Additive Manufacturing – The BGSW approach to realizing value in industrial production
What would you do if you have a machine part unexpectedly break down during production? Such uncertainties would also lead to maintaining a large inventory of indirect parts, which are typically imported. What if product development teams wanted to quickly prototype parts for integration or validation trials?
The solution to these problems is Additive Manufacturing (AM), a smart digital approach to industrial production. This cutting-edge technology leverages computer aided design (CAD) models and sophisticated 3D Printing techniques to create close-to-finished parts from raw materials.
As opposed to conventional manufacturing procedures, the components are “additively” printed in layers to form a finished (sometimes assembled) part in additive manufacturing. This method allows for printing extremely complex designs (e.g., lattice structure, multi-scale designs, material combinations etc.), which would otherwise be a challenge with conventional manufacturing processes.
At BGSW, the AM Center of Excellence (CoE) together with Center of Competence (CoC) Plastics - India, have been able to leverage the potential of AM and expertise on polymers to achieve robust solutions for high performance, durability and superior economic value. We have accomplished this by focusing on both Design For Manufacturing (DFM) and Design For Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) in order to design/redesign metal or plastic components This entails analyzing technical risks that could arise in designs and processes using virtual simulations such as structural Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), AM process optimization or mold-flow simulations. Based on the analysis, solutions are devised through topological and weight optimization, component consolidation or optimized thermal management.
The team of experts at CoC Plastics IN team additionally provide consultancy on design concepts by enabling the AM team to arrive at proto samples, develop core & cavity (hybrid AM) for injection molding of plastic samples as well as develop new, sustainable materials for AM together with a strong network of material suppliers. The team also has extensive expertise in analyzing the root-cause of failures in polymers, which pose more challenges compared to metals.
The team has already been spear-heading AM implementation within Bosch plants with a focus on localizing indirect parts. One such use case is where the AM approach has clearly helped the manufacturing operations team to implement efficient 3D printed work-piece carriers in the conveyors at the Bosch Bidadi Plant (BidP). The parts were redesigned by the BGSW team, using the DFAM approach, thereby increasing life, reducing costs, achieving parts localization and improving overall operational efficiency of the line.
“The overall weight of the part was reduced by almost 59%, with a final cost reduction per part of close to 20%. The key advantage is that the lead time to localize is reduced by 60% and the work-piece carrier’s wear-pad life has improved multifold. This has eventually made the part maintenance-free. We are now also looking at replicating this approach and success in other product lines at our plant with the help of BGSW’s AM capabilities” says Mr. Bhaskar Rai, Deputy General Manager, Value Stream Owner and a key user who has been instrumental in adopting AM at BidP.