ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING is the magazine devoted to industrial applications of 3D printing and digital layering technology. We cover the promise and the challenges of this technology for making functional tooling and end-use production parts.
Issue link: https://am.epubxp.com/i/667993
MAY 2016 Additive Manufacturing FEATURE / Deployment Strategy 28 design of this part is unchanged, simplifying the supply chain and reducing the minimum order quantity together promise to dramatically reduce the cost of this part's management and handling. This kind of impact makes AM diferent from an advance in some established manufacturing operation, she says. It makes it diferent from an advance in an operation such as, say, welding. "With welding, we know where we perform this operation, and we know where an advance in welding technology ought to be tested and used," she says. Something similar is not true of AM, and making any early assumption about where this option ought to be used risks bottling up the technology. For example, the machining group might use AM to make fxtures and design- ers might use it to make prototypes. Both applications are valid, but either group would naturally emphasize one application without pushing the possibilities of the other. In fact, various parts of the company have been using various types of 3D print- ers since the early '90s, she says. The aim of a separate additive manufacturing facility today is to take the next step, centralizing AM expertise and capability so that it can act as a hub to connect with every part of the company that might beneft. That is why the new facility is more accurately described as a factory than a lab, she says. Real parts are made here, whether pro- totypes, aftermarket components or (eventually) production parts. Technically, it's an R&D; facility, but as Caterpillar's Schmidt likes to say, "We think of the work in our group as little r, big D." Outreach Schmidt is an additive manufacturing engineer who is also part of the new facility's team and helps carry out its mission. Signifcant- ly, though, he is not based in Peoria; he works from an ofce in Ohio and spends much of his time traveling to other facilities in the company, looking for additive manufacturing opportunities there. Other engineers knowledgeable about AM often travel to other sites for the same reason. Schmidt returns to the Additive Manufacturing Factory frequently, and he coordinates with per- sonnel there remotely. A routine part of his job is leading AM training, he says. A component of this training is evangelizing—encouraging engi- neers to see that additive both permits and requires new ways of thinking. His training can range from 1-hour webinars on topics in AM to multi-day seminars. He recently returned from leading a two-day seminar for staf in Germany. He says more and more of the people in engineering roles throughout the company understand the nature of 3D printing and roughly what promise it holds. His training generally begins one step past that. "I get into the seven or eight diferent types of 3D printing processes, and the diferent strengths and limitations they all have," he says. This is new information for many, who until then might not have realized that "3D printing" describes a set of diferent processes rather than a single generic operation. Caterpillar currently uses all of these processes, including 3D printing in sand, a capability recently purchased for the company's foundry in Mapleton, Illinois. How to design for additive comes next in Schmidt's instruction. In this area as well, the possibilities go beyond what many expect. The chance for AM to produce elab- orate forms that can't be manufactured any other way is well known, and in the future, Caterpillar will increasingly make use of that freedom. But Schmidt also stresses the ease of experimenting with multiple designs. For example, since sand printing allows foundry molds to be produced without any pattern, why not make many slightly Additive manufacturing will advance in various ways before it can be a production resource for Caterpillar, says Joe Taylor. For machines making metal parts, speed will need to increase and powder metal cost will need to decline. The company realizes value from AM today while it gets ready for changes such as these to come.