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APWORKS and Heraeus have announced they are now working together on SAP’s Manufacturing Network platform for additive manufacturing (AM).
The SAP Manufacturing Network brings together manufacturers and service providers to fully exploit the potential of 3D printing for “just in time” manufacturing. APWORKS, a subsidiary of Premium AEROTEC, along with the AM division of technology group, Heraeus, recently announced their support of the innovative application, known as SAP Distributed Manufacturing, which uses new customer tools to accelerate the introduction of AM into production and supply chains.
This year, APWORKS introduced the integration of AMXpert, into the SAP software landscape which helps users to identify components with potential for metal 3D printing and claims to deliver significant savings in both costs and resources.
“Through this collaboration, we - together with SAP and the Manufacturing Network - have taken the next logical step towards industrialising metallic 3D printing. By working as a team, we have developed a way for customers to test mass data for printability and to bring together the experts and the customers on the virtual platform,” Sven Lauxmann from APWORKS. “Worth noting here is a self-learning database, which is used primarily to intelligently assess printability, orientation, and thus costs.”
The new tool is expected to be available online for numerous materials in a few weeks. In addition, Heraeus Additive Manufacturing has been announced as the new sales and cooperation partner to APWORKS GmbH in the further development of its AM specific material, Scalmalloy. Scalmalloy, a high-performance aluminium-magnesium-scandium alloy, is one of the highest-strength printable aluminium alloys available on the market today.
Tobias Caspari, Head of Heraeus Additive Manufacturing commented: “Together with APWORKS, our goal is to commercialize Scalmalloy, to find new potential uses, and to generate interest for the product in various different industries. We aim to show everything that is possible with a material like Scalmalloy and with 3D printing in general. The cooperation with SAP Distributed Manufacturing is an important element in achieving this goal.”
