Manufacturing businesses are implementing 3D printers into their workflows across industries and sectors. From high-performance aerospace and automotive components to consumer products, additive manufacturing helps shrink development time and unlocks new opportunities. 3D printing can benefit every manufacturer regardless of the application.

Acquiring spare parts and functional components fast is vital for keeping workshops and factories running. If machines break, you can’t afford to wait weeks to get the parts you need.

Additive engineering & manufacturing enables manufacturers and engineers to produce parts in-house. The additive nature of 3D printers can reduce material waste and lower part cost, while also opening the door for using improved part structures and materials.

Additionally, 3D printing can drastically shorten lead times — or eliminate them completely. Instead of waiting around for parts to deliver, all you have to do is walk to the printer and pluck them off the printing bed.

Global brewing company Heineken’s plant in Seville, Spain, produces 500 million litres of beer annually. In their quest to improve efficiency and productivity, Heineken introduced Ultimaker S5 3D printers to the plant.

The company now prints spare machinery components and tools that were difficult to source from traditional manufacturers. As a result, Heineken has reduced both part costs and delivery times by 70-90%.

“3D printing has proven to be a technology that helps us, brings value to us, and enables our people to work more efficiently,” said Juan Padilla González, packaging manager at the Heineken Seville plant.

Product design can be a time-consuming process and every bit of time saved is valuable. The faster you plough through design iterations, the faster you can get your product to the market and start seeing a return on your investment.

For a long time, 3D printing was simply known as “rapid prototyping” — and for a good reason. 3D printers can manufacture parts in a matter of hours at a very lower cost. Manufacturers can complete multiple design modifications per day and complete the design process faster and cheaper.

Additionally, certain 3D printing technologies — like SLA printers — manufacture parts with extremely fine details. You can produce prototypes with true-to-life dimensions and surface textures, and get a better idea of the final product.

Albatross Bikes is an American company manufacturing bespoke bicycles and bike frames. To help the business design parts faster, founder Will Hilgenberg turned to Formlabs SLA 3D printers and Draft Resin.

Thanks to the 3D printers and Formlabs’ V2 Draft Resin, Albatross Bikes is able to create and iterate on a design several times in one day. Compared to their previous methods, they are seeing printing speed improvements of 73%.

“We recommend looking at 3D printing not as a substitute for traditional subtractive methods, but to rethink the entire design and production process to leverage quick part turnaround, ease of use, and flexibility of additive production methods,” said Hilgenberg.

Although additive manufacturing is often called a replacement for traditional methods, they don’t need to be rivals. 3D printers can work hand in hand with conventional manufacturing to improve processes and reduce costs.

With 3D printers, it’s possible to quickly manufacture customized parts, tools, and guides for traditional manufacturing machines. Compared to ordering these parts from third parties, your business can realise significant cost and time savings.

Additionally, 3D printing is a fantastic method for creating master models for casting or moulding. In this way, 3D printers can support metal casting or injection moulding operations.

Dlimit is a Spanish manufacturer of queue management devices, such as barriers, cones, and roll-up belts. Searching for an efficient solution for custom tooling, they found what they needed in BCN3D 3D printers.

“With additive manufacturing, we fabricate jigs and fixtures, such as the pieces we use to mechanise the parts that come from our plastic injection moulds,” explained Clara Bazán, Dlimit global production manager.

According to Bazán, 3D printing has helped the company become more agile and efficient. They can now get tools within 24 hours and have reduced costs by 200 euros (£169) per piece.

3D printers can produce parts quickly and efficiently, but you need an accurate 3D model before you can print anything. With 3D scanners, engineers can quickly digitise complex objects with unparalleled accuracy.

3D scanning a part enables engineers to quickly and easily make modifications to it using CAD software. The 3D model opens a smooth path to getting accurate measurements for additional components or quality assurance.

Scanning can also enable the production of obsolete and out-of-production spare parts. Scanning even broken components lets you fix them in 3D modelling software and print parts that may have been unavailable for decades.

Scandinavian plastic blow moulding firm Blowtech Group produces consumer products and high-performance parts from plastics. The company was struggling to accurately measure their products for quality inspection.

Thanks to Creaform 3D scanners, Blowtech has resolved its problems. By 3D scanning their product, the company can adjust the models immediately and produce a new prototype. As a result, they have made this process 50% faster.