After a promising deal with UPS in May, enterprising application software house SAP SE revealed a new partnership with APWorks, a subsidiary of Airbus Defence and Space GmbH. Announced at the Farnborough International Air Show in Hampshire, England today, this exciting partnership will potentially facilitate the adoption and standardization of industrial 3D printing for the aerospace and defense industry. Using the same on-demand 3D printing services that fueled the previous collaboration with parcel company UPS, this merge will introduce a bionics network that connects experts to end users. With SAP’s technology, APWorks intends to manufacture 3D printed components, improve fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions, as well as better manage spare part orders in real time to deliver qualified products for safety-critical applications aerospace and other industries.
Check out some of the many new improvements and processes you can expect to see from this partnership:
- Digitalization and simplification of production part approval process
- Screening and validating parts for using the 3D printing process
- Designing and redesigning of a part or system to optimize for on-demand manufacturing and 3D printing
- Accelerating and standardizing the processes for certifying the manufacturing of parts by 3D printing firms
- Securing an on-demand budgetary price for manufacturing firms to evaluate 3D printing parts, including cost components such as tax and warehousing, using the SAP Product Lifecycle Costing solution
- Covering each stage from production to customer for seamless routing of the order.
Collaborations like this prove that 3D printing is helping to reinvent the manufacturing supply chain. The industry has moved beyond industrial prototyping and into manufacturing industries using multiple materials. To further support this move, SAP will also introduce services aimed at delivering manufacturing and logistical cost savings, reducing CO2 emissions and eliminating complex supply chain issues. These services include extending SAP supply chain solutions to include collaboration and certification cloud service for industrial 3D printing, based on their own SAP HANA Cloud Platform, as well as an on-demand 3D printing manufacturing network. Global head of Aerospace and Defense Industry SAP, Torsten Welte explained the appeal of 3D printing across industries saying, “what makes 3D printing most attractive in aerospace is the removal of many costs associated with traditional manufacturing…Users are enabled to print the parts they need, as needed.” According to Joachim Zettler, CEO of APWorks, innovative services provided by SAP allow aerospace and defense manufacturers to seamlessly produce components on site “and still meet the high quality standards necessary to make the aircraft fly.”
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