integrate QuantAM capabilities into their design, optimisation and simulation packages. This open approach is already well under way with specialist applications and partners to ensure right first time build preparation and we are focussed on expanding our partner network to help mature AM as a manufacturing technology.  

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Together these key building blocks allow engineers access to all the data-driven processes that manufacturing is dependent on. This is very familiar territory for Renishaw, where we have a long history of both developing and using technologies that transform the way data is used to drive high quality manufacturing.       

Even with the development of better software tools there is still a major challenge for companies who want to become educated on the use of AM, particularly as much of the knowledge and experience lies with a relatively small group of early adopters. It’s certainly not impossible to learn how to get the best out of AM and many of our applications team and process specialists have grown up with conventional subtractive technologies. Far from being a hindrance, this experience positively enhances their suitability when implementing AM into production because they already understand how to implement and maintain process capability. Getting regular, well-supported access to the technology is by far the best way to gain experience on what works and what doesn’t. The ability of your existing engineering teams to rapidly adopt AM with the right guidance will probably surprise you, although initially it makes sense to start with smaller groups of enthusiasts before scaling up.

So just as those pioneering the use of Renishaw machine tool probing in the 1980s helped some companies gain an advantage, the widespread adoption depended on applications support to bring the benefits of probing to more companies. Over the years Renishaw has worked with users and machine tool suppliers to develop and deliver applications support to a much wider audience. To become equally widespread, AM technology will require just as much support.

To deliver this support Renishaw is developing a global network of Additive Manufacturing Solutions Centres where interested companies can spend time getting to know AM technology and its capabilities and relevance to them. Our aim is to share our experiences of AM and how we are helping others to successfully integrate it with other manufacturing processes. The Solutions Centres provide a space for users to spend time in a private AM incubator cell, with the full support of dedicated applications engineers and technicians. This provides the opportunity to understand the capabilities that AM might offer, all without the substantial initial outlay for a machine and peripherals. This way customers can develop their product design, the AM process and the business case in a cost-controlled manner, before integrating AM into their own factories.

When operational in early 2017, our new facility in Chicago will host our main US Solutions Centre alongside our other manufacturing technologies, providing a flagship environment to present our technologies. In total we have 133,000 sq ft with permission to develop another 117,000 sq ft as required. The Solutions Centre will initially comprise 4,000 sq ft, enough for up to 16 AM machines to support the needs of our customers.

The development of the new site in West Dundee has given us an insight into what challenges our customers will face when bringing AM technologies into their facilities - from dealing with the correct storage of materials and satisfying the local environmental and fire service regulations, to creating a professional factory layout and considering the integration with other technologies. All of this gives us an abundance of knowledge and expertise that we are ready to share with our customers. The bottom line is we are ready, willing and able.