TCT Europe 30.2 by TCT Magazine

3D PRINTING & ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE

MAG EUROPE EDITION VOLUME 30 ISSUE 2 www.tctmagazine.com

EOS M 300-4 sets the new standard for industrial 3D printing in medical

Healthcare The latest in customised care & devices

Emerging markets Spare parts to packaging

Business case What's driving the adoption of AM?

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VOLUME 30 ISSUE 2 ISSN 1751-0333

EDITORIAL HEAD OF CONTENT

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from the editor

FROM THE EDITOR SAM DAVIES

And Thus In one of my now routine midmorning browses of social media sites – as I write, we are on day 14 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – I stopped in my tracks as a young woman broke into tears upon uttering the words: ‘and now I’m a refugee.’

Though surrounded by others who found themselves in the same predicament, this 20-something Social Media Manager couldn’t come to terms with what had happened, nor how quickly events unfolded. By her own admission, she was living a privileged life: a steady job in a vibrant industry during the week, before sharing a bottle of wine amongst her fellow creatives at her downtown Kyiv apartment on the weekend. Then her life changed in a day. In the morning, she was sat in a quaint coffee house. And by evening, she was a refugee. There are millions more like her, whose one go at life is being turned upside down for no justifiable reason. Support is coming in different ways, to varying degrees, from all angles, whether its arms, accommodation or economic sanctions. In the additive manufacturing industry, for example, we’ve seen Zortrax walk away from a potential $65m investment in protest of Russia’s war, while several others stopped all business with Russian customers, except in the case of humanitarian or medical applications. As the bombs rain down and the fighting continues, events in Ukraine are a reminder of the importance of advances in healthcare – some examples of which are highlighted in this issue – and, more importantly, accessibility to it.

The pursuit of a quite grim ambition held by a small minority of humans is also a reminder of a Primo Levi quote I once came across on an otherwise bare wall inside the NSDokumentationszentrum Museum in Munich: It happened, and thus it can happen again. Although Levi is referring to the Holocaust here, the ‘it’ in this sentence, I think, is purposefully ambiguous. In an appendix to his 1947 memoir If This Is a Man (Survival in Auschwitz), he describes a ‘lugubrious comparison between two models of hell’ when contrasting Nazi concentration camps with Soviet gulags of the same era – a debate being had amongst some revisionist historians in the decades thereafter. This is to say there is more than one way of inﬂicting torture and torment. What is happening in Ukraine at the time of writing (I’m here hoping this editor’s letter doesn’t age very well) is undoubtedly hellish. But just as it – a hell-like environment foisted upon an innocent people – has happened again, overcoming such tyranny will too. Ukrainian people are exhibiting incredible defiance, protests held in Moscow aren’t going unnoticed either, and there is a near universal agreement about who is in the right and who is in the wrong. As Ukrainians defend their country, their sovereignty and their livelihoods, do what you can to support them, donate what you can afford to give, and should you bump into one of the millions who have been forced to run for their lives, welcome them and embrace them.

30.2 / www.tctmagazine.com / 05

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VOLUME 30 ISSUE 2 25

COVER STORY

8 11

08. MEDICAL MARVELS

EOS details how its M 300-4 metal AM system is helping to set a new standard for industrial 3D printing in medical.

Healthcare

11. ALIF OF COMFORT

Senior Content Producer Sam Davies speaks to Osseus Fusion Systems about its latest 3D printed spine implant device.

15. HEALTHY GROWTH

Menno Ellis, EVP, Healthcare Solutions at 3D Systems, reﬂects on the progress being made in the sector.

17. CUSTOM CARE

Polish medical start-up Customy explains how 3D printing is helping it to deliver custom medical solutions.

Emerging markets 19. PACKS A PUNCH

Quadpack, HP & Mimaki outline the application potential for AM in packaging.

22. RIGHT TO RE-PRINT

Head of Content Laura Griffiths explores the role of 3D printing in right to repair initiatives.

Postprocessing

25. FITS LIVE A GLOVE

HKK Bionics detail how DyeMansion’s post-processing tech is enabling personalised orthotic products.

TCT Awards

27. AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

A full list of the 2022 TCT Awards finalists, with projects featuring Volkswagen, PepsiCO and Safran all in contention.

Business case

28. WHAT’S DRIVING AM ADOPTION? Following reports of growing adoption, Laura asks what’s behind the rise?

Exec interview

30. HOW BURLOAK’S EARLY BELIEF IN AM PAID OFF

A conversation with Burloak Technologies CEO Colin Osbourne about expansion and scaling AM.

Expert column

34. MITIGATING SUPPLY CHAIN RISK Rethink Additive’s Oliver Smith on AM’s role in agile supply chains.

MEDICAL AM: A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

EOS M 300-4 sets the new standard for industrial 3D printing in medical

cross the world, we have been left in no doubt in recent years about what can be achieved in the medical and healthcare sectors. Whether it is vaccination development and delivery programmes, advances in areas such as neuroscience or the remarkable engineering involved in creating artificial limbs, or other components for use in the body to improve quality of life. Additive manufacturing (AM) has had a clear role to play in the healthcare sector and been pivotal to driving innovation in many areas. It is an area in which additive’s involvement is set to increase, with Grand View Research stating in a recent report that the healthcare AM sector could be worth $6.4bn by 2028. A HERITAGE THAT COUNTS The development of devices for use in the healthcare and medical sectors is rightly heavily regulated, whether a tool is used by a surgeon, a component for a hospital bed, or a device that will be used directly by a patient. Precision, repeatability, reliability are all essential ingredients of producing high quality components. Additive manufacturing

has shown itself to be more than capable of delivering on all these fronts, whilst also enabling some of the most revolutionary product designs, many of which could not be produced using traditional manufacturing methods. Working with metal, it can dramatically reduce the number of components required in an assembly, its weight, and the amount of handling required during production, which for medical applications directly lowers the risks of contamination. Add to this the ability to digitally customise parts such as plates and limb sockets to an individual patient’s needs, without retooling, and it is easy to see why the AM healthcare sector is predicted to grow so rapidly. EOS systems already produce over half a million parts a year and have been involved in the sector since 2006. EOS metal industrial 3D printers have an enviable heritage of use in heavily regulated industries, such as aerospace and medical series production. Recently, upgrades have enhanced their reputation for high quality and productivity even further, with many customers affectionately calling them a ‘true work horse’. Today, EOS has an install base of over 1,500

metal mid-frame systems, of which over 900 are EOS M 290 systems. Over half of these are qualified for production applications in regulated industries, such as medical. Materials matter too when it comes to medical applications. Not only must they be suitable for placement in the body, but able to be precision printed into highly complex structures such as random lattice structures that allow the body’s natural processes to bond with an implanted component. One of the most common materials used in medical is Ti64ELI, which is excellent at meeting the reliability and repeatability requirements of medical use cases. An extensive capability study showed that EOS Titanium Ti64ELI coupled with an EOS M 290 has a minimum Four Sigma process capability for density, geometrical accuracy, and surface roughness properties: as well as Six Sigma capability for tensile and yield strength properties. MAKING THE MOVE TO AM There are few industries that innovate at the rate of the medical and healthcare sectors – it is a lifeblood – the desire to rid the world of a disease or improve the health and quality of life of individuals. The journey from traditional manufacturing methods to successful AM is one that many EOS customers such as Lincotek in the healthcare sector have achieved with great success. At EOS, the Additive Minds consulting team helps customers take the leap into modern manufacturing through consulting, knowledge transfer and aiding the integration of industrial 3D printing into existing production settings.

SHOWN: LINCOTEK ADDITIVE INNOVATION CENTRE IN ITALY (SOURCE: LINCOTEK)

08 / www.tctmagazine.com / 30.2

A great product innovation idea is where every success story starts, but Additive Minds helps customers develop those ideas with a 3D printing mindset by exploring part design, materials, and manufacturing methods. Additive Minds also supports customers as they undergo qualification and certification for their designs – which, in the case of healthcare, demands some of the highest

COVER STORY SHOWN: EOS M 300-4 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM: DMLS QUALITY WITH UP TO 10X MORE PRODUCTIVITY (SOURCE: EOS)

“EOS shares our vision to push the boundaries in medical.”

SHOWN: LINCOTEK ADDITIVE INNOVATION CENTRE ENABLES 24/7 AM INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND REAL-TIME MONITORING OF INDUSTRIAL 3D PRINTERS (SOURCE: LINCOTEK)

standards of any industry. Critically, Additive Minds advises on the wider plan to deliver products, helping customers not only ensure production is completely scalable, but ramps up in a way that is closely aligned with how the product will be introduced to different markets. LINCOTEK ADDITIVE – A MEDICAL MARVEL Lincotek Additive is part of global contract manufacturer Lincotek Group and has championed innovation in AM solutions since 2006. Lincotek is one of the pioneers in the AM space not only for medical implants, but other industries too. Lincotek started working with EOS early on, recognising that they offered one of the first powder-based processes able to support free-form printing with titanium alloys, and meet the standards required for implantable materials at a reasonable investment level. Lincotek Additive has now grown to more than 25 EOS machines at locations in Italy, Switzerland, and the USA, using the EOSINT M 280, EOS M 290, EOS M 400-4 laser printers. In medical and orthopaedic

applications alone, Lincotek produces over 100,000 implantable devices a year for use across the globe, including patient-specific prostheses from CT images. It is the biggest contract manufacturer in the space. EOS Additive Minds has worked closely with Lincotek throughout its expansion and growth to ensure consistent quality and efficient manufacturing processes across the production lifecycle at every stage. Currently, it is supporting Lincotek with achieving operational and process qualification for its new EOS M 300-4. A four-laser machine designed to deliver up to 5x productivity boost with consistent part quality across the entire 300x300mm build space, through its highly customisable hardware and software features. EOS and Lincotek are partnering to transfer specific additive solutions to the EOS M 300-4, as such ramping up a certified serial production on the latest AM technology available – for Lincotek’s and EOS customer’s future serial production needs.

market is something that has allowed Lincotek to become the contract manufacturer of choice in the additive field globally. Our focus is on serial production and end-toend solutions in our ‘Additive Plus’ concept, allowing customers to have, for example, ‘ready to implant’ or ‘ready to engine’ parts from one source, reducing supply chain complexity and having a real alternative to traditional supply chains. As Lincotek Additive we offer our customers a real alternative in serial additive manufacturing, enhanced by profound knowledge in specific endto-end capabilities such as heat treatment, hipping, coatings and precision machining. We are very excited to be in this fastgrowing sector offering unique, reliable and economic customer focused supply chain solutions, matching additive and traditional manufacturing technologies. “Everything we do at Lincotek is about using the most innovate manufacturing techniques to deliver highest quality of parts for our customers. EOS shares our vision to keep the highest standards and push the boundaries of what can be achieved in the medical sector through AM techniques. Our continued growth and improved productivity are a testament to everyone involved in that process. To now cooperate again on the latest technology innovation with EOS on the M 300-4 is very exciting for us and will bring significant value to both existing and potential customers.” You can learn more about how EOS Industrial 3D Printers can support your manufacturing by accessing the QR code below:

Winfried Schaller, Lincotek, Group CEO, concludes: “Being a pioneer in the additive

30.2 / www.tctmagazine.com / 09

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HEALTHCARE

ALIF OF COMFORT

Sam Davies speaks to Osseus Fusion Systems' John Bohenick about the company's latest 3D printed medical device.

hen John Bohenick dials in to a trans-Atlantic call during his morning commute on February 10th, it has been 45 days since Osseus Fusion Systems made its latest submission to the FDA. As the medical device company’s R&D/ Engineering Manager, Bohenick, who has been central to this application, is waiting patiently for the FDA’s verdict, and has so far twice been required to provide minor clarifications. This, Bohenick notes, is par for the FDA certification course. But since Osseus is seeking a unique surgical indication that no other product currently has, satisfying the FDA at every step is paramount.

“The FDA is putting an acute focus on additively manufactured devices. They really are putting a lens on it.”

“[This] is going to be a differentiable product regardless,” Bohenick begins, “but I think it would make a huge splash on the market by getting an indication that no other device on the market has achieved or has been granted, which is what we’re going for.” The product that has buoyed Bohenick with so much enthusiasm is an additively manufactured Standalone Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) device called Pisces that cannot be manufactured with subtractive methods. It is not the first time Osseus has pursued FDA certification of a 3D printed product, having done so successfully in 2018 after launching its Aries interbody fusion device which is made from titanium and features a mesh structure with 80% porosity. This device was among the early additive interbody devices to be introduced on the market and ‘put a wind behind the sails’ of a company that was looking to carve out a niche. Four years on, Osseus has again sought to harness metal additive manufacturing, designing the Pisces device for this very process, but there is the notion that this wouldn’t have been possible in years gone by.

SHOWN: PISCES-SA WITH ANCHOR FIXATION

“There are actual functional features and aspects to this design that have to be done additively,” Bohenick explains. “[But] the way that it’s being manufactured would not have been feasible even two, three years ago because of how specific the tolerancing is being held. [The] postsubtractive process is extremely minor, it’s just a chase on the tap. It’s testament to [how far] additive manufacturing has come.” Although not yet available for sale in the US, Osseus believes Pisces will become the new standard for Standalone ALIF devices. It is available at a range of heights between 9-19mm, in footprints between 23 x 29mm and 29 x 39mm and can be implanted with anchors or screws. By integrating a highly porous 3D printed interbody with anatomical morphology, the device has been designed for full osseointegration, streamlined instrumentation and anchor fixation technology for a minimally invasive approach. Additionally, a guided locking plate prevents any sort of dislodgment or motion of the fixation, while the mesh structure of the device boasts nearly 80% porosity and also provides load bearing support. “[80% porosity] is, I think, pretty impressive considering the strength that we were able to get out of it,” Bohenick says. “A majority of the volume of the interbody is made up of a porous, bilateral mesh meaning that it cuts through from both sides, so not just a unilateral mesh that some interbody devices have. That mesh, which allows you to maximise strength while also decreasing mass and allows for bone growth through, acts more as a scaffold. You’re trying to optimise the load that you’re bearing, while not having unused material. That mesh structure is really impossible to be manufactured subtractively.”

30.2 / www.tctmagazine.com / 011

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HEALTHCARE

The motivation for this product’s introduction to market is to help provide better treatments for spinal disc pain that could be brought on by tumours, traumas, or, more likely, degeneration as people age. If such a diagnosis was made and the surgeon decided to use an interbody with fixation through an anterior access, then Osseus’ Pisces device would be a potential solution. Once implanted, it would help to stabilise the patient’s spine and facilitate bone fusion. “This device tries to capitalise on the theoretical mechanotransduction principle,” Bohenick says, referencing the process by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into biochemical signals that elicit cellular responses. “If you’re able to distribute load over the entire endplate as much as is reasonably possible then you’re able to allow for bone growth across that entire surface, as opposed to just on the edges. So, wherever there’s going to be cyclic loading, you’re going to end up having bone growth. It made sense for us to try and approach a larger surface area contact on the interbody or on the endplate surface. What comes with that, then, is an anatomic profile of the end plates. There really are not many cages at all worldwide that have an anatomic profile on the end plates. This device does. “Being able to have that load distribution across the entire endplate and especially in that concavity would then lead to having lower incidence of subsidence, as well. So, we’re trying to maximise a number of different factors that really will differentiate the product on the market. “All of this mumbo jumbo technical talk really just comes down to, ‘hey, it looks right.’ And that’s what we’re going for. If a surgeon feels comfortable when they take a look at their ﬂuoroscopy in the AP (antero-posterior) and lateral planes, then that’s a job well done for us.” Osseus is set to roll out the Pisces device via its biggest ever Alpha launch with 15 units deployed to partner surgeons before a full launch coming further down the line. Bohenick says Osseus has more demand for its Pisces series than it knows what to do with, but whether such demand is for an FDA-approved product is still pending. “We’ve been in contact with the FDA for at least a year and a half now. And the FDA outlined to us from very early on that, if we were going

to prove that this device is worthy or permissible for this indication, we were going to have to do more than what is generally accepted for a standalone ALIF interbody fixation device,” Bohenick says. “The FDA is putting an acute focus on additively manufactured devices and, in particular, going between different manufacturers, whether or not the devices are biocompatible. They really are putting a lens on it. They’re having us go through and really get into the nitty gritty details of explaining, as well as testing, bio comp for these additively manufactured devices. And it’s just more than what they have asked for in the past.” While Osseus has encountered recent cadaver shortages at the major tissue banks in the US and the cost complications that are typical for start-ups (since addressed with the assistance of the RIH Orthopaedic Foundation), it has also been required to carry out a series of studies to prove Pisces’ worth. These have included a cadaveric biomechanical range of motion fatigue study and a cadaveric technique validation, the latter of which sought to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of its anchor type fixation with the help of five orthopaedic and neurosurgeons, as well as one ALIF access surgeon.

SHOWN: PISCES-SA WITH SCREW FIXATION

By Bohenick’s own admission, the process of getting Pisces its unique FDA indication has been ‘quite an endeavour,’ but there is an assurance at Osseus that its latest additively manufactured implant will eventually make the grade. “We feel pretty confident that we’re going to be getting the indications,” Bohenick finishes. “But nothing is set in stone yet.”

30.2 / www.tctmagazine.com / 013

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HEALTHCARE

HEALTHY GROWTH WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS

henever healthcare is spotlighted as one of the most interesting application areas for additive manufacturing (AM), the reasoning, whether coming from industry experts or the public, is typically as simple as this: “At the end of the day, all of us are patients at some point.” That sentiment was shared by Menno Ellis, Executive Vice President, Healthcare Solutions at 3D Systems in a recent conversation with TCT. The AM leader has been a pioneer in the medical space for almost three decades, with more than two million medical devices produced out of its dedicated FDA-registered and ISO 13485-certified facility in Colorado, and applications that span the gamut from dental devices to planning solutions and regenerative medicine.

“It is back to that theme of personalised medicine,” Ellis said of the expansion. “That’s the part of the business that is growing. Not just within the traditional indications where we started primarily in the craniomaxillofacial space, and continues to grow [...] but now we’ve started to take those capabilities and are talking to the orthopaedic companies around applying that to other parts of the body and are getting very good acceptance as well.” Developments have been happening across various joint solutions, many still under wraps, but the most recent public advances have been in ankle devices. In 2020, the company received FDA 510(k) clearance for its Vantage Ankle PSI patient-specific total ankle surgical planning and 3D printed instruments

Reﬂecting on the progress 3D Systems has made in the healthcare space in the last decade alone – a decade that’s seen custom 3D printed spinal cages become an established solution and the total number of delivered patient-specific cases and devices reach more than 140,000 – Ellis said: “Initially, there were a number of companies and physicians that looked at [AM] and said, this makes sense, this gets better results, so we're going to adopt but they didn't really have a lot of data to back it up. What's really changed over the course of the last decade is there have been studies that validate the benefits of using, for example, surgical planning to plan surgeries and personalised solutions that now validate some of that initial thinking people had. That has obviously helped drive the adoption.” We speak following a year of expansion and change for the company which included a number of acquisitions, namely bioprinting solutions developer Allevi and most recently, PEEK specialist Kumovis, alongside a change in leadership which saw company founder Chuck Hull taking on the role of Chief Technology Officer for Regenerative Medicine. The company also earmarked an additional 50,000 square feet for its Denver facility, scheduled to break ground this year, to accelerate its growth trajectory for patient-specific craniomaxillofacial applications and facilitate the development of new joint replacement solutions.

in collaboration with Exactech. It’s in personalised solutions such as this, which afford better surgeries and patient outcomes, where Ellis says AM truly shines. “One of the benefits additive manufacturing offers is being able to produce in lot sizes of one [...]. As it becomes more practical, more economical to produce implantable devices for different body types, as well as more complex surgical instruments for point of care systems, that enables practising physicians to think more creatively and more holistically about how healthcare is being applied. It really starts with that ability to personalise by way of additive manufacturing but then goes all the way upstream to the practitioner, really rethinking the way they practice medicine.” This knock-on effect can also be seen in the way the technology is being adopted at the point of care. 3D Systems already has one of the largest publicly known initiatives within the VA hospital system in the U.S., and with the introduction of machines like its Figure 4 technology and a more accessible ecosystem of accompanying software and materials products, the barriers for healthcare professionals have been significantly lowered. “What we've seen is quite a few groups that dip their toe in the water and are using 3D printers on site to make anatomical models or surgery planning and communications, and maybe to a lesser degree, also some surgical tools, cutting guides, drill guides, things of that nature," Ellis concluded. "But what we've also seen is some occasional reactive moves like, for example, in the past two years, different groups coming up with the ability to print nasopharyngeal [swabs] for COVID testing.

SHOWN: VANTAGE ANKLE PSI PATIENT-SPECIFI GUIDE

“I really think that we're standing on the threshold of adoption right now. The improved economics, and more environmentally-friendly machines that are easier to operate, promote manufacturing in a distributed environment, combine that with the ease of use of software that really ties everything together to make that happen. [...] We’ve observed some early steps, but that big adoption is really something that we’re right on the cusp of seeing.”

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HEALTHCARE

CUSTOM CARE WORDS: SAM davies

removed and a patient-specific, 3D printed titanium implant was inserted without any complication. In another case, a 3D printed implant with an internal mesh structure (60-80% porosity) was produced in a shape that matched the patient’s anatomy perfectly – the patient, who had been diagnosed with a benign tumour, had previously experienced complications in an earlier procedure that used a standard implant. Manufactured with electronbeam melting in titanium, the porous implant facilitated full integration between bone and mesh, while also reducing the structure’s weight. This procedure was carried out without any complications.

It is for these reasons why Customy has bet big on patient-specific devices, and in turn 3D printing. For while standard implants are often enough, there are times when more personalised care is required. e didn’t have any choice,” Ewa Waliczek says frankly, in reference to a decision made back in 2016.

Having spent her entire career up until February of that year in software development, Waliczek had started to yearn for a vocation with more social impact. Harnessing that desire – and combining her software development expertise with the orthopaedic and craniomaxillofacial shape modelling proficiency of Paweł Skadłubowicz – she co-founded a medical device development company called Customy. The mission of Customy is to make craniomaxillofacial procedures more precise and less complex in a more affordable way. And central to that objective is 3D printing technology. “I think it’s the only way that we can do it,” Waliczek tells TCT. “Our models are patientspecific, so they’re different every time. We need to create every model, guide or implant for every patient, so there is no other way to do it.” In the six years since Customy was founded, the company has provided many customised parts to surgeons and doctors, including models that help them prepare for surgery and implants that ensure better outcomes. One instance saw the reconstruction of 65% of a patient’s mandible from the right condyle to the left mandibular body after a young woman was diagnosed with a malignant jaw tumour. During a nine-hour surgery, the condyloma and soft tissues were

“There are some cases that the standard implants may [bring] limitations for patients and post-operation complications regarding the size or the way that the implants were used,” Waliczek says. “Patient-specific implants are how you can design what you actually need, and you can reconstruct the bone structure [to] how it was before. You won’t achieve it by using the standard implants. We were focusing, at first, with printing maxillofacial reconstructions. There, every face is different and having a mandible tumour are really hard cases [to operate on] because most of the patients lose their bones. We wanted to give them the possibility to look the same after the surgery.” Being able to deliver these benefits to patients and share these success stories with medical professionals is key for Customy. When the company first started out, Waliczek noted the surprise of some doctors that their offering was able to speed up surgery times. That surprise had its roots in an uncertainty and hesitancy that is being chipped away at with every Customy application.

procedures. For Waliczek and her colleagues, there is a hope that parts like this will become standard in the healthcare sector. But the key to that, the company believes, is enabling medical professionals to bring the capability in-house. Hence, Waliczek has overseen the development of Customy Vision, a 3D visualisation software for the modelling of medical images, with design modules for surgical guides and implants to come. Boasting smart segmentation, advanced visualisation, DICOM anonymisation and surface modelling features, this platform has been designed for surgeons and bioengineers to create anatomical models in their labs. This is the next step of Customy’s mission, and it is one with a long-term vision. While 3D printing’s application in medical today is ‘making healthcare more patient oriented’, Waliczek believes there is even more value to be captured. “We were wondering,” Waliczek says, “what will be the best way of propagating the use of anatomical models? Of course, we can do it inhouse and collaborate with hospitals, but we think the best way is when they have their own laboratory and they can do it on their own because then they could have the models within one day, right? And such models are also the entry point for later designing surgical guides or implants. We want to try to be independent [from surgeons]. We think it’s more scalable and it’s saving time and cost doing it in-house, so we are convincing them, educating them to do it by themselves.”

While patient-specific implants are the obvious headline grabber, it is the customised surgical guides and anatomical models that are often underpinning those successful

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EMERGING MARKETS

WORDS: SAM davies

o matter the industry and no matter the application, for every product that is conceptualised, designed, manufactured, sold and dispatched there is packaging to protect it. In many respects, it means a separate product has to be developed for every product that is developed. And with that comes considerations around design, cost, time and waste. Yet, too often, packaging is an afterthought. “The way every single NPI (New Product Introduction) works,” Mariona Company starts, “and it’s the case for HP and the case for any other company, packaging is always the last thing that we decide.” Mariona speaks as the Global Head of HP’s Molded Fiber endeavours, an advanced tooling business set up to facilitate more sustainable packaging, with a keen focus on the food and beverage sectors. It was born out of HP’s commitment to eliminating 75% of single-use plastic packaging by 2025; single-use plastic packaging – of which more than 150 million tonnes is produced per year – contributes to greenhouse gas emissions all the way through its lifecycle and typically ends up in landfill.

Having set up the Molded Fiber business, HP is aiming to ‘disrupt’ the packaging market with fibre-based, 100% plastic-free packaging. The tooling for these packaging solutions leans on the capability of HP’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technology, while Choose Packaging – a zero-plastic paper bottle manufacturer – was acquired by HP and integrated into its Personalization & 3D Printing business earlier this year. HP has applied this solution in-house for products such as its HP Desktop Mini, and is also now working with external customers. It suggests that more thought is going into packaging and indicates a growing interest from the market in 3D printingenabled solutions. AHEAD OF THE PACK One packaging company to invest in and integrate 3D printing technology is Quadpack, who purchased a Stratasys J750 in 2018 and a Stratasys J850 in 2019, after starting out with an Objet 30 machine. Quadpack is a designer and manufacturer of packaging for skin care, makeup and fragrance companies, delivering bottles, jars,

product dispensing systems and airless componentry. For at least 90% of the projects it works on, Quadpack turns to this 3D printing capability to help its clients move through the design iteration phase. With its full-colour 3D printing systems, the company can produce multiple prototypes at the same time to explore different design options, while resembling something close to the final packaging product. “It’s helped package designers to test out new ideas quickly and try out what is likely to work and what isn’t,” Quadpack Senior Designer Oliver Drew tells TCT. “But, in addition, it’s helped to allow the customer to accelerate that development stage of design. Whether it’s for bespoke [products], or for a new catalogue item, it’s helped to avoid the need of having to create a pilot mould sample, which in a lot of cases can take four to six weeks to create the tool. Then, you’ve got to wait to receive the samples [and] if you want them decorated, that’s a separate process in itself. So, being able to 3D print in full-colour, to then also apply the decoration with the right opacities and mixing those two together from an early stage, really helps the customer to visualise what that design could look like in that colour with that artwork.”

SHOWN: HP MOLDED FIBER PACKAGING MOULDS FOR CHOOSE PACKAGING'S ZERO PLASTIC PAPER BOTTLE

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EMERGING MARKETS

While 3D printing has obvious benefits for prototyping applications, the fullcolour capabilities of Stratasys’ J Series, for example, make the technology an increasingly attractive option for packaging companies, particularly those working in the beauty and food stuff industries. Mimaki is another company offering colour 3D printing technology through its 3DUJ-553 and 3DUJ-2207 systems, with the latter available at a list price of 35,000 EUR. Though the company sees its biggest opportunities in the medical, art and figurine markets, there is some interest regarding packaging from the perfume industry. “What we see is that people can have a much faster time to market if they have a 3D object,” says Mark Sollman, Mimaki’s Product Manager EMEA, “because then they can touch it and the process will go [quicker].” Though Mimaki is seeing some interest from customers wanting to enhance their packaging prototyping procedures, there is some doubt as to whether enduse product applications will emerge in packaging - as they have in other markets - particularly when volume and economics are considered. HP, though, is confident it has found an application primed for additive manufacturing. TOOLING UP When HP first embarked on its Molded Fiber venture, it took two months for the company to get a design ready and processable on a HP 3D printing system in a Mexico facility. Once it had rode those software issues, however, the mould was successfully 3D printed first time. At this point, the company decided to invest in a cross functional team of engineers, as well as a proprietary workﬂow and design software. This software is said to be capable of automatically creating optimised moulds based on the product’s CAD design, as well as organising a pipeline of job intake to the 3D printers. What comes out of the printers are three different types of tooling componentry. The HP Advanced Mold Body and the HP Advanced Transfer Tool both reduce the need for sectioning and drilling, while the HP hot swap SmartScreen integrated key features such as wash-walls, block-outs and hold-downs. All are made with an ‘engineering polyamide that is not subject to corrosion or calcification in water,’ and are said to help enable quicker time to market, design ﬂexibility and efficiency gains, per Mariona.

SHOWN: HP'S MOLDED FIBER PACKAGING MOULDS FOR ITS DESKTOP MINI PC PRODUCT

“If you look at how packaging products are being created 3D printing will play a critical role.” HP’s internal divisions are said to be lining up to utilise the Molded Fiber solutions, with the company looking to prioritise the products that will represent a transition from plastic foam type packaging to moulded fibre. “When you are designing with tooling and fibre, if you start from the beginning when you design the product, you get better outcomes,” Mariona says. “What we are doing with the different divisions with HP is identifying the roadmap of products that we want to move into sustainable packaging and then working with our engineers in packaging on moving this technology.” ARRIVING ON THE SCENE HP’s approach to the roll out of Molded Fiber within its own business is in line with that 2025 target, which falls under its sustainability strategy umbrella. Of course, while the end result of HP’s moulded fibre packaging process might be more ideal than plastics, the sustainability proficiencies of energyintensive 3D printing technologies have been the subject of much debate over the years. Oliver suggests that 3D printing has been ‘a little bit late to the scene in terms of sustainability’ making a direct reference to materials, though it only becomes a serious consideration when the 3D printing volumes increase. “We’re determined to make those advances,” Oliver says of sustainability. “We’ve used 3D printing as a way to reduce development time, whereas

now it’s getting to this stage of industrialisation. So, for the initial design stages we’ve never really needed to depend on the sustainability of the material because you’re only producing a few components. Whereas, when you start going into the thousands of pieces, you then need to obviously start thinking about the sustainability of the material.” With that said, and while Oliver acknowledges the design freedom, ﬂexibility and personalisation proficiencies of 3D printing, he notes that there are still limitations in material quality and volume capacity. Despite that, HP has teams ‘working with major brands on primary packaging’ products, in which the only way they can be manufactured is with 3D printing. Concerning sustainability, Mariona reminds us of 3D printing’s ability to produce parts locally and on-demand, but maintains that right now the big opportunities for the technology lie in tooling and prototyping. “I can talk about what I know, which is 3D printing is the future in fibrebased products,” Mariona finishes. “This industry has been looking at 3D printing for a long time, it’s just that until now there haven’t been any 3D printing technologies that could address the requirements of such a tough application. If you talk about the rest of packaging, I believe that if you look at the trends on how packaging and the products are being created – less short runs, more customised, sustainability, new products – 3D printing will play a critical role. And it will do because of prototyping for sure, but [also] the bridge to manufacturing.”

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RIGHT TO RE-PRINT WORDS: LAURA GRIFFITHS

n just the last six months, my washing machine has broken down twice. It’s over ten years old so the length of time taken to source and install parts meant several weeks of handing over a laundry bag to my parents like I was an 18-year-old student going home for the weekend again. It got me thinking about a presentation by industry consultant Phil Reeves back at CES in 2015: the teardown of a Bosch washing machine to see which components could and couldn't be 3D printed. While the technologies referenced have evolved in the intervening years, its message, that the economics don’t always add up to AM, continues to offer a relevant dose of pragmatism whenever the topic of spare parts is raised. “I think if we did this study now, we'd find a lot more viable components that are either economically viable to 3D print or materials that are more suited,” Reeves recounted in a recent call with TCT. “Personally, I still think the whole spare part debate comes down to material properties. Do we have an available additive material that is fit for purpose to replace the spare part? The right to repair thing is going to be really interesting in that, yes, we have a right to repair but where does the liability sit if you take the choice of repair? Because unless the part was initially designed to be made by 3D printing, it's always going to be kind of a Band-Aid.” While recent conversations around supply chain have put AM and digital inventories under the spotlight, 3D printing replacement parts is nothing new. Back in 2012, Swedish consumer electronics manufacturer Teenage Engineering made some of its components available via online 3D printing provider Shapeways to combat high shipping costs associated with replacement parts for its OP-1 Synthesizer. “Companies like Teenage Engineering highlight one of the greatest benefits in 3D printing, allowing anyone to take control of creating spare parts, and pushing back against the ongoing issue with products that can be impossible to repair,” Christopher Angi, Director of Sales at Shapeways, told TCT. “On the larger scale, we see the ability to 3D print spare parts and eliminate enormous

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amounts of warehouse space – along with the long-winded chain of communication it can take just to get one or a few parts – replaced by digital inventories. We are working with companies in several verticals who are already doing this, or considering the transition. We also see a trend in companies who want to focus on sharpening their own specialties while outsourcing 3D printing services for functional parts related to maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO).”

Where the volumes are right or a redesign beneficial, the case for AM can be made but for many parts, traditional methods of manufacture are still the way to go. Reeves recalls a visit to the warehouse of one of Europe’s largest white goods spare parts suppliers almost a decade ago. An analysis of the millions of SKUs on-hand was conducted but Reeves concluded “you could literally count on one hand the ones that were viable 3D prints.” “Some of those were viable for printing but the vast majority of parts that fail are not the mechanical principal parts,” Reeves continued, noting cast metal parts such as metal hob burners which might otherwise prove costly to reproduce with traditional tooling. “The vast majority of white goods parts that fail are electrical parts systems, interlock switches because they wear out, motors, bearings, it's all things that are actually not particularly printable.” For those parts where 3D printing does make sense, 3D printer manufacturer and service provider Ricoh 3D has been deploying AM for spare parts both internally and for customers. The company has adopted a ‘one-on-the-

shelf’ model for its own spare parts, with engineers at Ricoh UK's Products Limited site swapping out critical factory jigs and automation tooling for AM alternatives. In one customer example, domestic equipment consortium Groupe SEB worked with Ricoh 3D to redesign an obsolete drip collector for an espresso machine. The company already offers 3D printed spare parts for several products as part of a 10-year repair scheme guarantee, and was able to successfully perform 1,000 coffee cycles with this SLS spare. Mark Dickin, Additive Manufacturing & Molding Engineering Manager at Ricoh 3D, told TCT: “The project demonstrates how 3D printing allows small intricate products to be

EMERGING MARKETS

produced quickly; whether this is in the repair of finished consumer products or production line equipment. When volumes are relatively small or parts are out of production, 3D printing is often the only profitable solution.” While Dickin believes AM can play a huge role in application stories such as this, he cautions there are still challenges in disrupting established spare part models. “The ‘right to repair’ legislation is likely to cause logistical headaches for manufacturers globally who face having to stock hundreds of thousands of spare parts.” Dickin said. “However, the law could also finally move the dial in reversing the “throwaway society” trend of the last 60 years by creating goods that last longer - producing savings for both the consumer and environment. “Some parts will be frequently required and it makes sense for manufacturers to hold these in physical form, but 3D printing means the parts which are less in demand can be held digitally as CAD data. With only a data file needed, why stop at a 10year guarantee?” Paul Ruscoe, New Business Development Director at LCD-based 3D printer developer Photocentric, which has worked with a number of manufacturers in the consumer electronics and durables space to produce spare parts, agrees. “The legislation is likely to cause significant logistical problems for manufacturers who face having to stock thousands of spare parts,” Ruscoe told TCT. “The ﬂexibility of AM provides a solution to this problem. It’s likely that parts that are often required will be held in stock, but 3D printing means the parts which are required less frequently can be held digitally – with small production runs printed on-demand.” With right to repair legislation now requiring manufacturers across Europe to supply replacement parts for select white goods and

“3D printing has the potential to redeﬁne how spare parts are controlled and supplied.”

electricals over ten years, Ruscoe says this creates a challenge for manufacturers who will be required to stock parts they may not need, and the company is actively inviting consumer goods manufacturers to collaborate and digitise their spare parts lists. “3D printing can easily unlock this problem by being able to print quantities on demand,” Ruscoe said. “This gives manufacturers the opportunity to support the right to repair initiative whilst saving costs on stock and warehousing, and at the same time minimising risk of producing parts that are not required.” In some cases, consumers are taking repair into their own hands. Repair Café has created a network of 2,200 free spaces where visitors can bring in their broken items and learn to repair for free. The initiative was started in 2009 by environmentalist Martine Postma in Amsterdam. Now, with locations all over the world, equipped with all the tools and materials needed to repair items from electrical appliances to toys, might 3D printing have a place? “The Repair Café community across the world is enthusiastic about 3D printing and sees its potential,” Postma told TCT. “We see some Repair Cafés experimenting with 3D printing, but not on a large scale. Designing spare parts is still rather difficult. If this should become easier, more Repair Cafés would feel more confident about 3D printing and then it could be a real revolution for the repair movement.” While Postma notes the increase in students learning 3D design and manufacturing skills in schools, which the founder believes are “much needed in a repair society,” there are other challenges to contend with. “It could be a revolution,” Postma added. “When you can print a spare part pretty

easily yourself, you no longer depend on the manufacturer to supply you with the things you need to make a repair. You would then really have the means to make repairs. Of course, you still need repair information, which the manufacturer is not keen to supply. But being able to create spare parts yourself would be a huge step which would stimulate self-repair. It would also be better for the environment if spare parts could be produced locally instead of having to come from the other side of the world.” In the UK, Manchester Metropolitan University’s PrintCity is part of a 7.84M EUR Interreg North-West Europe project called ShaRepair, which aims to decrease WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) from consumer products through citizen repair initiatives leveraging digital tools like 3D printing. “There are thousands of citizens out there with varying degrees of expertise in repair, but they are diffuse and some don’t have access to the parts they need,” Gary Buller, Technical Officer at PrintCity commented. “The digital tools of ShaRepair will hopefully bring these citizens together, closing the gap between intent and behaviour. 3D Print is one of the tools in closing those gaps, enabling citizens to manage their parts inventories better, bringing an agility to the supply chain of spare parts and also optimising the repair process.” Working with partners across Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, Ireland and Denmark, ShaRepair provides online tools, a digital library of printable parts, professional repair service information and free product repair workshops throughout the year. PrintCity has even repaired its own 3D printers using recycled filament made from coffee cups. Rhiannon Hunt, Circular Economy Project Manager at MMU, added: “It's not necessarily things you think about off the top of your head. We've had a radio housing that was cracked so they printed out a new housing for it, attachments for vacuum cleaners and buttons, all sorts of things. I think that's one of the key benefits of additive, it’s so ﬂexible so you can tackle a lot of different types of products easily.”

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The APF process allows for a high level of detail. Thanks to the open material platform, users can process a wide spectrum of thermoplastic granules alongside their own original materials and optimise the process controls themselves. The freeformer can also additively manufacture very small functional components and delicate structures without any problem.

The PEI/PC blend Ultem 9085 is a high-strength, flame-retardant material that is approved for aerospace applications. It also meets the fire protection requirements for rail transportation (UL94 V-0 flammability rating). With a build chamber capable of consistent heating at 200 degrees Celsius, the freeformer can reliably process high-temperature materials. Functional prototypes such as gears, ventilation ducts, and other complex geometries can be created using Ultem along with a break- away structure. Optimised temperature management, active component cooling, and high precision axis drives, allow the freeformer to create parts with extreme accuracy and fine detail.

Recently at formnext 2021, ARBURG and its partner OTEC demonstrated the post-processing of APF functional components using vibratory finishing, for example. This additional process makes it possible to achieve surface qualities comparable to those of injection moulded parts. For freeformer printed components, the roughness can be reduced from an Ra of 19.42 to one of 0.46.

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post-processing

FITS LIKE A GLOVE D WORDS: sam davies

ominik Hepp sits on an office chair at a 90-degree angle, moving his hand forward and back with a mere ﬂick of his wrist. Later on, he speedily actions the digits of his hands on a keyboard to find the English word ‘brittle.’ Earlier, he ﬂipped his hand from face-down to faceup when articulating one of the many points he has to make about HKK Bionics’ exomotion hand product.

and colouring solutions. Already, HKK Bionics was eyeing additive manufacturing as the production method for its exomotion hand because of its capacity to print in quantities of one, and now it had post-processing technology that passed Cytotoxicity tests according to ISO 10993-5 and 10993-12, as well as Skin Irritation tests according to ISO protocol TC 194 WG 8 and ISO norm 10993-12 for the EOS PA2200 material.

These are all the type of motions that most of us take for granted.

“Because we’ve got biocompatible colours,” Hepp says, explaining why the company has selected DyeMansion’s post-processing equipment. “It’s a very important point for us. We’ve got a wide range of colours, so the patients can individualise their product and the surface quality itself increases a lot through the process of compaction of the surface which makes the surface much smoother and therefore less susceptible to dirt, which is quite important for our device which is worn on the skin, on the body.”

In this article, there are around 4,500 characters – each of them the result of movement by hand and finger. And that doesn’t factor in the myriad head scratches, chin strokes and pats of my four-legged assistant that occurred in the process. For a variety of unfortunate reasons – such as neurological diseases and accidents – many people lose the capacity to move their hands. Temporarily, Hepp was one of those people after a road traffic collision. But the exomotion hand developed by his company is seeking to address such conditions. Hepp, the co-founder and CEO of HKK Bionics, describes it as a kind of ‘Iron Man glove, but a boring one without shooting.’ Of course, there’s really nothing boring about it. The orthotic device is worn over a patient’s paralysed hand and is controlled by an electromyography sensor which detects muscle movements in their arm, wrist or hand to enable them to open and close the exomotion hand. HKK Bionics set out on its mission to provide solutions to those suffering with hand paralysis without amputation in 2017, around the same time that DyeMansion was introducing its Print-toProduct workﬂow of cleaning, surfacing

Hepp founded HKK Bionics in 2017 alongside his fellow Ulm University Medical Engineering alumnus Tobias Knobloch. The motorised glove they developed together consists of exo mechanics, artificial tendons, a silicon glove, a splint, a display and a sensor. It had been designed to be lightweight, comfortable and patient-specific, meaning quantities of one had to be feasible, and thus Selective Laser Sintering pursued.

HKK first 3D scans the hand of the patient to collect data that is then used to model an individualised exomotion hand in its proprietary software before service provider Teufel Prototypen takes care of the additive manufacturing of the device. The device, which weighs just 600 grams, is then cleaned of excess powder with DyeMansion’s PowerShot C machine, treated in the Powershot S with PolyShot Surfacing technology to provide a matteglossy and scratch-resistant surface and then coloured in a shade of the patient’s choice in the DM60 platform. At this point, an assembly set is delivered to the orthopaedic technician consisting of the individual brace and a range of standard parts that fit together to create the exomotion hand. By leveraging 3D printing and DyeMansion’s post-processing suite, HKK Bionics is able to deliver a resilient orthotic device that is designed to the patient’s specific anatomy, is biocompatible and is produced in the favoured colour of the wearer. “All this together helps us to get a product which is really shaped on the patients’ anatomy and producing this with acceptable costs. Having it produced with [DyeMansion’s post-processing] technology, we [also pass] biocompatibility tests for medical products,” Hepp said. “As we started this, it was about the same time that DyeMansion technology came up on the market. Perhaps if this technology wouldn’t have been on the market, the [exomotion hand] product would be looking another way, I can’t say. We saw the possibilities it gave us and that definitely was an inﬂuence in our development.”

SHOWN: HKK BIONICS' EXOMOTION HAND

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3D PRINTING & ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING INTELLIGENCE

8 9 JUNE 2022 NEC, Birmingham, UK

Evaluate. Adopt. Optimise. Analyse the opportunity Discover your application Learn from user success stories Understand capabilities and limitations Choose the right solution Optimise existing technology Consider enterprise adoption Ensure return on investment

With more than 80 speakers and 150 exhibitors, discover your additive strategy at TCT 3Sixty.

TCT Awards

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…

he finalists for this year’s TCT Awards have been revealed and we’re gearing up to celebrate the AM industry’s leading hardware, software, materials and post-processing suppliers, as well as users across aerospace, automotive, healthcare and more. Winners within the 11 categories will be selected by the esteemed TCT Expert Advisory Board, made up of a host of 3D printing technology and industry

TCT Aerospace Application Award AlbaPod v2 deployer, Tech lead: CRP Technology, End user: Alba Orbital Avionics Heat Exchanger, Tech lead: Advanced Engineering Solutions Safran BizJet Landing Gear, Tech lead: SLM Solutions, End user: Safran TCT Consumer Product Award – sponsored by Laser Lines Blackland Razors – The Era, Tech lead: 3DEO, End user: Blackland Razors Cobra Golf Putter, Tech lead: HP, End user: Cobra Golf, Partners: Parmatech Mishima Lounge Chair, Tech lead: AREVO, End user: Mishima Superstrata Bike, Tech lead: AREVO, End user: Superstrata TCT Creative Application Award Garuda Acoustic Sculpture, Tech lead: FIT, End user: Peter Lang Gravity Industries eSuit, Tech lead: Ricoh 3D, End user: Gravity Industries HeartBeatDress, Tech lead: Shapeways, End user: Anouk Wipprecht, Partners: Swarovski; BIOPAC Imaginarium Diamond Ring, Tech lead: Imaginarium, End user: The Diamond Store by Chandubl, Partners: Rapidshape LEGO_Go-Kart, Tech lead: Polymaker, End user: Matt Denton Phygital Icon, Tech lead: Stratasys, End user: BMW, Partners: nTopology TCT Hardware Award – Non-polymer systems AL3D-METAL, Tech lead: AlphaLaser Dual Wire LMD, Tech lead: Meltio Forust, Tech lead: Desktop Metal MetalFABG2, Tech lead: Additive Industries NXG XII 600, Tech lead: SLM Solutions REAL DED Head, Tech lead: Prima Additive RoboWAAM, Tech lead: WAAM3D TCT Software Award Artec Studio 16, Tech lead: Artec 3D Carbon Design Engine, Tech lead: Carbon ELISE, Tech lead: ELISE, End user: EDAG Engineering Fixie, Tech lead: Fixie SmartSlice, Tech lead: Teton Simulation TOffeeAM, Tech lead: TOffeeAM, End user: Rolls Royce

experts, and recognised on June 8th during a formal awards ceremony hosted by television presenter and tech enthusiast Jason Bradbury at Hilton Birmingham Metropole. Other highlights of the evening include the latest inductions into the TCT Hall of Fame and the TCT Women in 3D Printing Innovator Award.

Take a look at the finalists below and book your tickets now: www.tctawards.com

AWARDS

TCT Hardware Award – Polymer systems Cerion, Tech lead: Cubicure Digital Composite Manufacturing, Tech lead: Fortify E3D Revo, Tech lead: E3D Form 3+, Tech lead: Formlabs H350 – SAF Technology, Tech lead: Stratasys Hybrid Photosynthesis, Tech lead: Axtra3D LSAM Auto Temperature Monitor, Tech lead: Thermwood MASSIVIT 10000, Tech lead: Massivit 3D microArch S230, Tech lead: Boston Micro Fabrication Pulsar Extruder, Tech lead: Dyze Design XiP, Tech lead: Nexa3D

TCT Industrial Product Application Award ASRS Custom parts trays, Tech lead: 3D Platform; BCN3D, End user: Applied Cobotics Bee Hero Smart Hives, Tech lead: Shapeways, End user: Bee Hero C-Block, Tech lead: COLD PAD, End user: EDF, Partners: ARKEMA; ERPRO Ice Cream Extrusion Nozzle, Tech lead: Teknologisk Institut, End user: Tetra Pak Modular Grooving System, Tech lead: SLM Solutions, End user: Burgmaier AM, Partners: ZCC Cutting Tools Modular Mold Set, Carbon; Nexa3D, End user: PepsiCo, Partners: Blow Moulding Technologies; Plastic Technologies Inc Scaffold Coupler, Tech lead: Luma-ID, End user: Structemp

TCT Healthcare Application Award sponsored by Apium ABCD reconstructive solutions, Tech lead: Apium Additive, End user: Lucid Implants, Partners: Dassault Systèmes Equinoxe Stemless Humeral Cage, Tech lead: 3D Systems, End user: Exactech Hemocompatible applicator for cancer treatment, Tech lead: BURMS, End user: Womed, Partners: pro3dure ICU COVID-19 ventilator valves, Tech lead: 3D Systems, End user: Lonati, Partners: Isinnova Lattice dental implant bar, Tech lead: Renishaw, End user: ADEISS, Partners: Schulich School, Western University NHS Knee Alignment Device, Tech lead: Ricoh 3D, End user: ORLAU, Partners: HP Personalised Anticancer Polypills, Tech lead: FabRx, End user: Institut Gustave Roussy SKOP Stethoscope, Tech lead: Nexa3D, End user: WeMed, Partners: Third; Henkel

TCT Post-Processing Award CCP-2 – Clean, Color, Polish, Tech lead: AM Efficiency CFIP Technology, Tech lead: Reinforce3D, End user: Airbus; Delbella; Asics; HP, Partners: Eurocat; BeAble Capital MARS 03 + STAR 02, Tech lead: Addiblast SFP770 – Automated depowdering, Tech lead: Solukon E-Blast surface finishing, Tech lead: GPAInnova TCT Transport Application Award Automotive after-market components, Tech lead: Aira Technology, End user: Induction Technology Group Chaos Ultracar – Ceramic Piston, Tech lead: XJet, End user: Spyros Panopoulos Automotive, Partners: Lino 3D Lightweighted Brake Manifold, Tech lead: SLM Solutions, End user: Wabtec VW Tiguan tooling nozzle, Tech lead: Additive Industries, End user: Volkswagen

TCT Materials Award 4Degra, Tech lead: 4D Biomaterials, Partners: University of Birmingham 6K Additive refractory powders, Tech lead: 6K Additive, End user: Quadrus Equispheres Aluminium Powder, Tech lead: Equispheres, End user: Aconity3D Fortify TCDR, Tech lead: Fortify Helios PEEK 2005, Tech lead: Roboze Specialis, Tech lead: Rosswag Engineering

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WHAT’S DRIVING AM ADOPTION? T WORDS: Laura Griffiths

he medley of machines, applications, materials, software tools – and confusing acronyms for good measure – can make the task of building a business case for additive manufacturing (AM) feel daunting. It’s why we created TCT 3Sixty’s Evaluation, Adoption and Optimisation framework to help our community identify their place on the AM adoption curve and access the relevant information. Recent reports from market intelligence specialist CONTEXT and 3D printer manufacturers MakerBot and Formlabs each suggest renewed interest in AM technology, meaning there are likely more users than ever before locating themselves somewhere on the middle of that curve. So how did they get there? In a survey published by desktop 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot, over the last year, prototyping and concept modeling were, as perhaps expected, still found to represent the majority of use cases for respondents. Yet, one of the most significant takeaways was the number of users who are utilising machines, in some cases multiple, in-house. Over three-quarters of respondents stated that they have at least one 3D printer in-house, with 29% using them daily. What’s more, the report found that 84% of respondents who invested in 2021 also plan to purchase more equipment, materials, and accessories throughout this year.

“Respondents see the benefits of using 3D printing to accelerate their design and production processes,” MakerBot’s CEO and President Nadav Goshen told TCT. “As a result, they are citing continued interest in adding more printers to their collection, exploring new materials, and expanding their applications with 3D printing whether that's for prototyping, tooling, or production parts.” While just 5% of those asked claimed to be using 3D printing for mass production, applications in R&D, tooling, and replacement parts were said to be on the

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rise. Throughout the pandemic CONTEXT reported a rise in desktop machine sales as a result of work-from-home scenarios, which MakerBot reacted to with the launch of its CloudPrint software to enable more streamlined remote working and the increase in capabilities for its industrial yet accessible METHOD printer. While offices were closed and supply chains were down, 3D printing came to the fore.

“The pandemic highlighted some of the flaws of traditional supply chains,” Goshen said, reflecting on the increase. “Shortages in healthcare products led to a surge in on-demand production using 3D printing. By integrating 3D printing, companies gained greater flexibility to minimise potential supply chain delays by increasing local production. With immediate access to a digital inventory of part designs, replacement or custom components can be produced or iterated upon as often or quickly as needed with little to no additional cost. On-demand 3D printing for prototyping and part production enables manufacturing

ﬂexibility and reduces reliance on traditional supply channels.” EARLY ADOPTERS VS. RECENT ADOPTERS As detailed in our last issue, the pandemic brought more attention to 3D printing’s unique advantages: the ability to reduce inventory with localised on-demand manufacture, create tooling to mitigate long lead times and augment manufacturing lines with rapidly produced jigs and fixtures. Formlabs’ report emphasises that AM’s sweet spot remains in rapid prototyping and model making but the company, which

business case

manufactures desktop SLA systems and launched its first benchtop SLS machine last year, also claimed that it’s seeing a trend from more recent adopters who are using the technology for small-batch production and end-use parts. “Beyond prototyping, 3D printing enables the on-demand creation of custom, on-demand parts to add ﬂexibility to manufacturing processes,” Juliette Combe, Applications Engineer, Formlabs, told TCT. “For example, 3D printed manufacturing aids, like jigs and fixtures, are very easy to adopt and already one of the most common applications in the industry. 3D printed rapid tooling, like injection moulds and forming dies, are also a quickly growing use case but one that requires slightly more education for companies that still rely on traditional manufacturing methods for these applications.” In fact, Formlabs’ results show that recent adopters are moving into these kinds of applications much faster. New adopters were found to be almost twice as likely to frequently print end-use parts compared to early adopters, and 60% are deploying its technology for rapid tooling compared to just 30% of early adopters.

“As manufacturers continue to see the durability, variety, and ﬂexibility of 3D printed manufacturing tools, they will gain confidence in more advanced applications like end parts for consumers," Combe continued. "In fact, we’re already seeing that recent adopters of 3D printing are using technology differently, for different reasons, and are planning relatively large investments moving forward. Of those who have already deployed 3D printing, 76% agree that 3D printing will change product design, 72% agree 3D printing will allow for custom manufacturing tools, and 71% predict 3D printing will become a staple in manufacturing and engineering departments. The pace of investment in 3D printing is growing and manufacturing tools remain a strong initial use case for incorporating 3D printing into manufacturing processes.” IN-HOUSE OR OUTSOURCE? Another route to AM adoption is through use of a service bureau. New York-based MakeLab, which operates a ﬂeet of machines including Formlabs Form 3s, has worked with brands from Quip to Silvercup Studios, and MakeLab co-founder Christina Perla believes positive AM application stories in the media are inspiring potential adopters to “take another peak at AM.” “We’ve seen an increase in interest evolve as the conversations evolve in the mainstream about AM production use cases,” Perla told TCT. “I still see use case validation being the most grey area. There’s an interest, but not the most trust when it comes to production.” Perla notes heightened conversation around challenges such as standardisation, which will help to build that trust for newcomers,and adds that the introduction of “more industrial equipment and materials” at MakeLab will ultimately open up more opportunities for functional prototyping and production use cases. While prototyping remains king and ‘low hanging fruit’ applications on the manufacturing line have proven to be an ideal, low-risk introduction to the technology, Formlabs’ report also cites an all too familiar hurdle that new adopters face: finding

“The pace of investment is growing.”

the right application. Of current nonusers, half claim “lack of use cases” as their biggest adoption challenge, while just under a third of recent adopters cited the same reason for why they may not invest further in the technology. More education is needed around where additive makes sense and the advantages it can afford over traditional means. Figures from Formlabs’ report show 57% responders agreed or strongly agreed that their internal 3D printing capabilities are helping to solve supply chain issues, while further global challenges, such as sustainability, which 70% of recent adopters cite as a significant or very significant benefit of AM, so that understanding is certainly coming through. For those newcomers, Perla adds the following advice. “The one thing we did from the very beginning of MakeLab - without realising we really wanted to do the scalable tech thing - was build for profitability and scalability. We inherently built systems surrounding those concepts from the get-go, allowing for easy growth and scalability at this point in time. It started as a simple mind shift to simple workplace workarounds, and then now is digitising into an IP-enabled solution. “No matter whether you’re building a business revolving around the tech, or you’re utilising the tech for prototyping or production use cases, you really want to be conscious of the cost factors as well as workﬂow. Workﬂow bleeds into supply chain, and you most definitely want to make sure that is reliable and scalable.”

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HOW BURLOAK’S EARLY BELIEF IN ADDITIVE PAID OFF Laura speaks to Samuel, Son & Co.’s CEO Colin Osborne (CO) about Burloak Technologies' expansion, certification & scaling AM. TCT: When Burloak’s acquisition by Samuel was confirmed, you commented, "our early belief in the transformative potential of AM is paying off.” Why were you confident in the technology so early on? CO: I come from an engineering and metallurgy background and have spent my life in manufacturing – car parts, air parts, every sort of manufacturing you can think of. I joined Samuel in 2015. At 165 years old, and with 15 different businesses, Samuel is very uniquely positioned to identify opportunities for manufacturing innovation because we make so many different things. We manufacture everything from tubing for engines to pressure vessels, to extrusions for solar panels and service about 15,000 customers ranging from big OEMs like Boeing or Tesla or GM, to mom-and-pop machine shops. The common theme in all that we do is metal. When we first started looking at additive manufacturing, we realised that we could produce innovative metal parts that can't be produced any other way. We realised that we could produce parts 70% lighter and two times stronger. And we saw that it [could] completely disrupt the supply chain. We certainly didn't have all the answers, but I think we had a high degree of confidence that this was going to become a mainstream process just like casting or forming or extruding. TCT: You opened a second AM facility last summer. Can you talk about the growth that led to this milestone? CO: As you keep expanding and winning new customers, you have to expand your capabilities. While we have an excellent facility in Canada that provides end-

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to-end additive solutions for many customers, adding a second facility in California helps us expand our footprint so we can serve even more customers. It also allows us to address any sensitivity due to the nature of the work we’re doing, which requires production take place in the country where the customer is located. This obviously includes defence-related work, which is extremely proprietary and requires compliance with ITAR and government requirements that isn’t conducive to going across borders. Between these drivers, controlled goods legislation and NIST legislation, we knew that for most of our U.S. customers, we would eventually have to produce in-country. From a growth perspective, in addition to having an economy as big as Canada’s, California is also a major hub for space and aerospace. Now we have existing and prospective customers only a two-to-three-hour drive from our facility that we can engage with. TCT: You’ve spoken about challenges around scaling AM. How is Burloak addressing those obstacles? CO: What's neat to me about Burloak and Samuel is our ability to help customers scale. You may have this incredible technology leader that can go from blue sky concept to proof of a commercially viable product but when they need to go from a prototype to producing 2,000 or 5,000 units a month, they don’t know how to do that. I think people underestimate the difficulty of going from small scale to large scale. The beauty of our partnerships with customers is that we can help them in the early stages of design and prototyping for AM, and

SHOWN: SAMUEL, SON & CO. CEO COLIN OSBORNE

EXECUTIVE Q&A

SHOWN: BURLOAK RECENTLY EXPANDED ITS AM FOOTPRINT IN THE U.S.

when they need to scale up, we also have the systems, and infrastructure and knowledge to do that. In fact, we do this with major OEMs for thousands upon thousands of parts every day.

“We had a high degree of conﬁdence that this was going to become a mainstream process.” SHOWN: END-TO-END AM SOLUTIONS

TCT: Burloak was approved as a metal AM supplier to Boeing last year. We know certification is a challenge in AM. Can you talk about how you achieved this? CO: Even before Samuel acquired it, Burloak was staffed with many aerospace people. Our founder was an aerospace engineer, and I would say at least half of the people in our shop were PhDs who had spent much of their life in the aerospace industry. Our very deep understanding of manufacturing for aerospace was very valuable when it came to certification. I empathise with companies that have not been in aerospace and then decide to get into the industry and suddenly have to face the certification process. It is a very, very difficult process and it needs to be because of ﬂight safety. For us, it took 18 months to get that one [The Boeing Company] BAC 5673 certification for aluminium with multiple rounds of testing on multiple pieces of equipment. In aerospace, every piece of equipment is certified by serial number, so even if you are certifying identical machines, they require separate certification processes. It's a long, expensive process. Fortunately for us, both within Samuel and Burloak, we have significant experience with aerospace. TCT: You’ve previously commented that this “represents a step forward on the path to a greener future for aviation.” Can you elaborate? CO: From an environmental perspective, the first reason additive is so compelling for aviation is you can produce a part that's as strong or stronger while also being much lighter. This means you can achieve immediate fuel savings,

and in turn, an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The second reason, which doesn't get as much press, is a reduction in the supply chain complexity required to manufacture metal parts. This is true with parts for planes, cars, trucks, and anything else you can make out of metal. Our supply chain today involves buying metal from 70 countries around the world. I look at the supply chain of somebody casting something in Germany or Indonesia, then shipping it over to me, I cut it into a plate. The plate is then machined, and the parts get heat treated. After that, somebody rivets something onto it before it is delivered to whoever is responsible for putting the part onto a car or a bus. I look at the thousands of miles that part travelled and the yield loss which is often 80-90% and compare it to what happens with AM – taking powder and printing that part locally, as required. When you think of all the greenhouse gas, fuel and yield loss associated with getting a traditionally manufactured, finished component into a plane or vehicle compared with the AM process there is an incredible difference. All you really do is have to get powder to the printers. TCT: The last two years have been challenging for aerospace. How has Burloak navigated that? CO: We've been lucky. We never had a drop in workload and in fact, we've increased staff through that period. We have felt the challenges, but not in the way you might think. There are a few reasons for this. Two and a half years ago, the majority of our work was aerospace related. Every single customer that we were working with, we kept working with, although the momentum certainly slowed. Fortunately, while the aerospace sector went through its slowdown, the space industry really evolved. More satellites are planned for launch in the next two to three years, than in our entire history. This certainly increased demand for us. During this time period we also consciously tried to do more outreach with customers, especially those in automotive and energy who have great potential applications for additive but didn’t fully understand the business case.

Read in full: mytct.co/BurloakQA

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Expert Column

MITIGATING SUPPLY CHAIN RISK T

WORDS: Oliver Smith, Rethink Additive

oday, every transaction and operation, product and service, customer and supplier is global. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the many existing vulnerabilities of global supply chains to the forefront and many of these are known to business leaders; stock-outs, suppliers going under, huge commodity price ﬂuctuations. So, if businesses are aware of these risks and have a suite of supply management tools and techniques to mitigate them, why did so many struggle or collapse through the pandemic?

The pandemic demonstrated that organisations are ill-equipped to manage macro-level events, or “Black Swan” events, that impact entire supply chains. As Donald Rumsfeld stated, there are unknown unknowns, events that we can neither predict what they will be or when they will occur. McKinsey’s Global Institute has indeed attempted to predict these unknowns, with their research estimating catastrophic supply chain shocks occurring once every 3.7 years and set to increase in occurrence. Throughout the pandemic, 3D printing emerged as a solution for pro-active businesses to secure their operations in the face of these unknown shocks. Amid the chaos, manufacturers, suppliers and OEMS looked to 3D printing as an ad-hoc, rapidresponse solution to provide on-site and immediate components, tools and even production equipment spares to keep critical processes moving and get critical products out the door.

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As we move into a world where business leaders are now painfully aware of the weak links in their supply chain, organisations need to proactively develop supply chain strategies that take advantage of 3D printing to reduce future risk from geographic disruption, demand ﬂuctuations and improve their speed of response. The first step is for businesses not to replace their production processes with 3D printing but use it as a means of supporting existing shop ﬂoor operations and increasing efficiency of existing capital equipment.

For the most part, high volume parts have comparatively lower per-part value, making 3D printing an uneconomical solution in most instances. However, 3D printing is adept at supporting traditional medium-to-high volume production methods by printing tooling that is simultaneously more functional, lower cost and more accessible. Many manufacturers use 3D printing for jigs and fixtures, but applications can go beyond that: specialised tooling, job aids, moulds for direct production, and machine service parts. The advantage of switching to a digital, print-on-demand inventory of shopﬂoor parts has multiple benefits. The first being a low-risk, low-investment strategy for businesses looking to investigate and adopt 3D printing; many sub-10K USD Vat Polymer and Material Extrusion printers are more than capable of producing functional jigs, fixtures and tooling with impressive mechanical properties, most notably high HDT and ESD qualities. Primarily, it decouples you from tooling suppliers, allowing you to maintain shop ﬂoor operations independently of the health of your suppliers.

An alternative strategy is “dual manufacturing”, where a part is designed and qualified for multiple manufacturing processes, one efficient at high volumes such as casting or moulding, and another efficient at lower volumes such as 3D printing or machining.

This duality in design enables far more agility and efficiency in the deployment of production capacity and allows manufacturers to respond both rapidly and economically to fluctuations in demand where 3D printing can augment traditional production capacity and produce overflow of parts until demand is sufficient to justify investment in further conventional capital equipment such as injection moulding. The ultimate insurance against supply chain disruption is to decouple a business from fixed capacity and established manufacturing centres entirely. 3D printing as a tool-less, digitally driven, on-demand production process eliminates this final constraint and allows for hyperagile and responsive production of parts via a distributed production network, either owned and operated by the business or via third party capacity, or a mix of both. This strategy is the most significant in terms of investment and organisational management, however as 3D printing service bureaus and contract manufacturers become increasingly networked, the ability for manufacturers large and small to begin migrating specific high-value, slow-moving inventory, as well as critical part inventories, over to a cloudbased, distributed network of 3D printing bureaus will become progressively more accessible. Moving away from traditional modes of production and supply chain configuration towards a more lean and agile mode employing modern manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing is a significant undertaking for any business, and demands buy-in, support and resourcing from every facet of the organisation, from the C-suite to the shop floor operators. But as the previous three years have shown us, whilst the prospect of integrating new technologies to ward off supply chain disruption may be daunting, the risk of not doing so can well be catastrophic.

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TCT Europe 30.2

Articles inside

MITIGATING SUPPLY CHAIN RISK

ALIF OF COMFORT

AND THE NOMINEES ARE

WHAT’S DRIVING AM ADOPTION?

CUSTOM CARE

HEALTHY GROWTH

HOW BURLOAK’S EARLY BELIEF IN AM PAID OFF

PACKS A PUNCH

RIGHT TO RE-PRINT