Personal, binding advice

The constant developments over the past few decades have allowed additive manufacturing (AM) to become a universally used production technology, not only for the manufacturing of prototypes but also increasingly for industrial production, too.

However, when we look at the overall picture, the potential of the AM process for the product development cycle is not fully utilized with design-to-print alone; instead, the actual printing process – as a core process – only forms a part of a complex process chain.

From the digitally presented idea to the actual end product, the entire process chain must be mastered in order to exploit the full potential of the technology.

This starts during the creation of CAD designs or the generation of 3D models using 3D scanning methods. Here, the CAD design should be compliant with the AM process, so process-specific requirements such as wall thicknesses, radii, clip/integral hinge functions, and similar should already be taken into account at this stage in order to avoid costly and lengthy changes at a later time.

It makes sense to screen a possible component or assembly in accordance with the AM process in order to enable the full leverage of the component’s potential, including possible function integrations. (Key philosophy: Making one component out of three!)

Following initial production, the postprocessing steps must be taken into consideration, and finally, optimized logistics finish off the entire process chain.

Talk to us. We’ll be happy to advise you even before the design of your components!