Stratasys Ltd, the 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions company, today announced that Spring s.r.l. purchased its 10th Stratasys Fused Deposition Molding (FDM) Production 3D Printer at MECSPE 2016 through Italian reseller, Technimold.
Following exponential growth in its direct manufacturing offering, and after several years of successfully using Stratasys FDM 3D printing technology for prototyping and manufacturing, the company decided to expand its haul of FDM 3D Printers and invest in its fourth Fortus 900mc Production 3D Printer.
According to Fabio Gualdo, co-founder and head of the sales department at Spring s.r.l., expanding its capability to produce affordable, customized, fully-functional parts was crucial to improving the company’s manufacturing operations.
“FDM 3D printing technology has been indispensable to our production process for the last 14 years as it enables us to quickly manufacture complex, customer-specific products on-demand,” explains Toniello. “We purchased our fourth Fortus 900mc to increase our production hours. This essentially allows us to strengthen our offering in a range of industries, including medical and automotive.
“In fact, with this capacity increase, our production hours output has grown by over 11%. Be it the production of robust prototype parts that can endure the stress of practical testing or the manufacture of fully-functional parts, this capability allows us to fulfill all our customer orders at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional manufacturing method,” adds Gualdo.
Additive Manufacturing accounts for 75% of business
Since the purchase of its fourth Fortus 900mc Production 3D Printer, Spring s.r.l. has increased its direct manufacturing, such that additive manufacturing now accounts for 75% of its business. Of this, 80% is directly manufactured parts especially for the automotive and aerospace industries. This consists of the production of jigs and fixtures for customer manufacturing lines, including assembly aids comprising wind tunnel components and quality-control tools.
“When asked to produce these component parts, we instantly knew that the outstanding strength and thermal stability of Stratasys’ ULTEM 9085 & ULTEM 1010 materials would make it the ideal choice to withstand the harsh demands of the manufacturing line. Similarly, the high fatigue resistance of the FDM Nylon 12 material allows us to quickly and cost-effectively produce assembly aids and quality control tools.”
Roberto Toniello, co-founder and head of the engineering department concludes; “With the volume of orders from our customers fluctuating, we are not restricted by the bottleneck of batch manufacturing. Using Stratasys additive manufacturing, we can design and manufacture complex geometries, tailored to our customer requirements, on-demand. This is crucial in ensuring our customers can bring their products to market faster than previous methods allowed.”
Davide Ferrulli, Stratasys’ Italian Territory Manager, concludes: “Spring’s continued adoption of our FDM 3D printing technology demonstrates how additive manufacturing is empowering the next-generation of manufacturers. Offering greater flexibility and improved time and cost efficiencies, we are seeing more and more companies successfully integrate additive manufacturing within their businesses.”
