How 3D-printing will disrupt industrial production
Parts produced by a 3D-printer have not been widely used in the automotive industry until now.
When Star Trek-Captain Jean-Luc Picard desires a hot Earl Grey on board the USS Enterprise N 1701D, he asks his stationary “Replicator” and the traditional beverage is produced in an instant. From an early age and later as an automotive engineer I really envied him for this considerable achievement — in addition to his intergalactic adventures. Yet it was pure science fiction! But wait — is it still? Not really, aside from the pure speed of the tea’s procurement. For a few years now “additive manufacturing,” or more commonly called “3D-printing,” can nearly accomplish the same: produce physical forms from digital specimen or patterns. Ever more spheres of daily life are being touched, from schools and kindergartens up to DIY-Shops, where the first printed metal screws can already be purchased. “Gadget” is the modern buzzword mostly applied here, which implies a kind of hobby approach, lacking due seriousness. Likewise in the automotive world, the stunning and new technology has not yet found its way fully into series production. Of course, my engineering colleagues were never reluctant to use printed parts for newly developed vehicle prototypes in the form of “Rapid Prototyping” or “Rapid Tooling.” The process of trying and testing new parts is the perfect realm of application for additive manufacturing — there’s no doubt about that. It also was the door through which the innovation finally found its way into series production. That is why my team and I took the lead at Daimler Buses to bring this technology to the forefront.
Bus and Coach sector is the perfect testbed
Daimler Buses’ products and its team are the perfect testbed for the technology. Why is that? First, the vehicles are very flexible and specialized, many of them are “tailor made” to the customer’s unique specifications. The models are not only different lengths and heights, but also have different seat layouts, interior designs and so on. It is a very big effort and cost to keep parts for all these variants on stock over a long period in a warehouse (just think about very old vehicles long out of production). What is more, many variable metal parts such as door hinges have to be neatly covered and good looking. Second, the bus and coach market is very much a B2B market. The customers mostly run businesses themselves with their own corporate identity and logos. Visible parts like covers of seat handles or tables for the passengers are often preferred with their own company branding — which is almost impossible to realize in the conventional production process with expensive molds for plastic that have to be adapted anew each time. With additive manufacturing this sort of customizing will become possible. These parts not only can be branded according to the customer’s wishes but also offer different surface finishes — a completely novel experience that renders the bus and coach customer into a VIP client. And we as a team always address these needs of the customer very directly.
Making 3D-printing an industrial standard
But the path to the industrial use of this technology in series production was not as easy as one might expect — it was quite an effort for me personally and my committed team. The beginning was usage in the aforementioned “Rapid Prototyping” or “Rapid Tooling,” that has been state of the art at Daimler since the mid 90’s. In 2016 my team in the “Daimler Buses” division and its Service component “Omniplus” initialized a high-profile project and Competence Center 3D-printing, to bring 3D-printed parts into series production. We started with external partners to get small numbers of parts printed. This was the start of additive manufacturing in our small Competence Center. However, we accelerated the pace rather quickly. At present we are checking over 300,000 different bus spare parts if they are suitable for 3D printing — around 200 of them have already been approved for 3D-printing. Even specialized tools can be printed with the new technology. For example, the experts designed a new “battery grabber”, that fits perfectly- — , to lift the Lithium Ion-batteries of the new, fully electric Mercedes-Benz eCitaro citybus out of their water-cooled aluminum casing in order to change or repair them with optimal electrical insulation. Here two new technology worlds have found their perfect match and I am very proud to be part of this marriage!
The next step for my team and me will be the implementation of a modular ‘Selective Laser Sintering System’ at the spare parts production department in Neu-Ulm, which produces the 3D-parts out of a special powder bed. The final insourcing of 3D-production allows Daimler to apply its own research and development on the methods of production and to enhance our own experience with additive manufacturing. For example, we have to meet with the very high anti-flammability standards of the UN for the interior materials. Daimler Buses already fully comply with them with our 3D-parts, but we want to get even better here and are in the process of developing our own powder as a printing base. Also in the making are several mobile 3D-printers for our external organizations. These include our service centers that are situated quite near to customers, in order to get employees and clients accustomed to this new technology. And there is more to come with the project.
On the way to a digital business model
One could easily assume that additive manufacturing is just another way of producing parts in an industrialized way. But that’s far from the end of it! The second phase of additive manufacturing at Daimler coincides with the launch of a fully integrated information and sales platform on the internet, called Omniplus On. This sophisticated online system combines telematics for the complete fleet of a company with detailed technical information about every individual vehicle up to a new e-Shop concept for physical as well as digital assets. The mid-term plans are to sell printed parts via the new e-Shop, as well as digital printing licenses for one or even multiple parts, if needed. The customer can then go to his BusWorld Home and get his part printed there. This is really the transition from a purely physical into a digital business model. I very much like to put it like this in short: “Make in addition to Buy.” With a high-resolution, CATIA-/CAD-based datasets of 600 new parts, the experts in my team in additive manufacturing are well on their way to establishing a real “digital warehouse” — without the massive cost of its physical counterpart.
What’s more: the customer platform “knows” the fleet so well inside out, that it is very easy to find the perfect part for the relevant vehicles. This is a good thing, considering that the spare part center in Neu-Ulm has to store approximately 130,000 parts all the time with considerable effort and cost. Plus, the delivery process can be greatly accelerated with additive manufacturing. As many parts are rare or hardly ever needed, they sometimes need time to be reproduced in considerable numbers. With 3D-printing, the production mode is eventually switched into “just in time delivery” — a concept that has been common sense in logistics for years now.
Sustainability as the guiding principle
But convenience and speed of delivery for the customer are still not the complete story. Sustainability in production is at the heart of additive manufacturing — and will continue to be. And this applies in several ways. The very simple fact that mass produced parts have to be repeatedly manufactured at a high cost at a certain time in the supply chain is the one big advantage of additive manufacturing: The right number of parts can be produced at the right time in the right place in the right specification. No recurring tooling costs whatsoever apply — apart from the one-time 3D-printer cost. Less transport is needed to carry parts hundreds of kilometers (in the spare parts center there are 50 trucks per day delivering up to 1,300 handling units like boxes and crates right now). What’s more: just the material is printed that is really needed — the amount of scrap can thus be reduced by approximately 20 percent. And, at the same time, the quality of the parts can be raised considerably — another sustainability aspect not to be underestimated.
So, the comparatively small bus and coach business is at the spearhead of the development of additive manufacturing — innovative, customer oriented and sustainable. Nothing more is left to say for Captain Picard and me, with our steaming cups of replicated Earl Grey in hand, than a somber sounding: “Make it so!”
