Materialise
Quickparts has announced its adoption of Materialise’s CO-AM software platform as the service provider looks to streamline its manufacturing processes across multiple production sites.
The integration of CO-AM, which was announced at last year’s RAPID + TCT and developed off the back of Materialise’s acquisition of Link3D, will support the company’s traditional and additive manufacturing capacities.
Quickparts was divested from 3D Systems back in June 2021 and currently runs seven design and production facilities across North America and Europe. CO-AM has already been implemented at Quickparts’ Seattle and Lawrenceburg facilities before the end of 2022, and will be extended to additional locations in the second quarter of 2023. The service provider expects the software platform to help streamline its order-to-cash operations, while also automating processes and securely manage production across multiple manufacturing sites.
With CO-AM, Quickparts hopes to harness production data to improve its workflows and boost its efficiency levels to provide customers with time- and money-saving benefits. It will also provide traceability for Quickparts and its customers to every part manufactured by the company.
The announcement of this collaboration between Quickparts and Materialise comes just days before the CEOs of both companies feature on TCT’s Innovators on Innovators podcast series. Released on Monday January 30, the pair share their insights into why the adoption of CO-AM makes sense for companies like Quickparts, as well as challenges and opportunities around skills, data security and supply chain.
“Simplifying our workflow automation, installing such kind of software will allow me, today, in my office, in my home, to see what are our availabilities, not only in the US but in France, in the UK, in Italy, in Germany,” says Quickparts CEO Ziad Abou on the TCT Innovators on Innovators podcast. “Capacity utilisation is important to be able to answer adequately to our customer and being able to see that as soon as I want without having to email someone, waiting three hours for them to answer or giving them a phone call. It is an important part of this smart and distributed manufacturing [vision].”
“We have seen under the pressure of the COVID situation, a real acceleration of the importance of cloud based and digital interactions,” Materialise CEO Fried Vancraen offers. “And to some extent, it's good for the 3D printing industry because now it allows collaborate between organisations in a more effective way than before the COVID situation. So, despite all the worries and all the bad impacts of the COVID crisis, the crisis has once more been an accelerator. And with our new partnership, based on the CO-AM implementation, we really hope to accelerate because now we will be using data to the fullest extent and try to really capture the intelligence of your organisation in your system of ours and move faster forward for the customers.”
