The BuildUp | AM's Biggest Opportunity? Bridge Production
Manufacturing services provider Fathom Manufacturing has been through a few waves with additive manufacturing, beginning as a distributor of 3D printing technologies, then leading hard into services and adding various types of manufacturing capacity beyond AM. Yet even though most of the parts it produces today are made through machining, injection molding or some other conventional process, AM continues to play a key role. “The biggest opportunity for us and additive manufacturing is bridge production,” co-founder Rich Stump told me when I visited the company’s Fremont, California, tech center in June. VIEW THIS EMAIL IN BROWSER
Manufacturing service provider Fathom Manufacturing has been through a few waves with additive manufacturing, beginning as a distributor of 3D printing technologies, then leaning hard into services and adding various types of manufacturing capacity beyond AM. Yet, even though most of the parts it produces today are made through machining, injection molding or some other conventional process, AM continues to play a key role.
“The biggest opportunity for us and additive manufacturing is bridge production,” co-founder Rich Stump told me when I visited the company’s Fremont, California, tech center in June. For the types of clients and work that Fathom aims to do (product development and high-mix, low-volume production) AM continues to be a valuable part of the portfolio for getting work in the door and delivering parts quickly, often while bridging that gap before full-scale manufacturing.
And, this capacity continues to expand. Among the machines I saw in Fremont was the first commercial installation of Evolve Additive Solutions’ SVP platform, a machine that draws on 2D printing technology to build detailed, strong 3D parts from the same polymers used in injection molding. Read today’s article for more on the role of AM at Fathom Manufacturing, and watch this video filmed on-sitefor a closer look at how the Evolve platform works.
The FIREFLY3D is designed to boost performance with multiheaded machine capability. Automated scan field calibration and precise process monitoring simplify installation and operation.
Easier design evaluation. AI-created designs for 3D printing are already out there, but the more promising application for artificial intelligence in the near term seems to be selecting and modifying parts for this process.
2.
Faster part development. 3D printing offers the chance to optimize designs in ways that have never before been possible, but getting to these designs takes time and often demands that the human designer let go of many assumptions about manufacturing. But, for AI-enabled tools like generative design, iteration is easy and new, optimal parts can be developed more rapidly.
3.
Smarter machines. AI may not literally make your 3D printer more intelligent, but it offers a powerful way of processing all the data that each build generates — for instance, learning to "read" the thermal image of every layer and anticipate the next to catch abnormalities in the build, or training on X-ray inspection data to predict pore generation in future prints.
4.
Improved material microstructure. Additive manufacturing's point-by-point or layer-by-layer formation of material can be a weakness if properties aren’t adequately controlled, but it also represents opportunities to fine-tune the part as it is built. Case in point, the chance to accurately control microstructure of 3D printed metal based on AI-driven software.
5.
Distributed manufacturing (and knowledge). There are solutions in work already for automating print job distribution within factories, so it's not a leap to see how artificial intelligence could also be used to distribute work between multiple 3D printing facilities in different locations. Aside from benefits in terms of reduced shipping and carbon footprint, AI also promises to capture and distribute knowledge making it possible to bring better part design and even better patient care to all parts of the world.
.jpg;width=75;height=75;mode=crop)
Comments
Post a Comment