John Dulchinos is Jabil’s VP of 3D printing and digital manufacturing. Describing the company’s view of AM, he says, “We’re in this for the long haul. And we’re in early because we see that it will be transformative.”
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What will additive manufacturing (AM) mean for an established international manufacturing solutions provider? Jabil, one of the world’s largest contract manufacturers, produces parts and products for well-known OEMs across various industries. It runs about 15,000 CNC machine tools and 4,000 injection molding machines in sites around the globe, and now has invested to add additive manufacturing capacity as an additional production resource at various locations. The company has also opened a new Materials Innovation Center in Minnesota dedicated to developing materials for AM, to support the volume and variety of production AM the company expects to do.
I recently spoke with John Dulchinos, Jabil’s VP of digital manufacturing, for his view on what additive manufacturing means today and will mean for the future of the company.
Dulchinos: A great example is production we’re running in Singapore. We have the assembly operation for one of our customer’s products upstairs, and we’re 3D printing parts that go into it downstairs, printing them for the assembly line as needed. So it’s a tight supply chain. We expect to do a lot of that: make production parts not necessarily to get shipped as parts, but to be assembled into other products. When we run this way, basically there are no shipping costs, no packaging costs, no shipping time for the component parts — we just take them off the printers and put them into assembly. Instead of building to inventory, we build to production. It’s a more elegant way to produce.
Dulchinos: We’re in a great spot, because the 3D-printing-focused companies tend to have a single motivation, which is to produce a 3D-printed part. In Jabil’s case, we are a very large molder and a very large metalworking operation, so we really don’t care, fundamentally, which processes a job needs. To us, 3D printing’s just another tool in our toolbox. It allows us to deliver a different manufacturing solution for a customer. Where this capability makes sense, we can use it to provide a lot more design freedom. We can give the ability to produce products without tooling, and to consolidate assemblies into single parts. All those things are advantages that 3D printing has over conventional processes.
Dulchinos: Today, the economics are not as advantageous to scale as traditional manufacturing processes. But it’s likely there will be some kind of Moore’s Law with 3D printing letting it get better every year by a steady multiple. I think we’re seeing exactly that. It used to be a breakeven point for 3D printing was in hundreds of parts, then thousands of parts, now tens of thousands of parts, and on from there. We’re in this for the long haul. And we’re in early because we see that it will be transformative.
Dulchinos: The real balance that we bring relates to how there isn’t a well-established supply chain for additive. To really take advantage of 3D printing as a tool, you need to leverage the design freedom. If you don’t design for 3D printing, it’s going to be hard to justify it. But engineers aren’t ready to design for it because they don’t trust the supply chain. And they don’t have a deep understanding of the allowables that 3D printing provides. So we’re all about how to qualify it, how to certify the manufacturing process is solid, repeatable and trusted. There’s a lot of work we’ve been doing to take what is still a relatively immature technology and develop the process rigor and the qualifications around it so we can trust what comes out the back end.
Dulchinos: In the case of polymers, AM right now is not like injection molding. Take nylon: There must be hundreds or thousands of different derivations in conventional manufacturing. In 3D printing, there are probably three or four. So we developed the Materials Innovation Center in Minnesota to allow us to do all those iterative versions of materials at a fast pace, turning out a new material within two or three weeks. In Minnesota, we can start with beakers and flasks and chemistry sets on one end and get filament and powder on the other end, all within one environment. We have all the characterization and we have all the development labs. We can go end to end in the development of the specialty materials, allowing us to serve our customer at a fast pace.
Dulchinos: Materials are one of the biggest shortcomings right now in industry’s use of 3D printing. So we kicked off establishing this facility last year. We stood up a complete greenfield operation in a 15-month period. Getting all the equipment in, hiring people, getting the building finished, getting all the processes done, getting the facility certified to ISO — it’s remarkable. And with the capabilities that are in here, this is maybe one of a few facilities like this in the entire world around additive. There are many steps to get from a formulation to a finished product; the real advantage we have is we’ve integrated all that under one roof. Normally you would do a process step by sending it out and having somebody do something to it and getting it back. Then I need to analyze it, make some changes, send it back out and it’s a very iterative process. We can do that all in-house — we have all the characterization in-house, we have all the chemical processing in-house. So we do a derivative, take it down the hall, do the testing, come back and make a change, go back. We can go through the process so much faster than you would in a traditional way.
Dulchinos: It’s the little things that make a difference. We supply material to parts for a producer associated with a particular color. This customer has a very specific color they like. We created a polymer for them that was good and had their color, their specific shade. At the end of the day, could they have lived with something that wasn’t exact? I don’t know. Functionally, sure. But from a marketing standpoint, probably not.
There are lots of applications in automotive where you could use a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). There are also lots of applications in consumer products like footwear where you might want to use a TPU. The TPUs that footwear customers want have fundamentally different characteristics than the TPU you’d use in automotive, so there’s a range of variation you could create in and get just the right response for the application compared to what you might do to put it into an automotive interior. Having the ability to tune the material to the right functional requirement is key.
And that’s the thing: We’re not trying to recreate a material like ABS in a pure form. Because the additive version is not going to be exactly the same. What we really want to do is start with one of the functional requirements an application has and figure out some materials that meet those requirements. It’s about, how do you understand the application requirements? It’s the subtleties. Color may seem trivial in some cases, but in this application, it was a key requirement. In another application, it would be getting a TPU with the right response for footwear.
Dulchinos: With additive, we’re in the first or second inning of an extra-inning ballgame. A lot of change will occur over the next decade or two. But we think there will always be a need to take those base polymers and combine them with other polymers or other additives and solve lots of applications in the long tail. I think about additive as being a long tail market for manufacturing in the same way the internet has made the long tail accessible to businesses. Additive, because you don’t have to tool, makes the long tail of production palatable to manufacturing. Additive takes away the cost of servicing the long tail.
"With additive, we’re in the first or second inning of an extra-inning ballgame." John Dulchinos, Jabil - via @AddMfgMedia https://ctt.ac/0_lj0+
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Dulchinos: In additive, the cost of making a dozen of the same part, versus 12 slightly different parts, is essentially the same. We’re building families of parts, and it’s just as efficient to do that as to make them all the same. It allows you to serve the customer in a completely different way. You look at traditional business school, you take a class in product management, and it’s all about how do you define markets in ways that you can group a bigger and bigger set of people and serve them with a single product. Apple has three or four phones to serve hundreds of millions of consumers. But if there’s no cost to open that up, just imagine what product marketing people are going to do in the future, when they know that instead of having to jam 100 people in a single market, they could say, “Hey, we’re going to set that up with 10 different markets, because it costs us the same amount of money to serve each one from a manufacturing standpoint.”
Then it starts to really open up a lot more kinds of specialty products. And then you get to the next thing, which is the other aspect of what we’re trying to do: build out and think about this as a network, not as a manufacturing solution. Ultimately, we want to have 3D printing centers more regionally located. Because at the end of the day, once we qualify processes and certify operations, moving production from location to location is trivial. That allows us to think about how to serve customers in the most efficient way, leveraging a global distributed manufacturing footprint.
"In additive, the cost of making a dozen of the same part, versus 12 slightly different parts, is essentially the same..." - via @AddMfgMedia https://ctt.ac/KGdfb+
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Dulchinos: The real advantage of 3D printing is the chance to take a step back and think systemically about how this design freedom allows you to solve problems in a different way. And it’s a different level of thinking, one that hasn’t been nurtured well in industry as yet, because we’re all focused on driving down to how you get things as streamlined as possible, how you get things to the lowest cost point.
Large-scale 3D printing is revolutionizing the manufacturing industry, offering the ability to create objects of incredible size and complexity. From prototypes to producing end-use parts, large-scale 3D printing opens a world of possibilities, but with this exciting technology comes a host of questions, many of which you may not even know you had.
In this blog, we will explore 20 essential questions about large format 3D printers, providing you with the answers you need to understand this innovative technology. We’ll delve into the capabilities of large format 3D printers, the industries that benefit the most, the materials that can be used, the sustainability aspect, the limitations, the cost-effectiveness, and much more.
Large-scale 3D printing creates massive 3D printed objects using specialized technology with larger build volumes and extruders. It enables the production of large, intricate objects in one piece, offering new possibilities for industries like architecture, automotive, and aerospace.
Large-format 3D printers offer a range of capabilities that make them ideal for a variety of applications. Here are some key capabilities of large-scale 3D printers:
These capabilities make large-scale 3D printers a valuable tool for industries such as prototyping, manufacturing, and product development.
Large-scale 3D printing benefits various industries, especially prototyping and large format manufacturing. It saves time and money in product development by enabling quick production of prototypes. In manufacturing, it creates large objects in a single piece, cutting down on assembly time. Industries like construction, automotive, aerospace, and architecture can streamline production processes and bring innovative products to market faster with large-scale 3D printing.
Large-scale 3D printing offers a wide range of material options. Just like standard 3D printers, large-scale printers can use various types of filaments, including PLA, ABS, PETG, nylon, and more. These filaments come in different colors and properties, allowing for versatility in printing applications.
Additionally, large-scale 3D printers often come equipped with specialized extruders that can handle larger filament sizes. This opens the possibility of using materials such as carbon fiber composites, metal-filled filaments, and other high-performance materials.
With the ability to use a wide range of materials, large-scale 3D printing offers flexibility and the opportunity to create objects with specific properties, such as strength, heat resistance, and conductivity.
Large-scale 3D printing can be sustainable by minimizing waste through additive manufacturing techniques. It uses only necessary materials, reducing waste. Additionally, it can utilize recycled and biodegradable materials, further reducing environmental impact. Advanced features like filament detection and automatic bed leveling ensure efficient and precise printing, minimizing reprints and waste.
As 3D printing evolves, the industry seeks to make it even more sustainable, offering a greener alternative to traditional manufacturing methods.
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Large-scale 3D printing has advantages but also limitations. Surface finish can have visible layer lines due to the printing process, but post-processing techniques like sanding or painting can improve it.
Size constraints do exist for large objects, which may require printing in parts and assembling later. Costs of printers and materials can be limiting, but as technology advances, costs are expected to decrease, expanding accessibility to various industries.
Large-scale 3D printing offers cost-effective advantages over traditional manufacturing. It reduces assembly and labor time as well as material costs. It even enables rapid prototyping.
Consider design complexity, object size, and material when evaluating cost-effectiveness.
Choosing the right large-scale 3D printer for your project requires careful consideration of several factors. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:
Preparing designs for large-scale 3D printing requires careful consideration of factors such as size, support structures, and print orientation.
Large-scale 3D printers’ print speed varies based on design complexity, object size, and print settings. They generally outpace standard printers due to their larger volumes and specialized extruders. However, intricate or bigger objects may take longer. Print quality and resolution preferences can also impact speed.
Optimize by selecting suitable settings like layer height and speed and maintaining printer calibration.
Large-scale 3D printing allows for unmatched customization capabilities, enabling businesses and individuals to tailor designs to specific requirements. From unique architectural structures to personalized automotive parts and individualized prototypes, large-scale 3D printing offers a new level of customization. This can enhance customer satisfaction, product functionality, and brand differentiation.
By leveraging large-scale 3D printing, businesses can provide tailored solutions that meet client needs and stand out in the market.
Support structures are crucial in large-scale 3D printing, especially for complex designs or objects with overhangs. They provide temporary support, preventing sagging or collapsing. The type of support required varies based on the object’s design and print orientation. Common types include tree-like, lattice, and solid structures. Adjusting placement and density can optimize material usage and reduce post-processing. Careful consideration of support structures is vital for successful large-scale 3D prints.
Large-scale 3D printing can revolutionize construction by enabling the printing of large, complex parts efficiently. It allows for custom-designed components, enhancing architectural flexibility and sustainability. Successful projects worldwide have demonstrated its potential in building houses, offices, and villages. As the technology progresses, expect more innovative applications in the construction industry.
Safety is vital in large-scale 3D printing. Proper ventilation is crucial to minimize exposure to harmful fumes. Operating the printer correctly, following guidelines, and regular maintenance are key safety measures. Fire safety measures like fire extinguishers and smoke detectors are essential due to the heat generated by these printers.
By implementing these safety measures and following best practices, large-scale 3D printing can be done safely and effectively.
The accuracy of large-scale 3D printers can vary depending on various factors such as the printer’s design, print settings, and the complexity of the object being printed. However, in general, large-scale 3D printers offer a high level of accuracy, allowing for precise and detailed prints.
Large-scale 3D printers typically have a comparable resolution to smaller printers. However, due to their larger build volume, the resolution may appear slightly lower when printing large objects. Nonetheless, large-scale printers can still achieve impressive levels of detail and quality.
Like any 3D printer, large-scale printers require regular maintenance to ensure optimal performance. This includes tasks such as cleaning the print bed, calibrating the printer, and replacing worn-out parts.
Following the manufacturer’s guidelines and performing routine maintenance will help prolong the lifespan of the printer and ensure consistent print quality.
Yes, large-scale 3D printing can be done with metals. Metal 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a rapidly growing field that allows for the creation of complex metal objects.
With advancements in technology, large-scale metal printing is becoming more accessible and offers exciting possibilities in industries such as aerospace, automotive, and healthcare.
Environmental conditions can have an impact on large-scale 3D printing. Factors such as temperature, humidity, and airflow can affect the print quality and overall success of a print. It is important to ensure that the printing environment is controlled and optimized for best results. This may include using an enclosed printer or implementing measures to regulate temperature and humidity.
Yes, large-scale 3D printed items can be recycled depending on material. Many 3D printing materials, such as PLA and ABS, are recyclable. However, it is important to note that the recycling process for large-scale prints may differ from smaller prints due to their size. Recycling options may include shredding the prints into smaller pieces or using specialized recycling facilities.
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One of the standout features of Builder 3D printers is their large build size. With a build capacity over 1 x 1 meter, these printers can handle printing large and complex objects in one piece, making them ideal for projects with a high print volume. This opens new possibilities for creating large prototypes, tools, and even parts for building construction.
In addition to their impressive build size, Builder 3D printers also come with features such as automatic bed leveling and filament detection. These features ensure accurate and reliable printing, minimizing the risk of failed prints and saving valuable time and resources.
Whether you’re a business looking to streamline your prototyping process or an individual maker with ambitious projects in mind, Builder 3D printers offer the perfect solution for large-format printing needs.
Builder large format printers are equipped with a range of features that make them stand out in the world of large-scale 3D printing. These features ensure high-quality prints and user-friendly operation, making them the go-to choice for many professionals and enthusiasts. Here are some key features of Builder large format printers:
These features, combined with the reliability and precision of Builder printers, make them a top choice for large-scale 3D printing projects.
Feature Large Build Size Builder printers offer a generous build volume, allowing for the creation of large-scale objects. Automatic Bed Leveling This feature ensures that the print bed is perfectly leveled, resulting in accurate and consistent prints. Filament Detection Builder printers are equipped with filament detection sensors that alert users when filament runs out or breaks, preventing failed prints. Easy Access to Build Plate The design of Builder printers allows for easy access to the build plate, making print setup and removal hassle-free. Multiple Nozzle Diameters Builder printers come with various nozzle diameters, allowing users to choose the optimal size for their specific printing needs.These features, combined with the reliability and precision of Builder printers, make them a top choice for large-scale 3D printing projects.
Large-scale 3D printing opens a world of possibilities, revolutionizing industries and manufacturing processes. From materials to sustainability, this technology offers innovation at its core. Understanding its capabilities, limitations, and benefits is crucial for choosing the right printer for your project. Customization, speed, and accuracy are key factors shaping the future of large-scale printing. Embrace this cutting-edge technology with informed decisions and unleash your creativity like never before. Dive into the realm of large-scale 3D printing and witness the transformative power it holds for the future of manufacturing and design.
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